It's a little frustrating when someone who joined the forum a month ago talks about (and I'm paraphrasing) how to save Australian Rugby in three easy steps.
Step 1, RA make a deal with NZR to shift the RC to March-April where it will significantly overlap with the Six Nations. Include Fiji and Japan, and play a single round robin with a mid-competition break for travel rest.
Step 2. Shifting the RC from its current time-slot creates the space between the July and November Test windows for Australia to have its own genuine domestic competition with all their Test players available. Significantly, it would run head-to-head with the peek end of the NRL and AFL season. New Zealand can revamp their NPC with all their Test stars available in this space too.
Step 3. The trade-off for New Zealand agreeing to this shift is that NZ get just the two highly competitive Australian teams for SRP (Super Rugby Pacific): a combined Waratahs-Brumbies team and a combined Reds-Force-Rebels team. Having only two teams doesn’t bother Australian fans because they now have their own top-level domestic comp, and SRP (Super Rugby Pacific) will be a lot shorter. With only 9 SRP (Super Rugby Pacific) teams playing a single round robin plus finals, SRP (Super Rugby Pacific) would become a shorter but more intense competition, and fit neatly between the new RC and the July Tests with a week off between each of them.
The professional rugby structure for New Zealand and Australia would look as follows:
March-April — The Rugby Championship
April-June — SRP (Super Rugby Pacific)
July — Test rugby in Southern Hemisphere
August-October — Pro Domestic Comps
November — Test rugby in Northern Hemisphere
How’s that ;-)