Having no NRC is better how?

[Left-Winger]

Not directly relevant but wanted to repost this comment I left on the RA thread in case people are interested.

I don't mean to put a cat among the pigeons with this, but just want to put this out there.

I don't buy the claim that Australia doesn't produce enough (good) players to sustain five professional franchises. The problem is not that we lack the players, it's that we lack the money to keep the players.

Australians play in clubs all over the world. Go onto the Wiki pages for English, French, and Japanese clubs and look how many Aussies there are. We are the third biggest producer of international rugby talent, after SA and NZ.

Last year I spent a bit of time recording all the Aussie players in Super, Top 14, URC, Rugby League One (Japan), Premiership (England), etc. For a bit of fun I made 12 clubs and allocated players to them based on their club / school loyalties (to the best of my knowledge). I am not advocating for the creation of this competition. We cannot afford it. But it does illustrate the broader point—there is plenty of talent in Australia.

This sheet is very rough, particularly in terms of formatting. I never finished it. But I think it gets the point across: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zBXnwKN_nlJBfge17EVNORkn7gLxqniGiqwXuhJTisE/edit?usp=sharing

This is, of course, not a definitive argument in favour of the five franchise model. They are, after all, only as good as the players they can afford, and in a context of scarce resources we may need to triage. But I am really sick of hearing the claim that we lack the talent. The question is how we can inject more money into the game and get our development systems and talent identification sorted. Unfortunately we are in a death spiral right now—bad performance --> lack of interest --> lack of revenue --> lack of talent --> more bad performances. No Tattarang or Private Equity coming to our rescue.

It'd be great if we could get a bit of money from the rich people we're constantly told are the games' only fans...

 

[Beer on the hill]

Not directly relevant but wanted to repost this comment I left on the Rugby Australia thread in case people are interested.

I don't mean to put a cat among the pigeons with this, but just want to put this out there.

I don't buy the claim that Australia doesn't produce enough (good) players to sustain five professional franchises. The problem is not that we lack the players, it's that we lack the money to keep the players.

Australians play in clubs all over the world. Go onto the Wiki pages for English, French, and Japanese clubs and look how many Aussies there are. We are the third biggest producer of international rugby talent, after SA and NZ.

Last year I spent a bit of time recording all the Aussie players in Super, Top 14, URC, Rugby League One (Japan), Premiership (England), etc. For a bit of fun I made 12 clubs and allocated players to them based on their club / school loyalties (to the best of my knowledge). I am not advocating for the creation of this competition. We cannot afford it. But it does illustrate the broader point—there is plenty of talent in Australia.

This sheet is very rough, particularly in terms of formatting. I never finished it. But I think it gets the point across: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zBXnwKN_nlJBfge17EVNORkn7gLxqniGiqwXuhJTisE/edit?usp=sharing

This is, of course, not a definitive argument in favour of the five franchise model. They are, after all, only as good as the players they can afford, and in a context of scarce resources we may need to triage. But I am really sick of hearing the claim that we lack the talent. The question is how we can inject more money into the game and get our development systems and talent identification sorted. Unfortunately we are in a death spiral right now—bad performance --> lack of interest --> lack of revenue --> lack of talent --> more bad performances. No Tattarang or Private Equity coming to our rescue.

It'd be great if we could get a bit of money from the rich people we're constantly told are the games' only fans...

Agree 2000% with your comment about investment from wealthy fans.

 

[RebelYell]

Not directly relevant but wanted to repost this comment I left on the Rugby Australia thread in case people are interested.

I don't mean to put a cat among the pigeons with this, but just want to put this out there.

I don't buy the claim that Australia doesn't produce enough (good) players to sustain five professional franchises. The problem is not that we lack the players, it's that we lack the money to keep the players.

Australians play in clubs all over the world. Go onto the Wiki pages for English, French, and Japanese clubs and look how many Aussies there are. We are the third biggest producer of international rugby talent, after SA and NZ.

Last year I spent a bit of time recording all the Aussie players in Super, Top 14, URC, Rugby League One (Japan), Premiership (England), etc. For a bit of fun I made 12 clubs and allocated players to them based on their club / school loyalties (to the best of my knowledge). I am not advocating for the creation of this competition. We cannot afford it. But it does illustrate the broader point—there is plenty of talent in Australia.

This sheet is very rough, particularly in terms of formatting. I never finished it. But I think it gets the point across: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zBXnwKN_nlJBfge17EVNORkn7gLxqniGiqwXuhJTisE/edit?usp=sharing

This is, of course, not a definitive argument in favour of the five franchise model. They are, after all, only as good as the players they can afford, and in a context of scarce resources we may need to triage. But I am really sick of hearing the claim that we lack the talent. The question is how we can inject more money into the game and get our development systems and talent identification sorted. Unfortunately we are in a death spiral right now—bad performance --> lack of interest --> lack of revenue --> lack of talent --> more bad performances. No Tattarang or Private Equity coming to our rescue.

It'd be great if we could get a bit of money from the rich people we're constantly told are the games' only fans...

I agee wholeheartedly. We need Rugby AU and NZR to go ALL IN on Super Rugby to improve the commerciality of it. More rounds (minimum additional 6 weeks, even if there are fixtures with International players missing) will allow clubs to generate greater revenue through partnerships, memberships and tickets, as well as increasing broadcast revenue. Have players in Wallaby/AB training squad who aren't in final 23 (25 with carryovers) return and play Super Rugby that weekend.

Allow Wallabies, All Blacks and Pasific Islander internationals to move freely between teams (you could cap at 6 or 8 if need be) and demand the governign bodies genuinely try and market the competition and turn the players into household names. And see then if you can generate enough extra $ to retain or retrench players who are looking overseas, especially as the Premiership salary cap continues to shrink.

Push the starting date back, (using 2024) Round 1 kicks off on March 15. Play a full home and away season (22 rounds and 2 byes per team) you'd end the regular season weekend of August 23. Then three weeks of finals with players coming back in after TRC.

 

[Goosestep]

I agee wholeheartedly. We need Rugby AU and NZR to go ALL IN on Super Rugby to improve the commerciality of it. More rounds (minimum additional 6 weeks, even if there are fixtures with International players missing) will allow clubs to generate greater revenue through partnerships, memberships and tickets, as well as increasing broadcast revenue. Have players in Wallaby/AB training squad who aren't in final 23 (25 with carryovers) return and play Super Rugby that weekend.

Allow Wallabies, All Blacks and Pasific Islander internationals to move freely between teams (you could cap at 6 or 8 if need be) and demand the governign bodies genuinely try and market the competition and turn the players into household names. And see then if you can generate enough extra $ to retain or retrench players who are looking overseas, especially as the Premiership salary cap continues to shrink.

Push the starting date back, (using 2024) Round 1 kicks off on March 15. Play a full home and away season (22 rounds and 2 byes per team) you'd end the regular season weekend of August 23. Then three weeks of finals with players coming back in after TRC.

There’s no passion in it though … I wish there was but it’s really going to offer something different if it’s going to take eyeballs away from league and afl

 

[RebelYell]

There’s no passion in it though … I wish there was but it’s really going to offer something different if it’s going to take eyeballs away from league and afl

Correct, and that can't be fabricated. It would need to build organically.

If you had a competition generating enough revenue to keep Koroibete, Skelton, Kerevi, Arnold x 2, McMahon, Maddocks, Banks etc - and then retaining Mo'unga, Barrett, Retallick etc - and they were spread throughout all 12 teams, it'd be a good start.

 

[HogansHeros]

Correct, and that can't be fabricated. It would need to build organically.

Yeah hence why the NRC failed.

Thats why I like the idea of "Super Rugby Au" starting with the clubs we already have with an established supporter base, no matter how waning they are. Chuck in the Drua and then build a QLD country and NSW country.

 

[RebelYell]

Yeah hence why the NRC failed.

Thats why I like the idea of "Super Rugby Au" starting with the clubs we already have with an established supporter base, no matter how waning they are. Chuck in the Drua and then build a QLD country and NSW country.

If you couldn't run the competition I want (extended Super Rugby season with open borders), maybe you go straight into Super AU in June after Super Rugby pacific finishes (adding in those extra teams?)

 

[Wilson]

Yeah hence why the NRC failed.

Thats why I like the idea of "Super Rugby Au" starting with the clubs we already have with an established supporter base, no matter how waning they are. Chuck in the Drua and then build a QLD country and NSW country.

I don't see how you can have a QLD country competing in the same competition as the QLD Reds. I understand the tahs might be seen as a Sydney team in NSW, but the Reds are very much a QLD team and have been working hard to engage the fan base across the state. The city/country split in the NRC was well embraced here and for mine that's the path you need to follow if you want to do 2 teams feeding into the state level entity.

Whether or not there's value in heading down that path is a different question, but that's entirely dependent on the goals of a 3rd tier competition.

 

[HogansHeros]

If you couldn't run the competition I want (extended Super Rugby season with open borders), maybe you go straight into Super AU in June after Super Rugby pacific finishes (adding in those extra teams?)

I mean i don't really understand the benefits of losing to the kiwi teams each week, but if you have to honour the current system, sure a SuperAU comp with non-international would be good after the Super season. Not sure how you go with filling the country teams for that shorter season.

 

[HogansHeros]

I don't see how you can have a QLD country competing in the same competition as the QLD Reds. I understand the tahs might be seen as a Sydney team in NSW, but the Reds are very much a QLD team and have been working hard to engage the fan base across the state. The city/country split in the NRC was well embraced here and for mine that's the path you need to follow if you want to do 2 teams feeding into the state level entity.

Whether or not there's value in heading down that path is a different question, but that's entirely dependent on the goals of a 3rd tier competition.

You rename them the Brisbane Reds, problem solved.

Tbh im not sold on the idea of Country teams, although I could see it working in NSW based out of Newy or even Orange.
Just not sure where else you could base a team.

 

[Wilson]

You rename them the Brisbane Reds, problem solved.

Tbh im not sold on the idea of Country teams, although I could see it working in NSW based out of Newy or even Orange.
Just not sure where else you could base a team.

It's either a Brisbane Gold (or something equivalently new) or QLD Reds, I don't think you get anywhere half-leveraging the brand by having a Brisbane Reds.

 

[HooperPocockSmith]

It's either a Brisbane Gold (or something equivalently new) or QLD Reds, I don't think you get anywhere half-leveraging the brand by having a Brisbane Reds.

I'm not sure how an outright NSW country entity would go. I'd have thought leveraging the Pasifika community in Sydney would be the play. You could have North/South or East/West split in Sydney with SS clubs aligned to each franchise. You could also do this with schools. Each franchise would then be responsible for the development of particular country comps. You could take games to Orange, Newcastle, Tamworth etc.

 

[HogansHeros]

I'm not sure how an outright NSW country entity would go. I'd have thought leveraging the Pasifika community in Sydney would be the play. You could have North/South or East/West split in Sydney with SS clubs aligned to each franchise. You could also do this with schools. Each franchise would then be responsible for the development of particular country comps. You could take games to Orange, Newcastle, Tamworth etc.

Similar issue was had with the NRC tho, no one really cared cause they wernt known clubs. Its fine to properly start from scratch with all new clubs if you are happy to run at a complete loss for a long time until you build a fan base..

 

[HooperPocockSmith]

Similar issue was had with the NRC tho, no one really cared cause they wernt known clubs. Its fine to properly start from scratch with all new clubs if you are happy to run at a complete loss for a long time until you build a fan base..

I’ve done a complete 180 in the last week on the number of professional teams we need (thanks to you guys and whole heap of introspection). 3 is myopic thinking but 12-18 (Professional club comp) is too many too quickly. 7-8 is the sweet spot. There would be some teething issues for sure. But grassroots engagement needs to be the cornerstone of our next set up.

 

[HooperPocockSmith]

I’ve done a complete 180 in the last week on the number of professional teams we need (thanks to you guys and whole heap of introspection). 3 is myopic thinking but 12-18 (Professional club comp) is too many too quickly. 7-8 is the sweet spot. There would be some teething issues for sure. But grassroots engagement needs to be the cornerstone of our next set up.

I think you would have to be content with it being largely developmental in its early years. You could afford to keep the younger guys in Aus but lose some of the middle - that's happening anyway. I think you'd see the average age of the comp down around 22-23. Club rugby (in Sydney anyway) is trending that anyway.

 

[hammertimethere]

What if we ran a two tiered model for the pro game?

Super Rugby Pacific becomes kind of like a champions league type thing for Australia. We consolidate our paticipation to 3 teams max, have our best players playing in it with each other against however many teams NZ want to put in, Drua, Moana Pasifika + ideally the top 2 Japanese clubs (but this is probably impossible). This runs from Feb-mid June at a sprint (round robin, 4 teams finals) with domestic club rugby (which remains amateur in scope) running parallel to it.

Then the Wallabies assemble for the international season to start with the inbound tour while the rest of the players have a brief break/conditioning period . Then the international season flows through inbound tour, rugby championship and spring tours and parallel to this you run the equivalent of Super Rugby AU (but call it the Asia-Pacific provincial championship) with 5 Aussie teams (called by their state names, not franchise names) + Fiji and a Japanese rep side which is professional (albeit at lower salaries than SRP (Super Rugby Pacific)). Critically, this competition cannot clash with Japan League One (which is December to Feb) or to a lesser degree MLR (which is Feb-July), because we want experienced players to be able to earn some yen or USD rather than play club rugby but still put their hands up for domestic pro rugby if they haven't fully cracked a Super Rugby spot (which will and should be much harder if we consolidate the number of teams). These players can remain full time pros, but still have the option to play in Australia and compete for national recognition and the following years Super Rugby squads by participating at this time of the year. There are many many players in NZ's NPC which do this and it's a significant factor in creating their depth which flows through to Super Rugby (these players earn 30-50k from their NPC side, then 90-150k from a Japanese club or something similar).

The calendar looks like
Late Nov (or Late Oct for domestic players) to early Jan = Off season
Jan-Mid Feb = Pre-season
Mid Feb - Mid June = Super Rugby + club rugby
End of June to mid July = Inbound Tour + 2nd pre-season for non Wallabies
End of July to Early Oct = International Southern Rugby Championship + Asia-Pacific provincial championship

We can therefore use all the currently competing elements in our game for their best fit purpose to support high performance i.e club rugby for developing amateurs and young players, Super Rugby to battle harden our top players for Wallabies duties, Asia-Pacific for grooming early pros or fringe internationals to take the next step and the fringe professional comps (Japan League One) to help the players who haven't cracked it as a regular Wallaby yet keep getting paid more that we can expect to offer them for the domestic comp alone (leverage the current relationships e.g QLD-Panasonic etc.)

 

[Sir Arthur Higgins]

Any idea is better than the current situation and out of the box thinking is probably what’s needed.

I just think we need something in place as soon as possible so I keep beating on the Super Rugby A comp. Use built facilities and systems and allow the development of coaches to come through the same system. Ideally players would be learning that teams methods as well and be ready to play when needed.

Super rugby A makes the most sense to me for the same reasons - you are getting economies of scale on facilities and staff.
You could merge these and have super rugby and super rugby a and have them align with local universities for facilities etc a la Melbourne and la trobe. Maybe Melbourne uni and latrobe have their own “uni club” teams that play under 23 and lower tier against other universities.

 

[The Ghost of Raelene]

Think that’s a good idea.

The idea of new teams and everyone getting behind them is lovely but not reality. We imagine it being some passionate lower tier English Soccer vibe.

If we seriously want to develop talent you need coaches, facilities and grounds that allow it to happen. Where is the money going to come from for say Northern Sydney to have training facilities, gyms, coaches rooms etc… they can’t be transient if your being serious about it. They are just treading water if we do that again.

Guess what. Each of our franchises have them though and the more people that use them the better. Super Rugby A sides and either run it in house 2 rounds and top 3 finals series with a minor premier through to a GF and 2-3 play off for the other spot.

Alternate option I can think of is our A sides enter the ITM Cup…. No idea how NZ would feel about it (certainly not threatened) but for me watching Tasman Makos holds more appeal than Western Sydney Rams with a bench full of fringe 1st graders.

 

[Pass it to Dunning!]

There's a lot of complicated ideas but with a centralised Rugby Australia there's a simple method.
Each Super Rugby side has two NRC teams, each with their own identities. They can fill up the teams with uncontracted players from wherever.
Two Sydney teams. The Brumbies do Canberra and country NSW. Reds have Brisbane and Queensland Country. Force have Perth and Adelaide maybe. Rebels have Melbourne and maybe Tasmania or a third Sydney team. And we try and bring in the Drua and a team tied to Moana Pasifika.

 

[dru]

There's a lot of complicated ideas but with a centralised Rugby Australia there's a simple method.
Each Super Rugby side has two NRC teams, each with their own identities. They can fill up the teams with uncontracted players from wherever.
Two Sydney teams. The Brumbies do Canberra and country NSW. Reds have Brisbane and Queensland Country. Force have Perth and Adelaide maybe. Rebels have Melbourne and maybe Tasmania or a third Sydney team. And we try and bring in the Drua and a team tied to Moana Pasifika.

This gives the franchise/State team fans the chance to watch the developing talent vying for the next season. Which is great.

OTOH:
1. it does nothing to satisfy SRU and we have seen that the comp goes nowhere with those guys in sabotage mode. Like it or not, this time whatever happens has to give them the opportunity they seek.
2: The teams are manufactured without any leaning on existing club support. WHich is how NRC got the meme "nobody really cares". Which was an untruth but is still didactic and valid commentary.
3. ACT, WA and Vic did not have the funds or where-with-all to run more than a single team.
4. Has ACT resolved the historical animosity of Vikings v everyone else? It is a natural split for two teams but Non-Viking supporters seemed to feel they were on a hiding to nothing to bridge a perceived Viking dominance in the Brumbies.

Note that when you say a centralised Rugby Australia allows your proposal, what you are actually saying is a centraised RA nailed to the current version of Super - presuming there is not Shrink to greatness 2.0.

A centralised RA equally allows a domestic comp growing from where we are now, tie-in to the clubs, particularly in Sydney, and a rep system for 2 or 3 teams to Champion Style Comp through TT.

I don't dislike your thinking PITD, but I do think we can move toward something far superior.