Lots of talk, no facts. You see the problem with most of the posters from the antipodes is that they do not watch the SA games, and I suppose given the times that the games at played at it is somewhat understandable. An unfortunate side effect however is that it gives you a warped sense of reality, I really believe that most posters dont even watch a 5 min highlights packe of the SA games, and yet they think that they are somehow qualified to comment on how the SA teams are going.
Wow, do you speak to everyone with the condescension and sanctimony of French waiter pretending not to understand English to an American tourist?
I watch plenty of the South African conference, because thanks to the wonders of modern technology I'm able to set my DVR to record and watch all the games at whatever time suits me. They're wonderful inventions, and I do suggest investing in one.
Aus SA
52 45
47 42
36 38
22 34
19 26
176 185 - 2014
60 63
58 54
45 50
37 48
31 24
231 239 - 2013
58 66
58 59
35 59
32 38
27 25
210 247 - 2012
66 63
57 57
37 54
33 40
24 29
217 243 - 2011
Well to be frank, if South Africa didn't do better on the whole than Australia more often than not, you ought to be worried, but even still those are pretty bloody close numbers over all. One of the worst results we had from that list was in 2011 and even that averaged out to about 1 less win per side, but even then in that year the Reds won the comp, the Wallabies won the Tri Nations and the Wallabies knocked South Africa out of the world cup, and I'd wager more people remember those results than South Africa's Super Rugby aggregates.
How's that for a fact? ;-) .
Also, speaking of facts, if we back peddle to 2010, in what was supposedly a fairer system that avoided the benefits of the "weak conference" Australia scored more on aggregate than South Africa despite having one less team with which to accrue points, with South Africa's 5 teams scoring a total of 155 points to the 160 Australia's 4 teams racked up.
With regards to you having to compete against other sporting codes, we have our own issues with quotas. When you consider that the vast majority of SA's population live in poverty, it really does even up the playing fields in terms of producing sportspeople of international quality.
This is frankly a rather paper thin comparison to the challenges faced by Australian rugby. You have quotas? Oh poor you... so you have to select a few coloured players? Terrible challenge that when you have a long standing fully professional national tournament underneath Super Rugby where you can develop them...
As for poverty, well even taking that into account the market size for Rugby in the republic is considerably larger than either Australia's or NZ's because at 53 million South Africa's total population is a little over double Australia's. Now, poverty is undoubtedly a problem, but with a middle class of among just the black population of over 4 million and a reasonably well off white population of around 5 million, you have a market for Rugby of comparable size to either the AFL or NRL in Australia.
By comparison, the numbers for Union here are wedged under the NRL territories, meaning Union really just gets a minor share of what is left after rugby league. That's why Rugby has had such a hard time establishing a national competition here that would be analogous to the NPC or Currie Cup.
So basically underneath Super Rugby our feeder teams until last year have been semi professional at best, a fact which heavily affects depth.
Now, I know looking from afar in total ignorance of the Australian sporting landscape it might look like Rugby is right up there here, but in reality from a TV dollars standpoint Rugby makes less money than the NRL and AFL by a very very long way, and is in fact now losing to soccer as well.
Now, let me make it clear, I never said we were better than South Africa - I was merely having a go at the sentiment of your post, which reflects the tendency of so many South Africans to dump on our rugby sides. Frankly it comes across as pretty ignorant given how many teams from your side make up the numbers too and the fact that the sport is in a VASTLY stronger position in your country than ours.
So yeah, "quotas" - cry me a river. I fucking wish our biggest challenge was having to select a team that wasn't excessively white.
