Lee Grant
John Eales (66)
I am closest to BDA in my thinking, not that it is better or worse than that of others.
When I saw the S15 proposal first mooted, around May 2009 IIRR, I was a happy camper. Mind you - that was before we knew, for sure, that Oz would get the 5th team. But I supposed that we would get it.
I mentioned such and the argument against it was that we didn't have the player depth for a 5th team. I didn't really care. What I saw was the opportunity to have a defacto national domestic competition and that's what it will be, in effect, if you take the long view of when the excess foreigners from the Rebels depart our shores.
Also, that 5th team will then be a reason for younger Oz players not to go overseas in the 1st place. Fewer will leave early and in a few years time we will see more valid candidates for the Wallabies emerge than would have been the case had they left.
Even this year, with all the foreigners at the Rebels, we have seen the emergence of such players as Phipps and Pyle who would likely not have been on the Wallaby radar were it not for the 5th team. I'm not saying for 2011, but later. Would Kingi have got so many games for the Reds - would Saffy have returned to rugby union from the dark side?
The rebuttal to that theoretical exercise 2 years ago, was that the quality of the 4 Oz Super teams would be diluted by introducing a 5th team and would be further weakened as contract terminations made more players available for Year 2 of the Rebels.
Of course it would: lowering the chances of winning a Super tournament was the price we had to pay for getting a 5th team, though the impact of players not leaving in the first place, the odd returnee from overseas, the odd young player taking the union pathway instead of the league pathway and the odd senior player switching - and all because there was another pro team - would all mitigate against the dilution down the track..
Two years ago those were the arguments, in theory, and, early days I know, but nothing much we have seen in the present contradicts it.
As I said in May 2009: I would rather have 4 Super teams and an ARC every day of the week rather than a 5th Super team and no ARC, but given that we aren't going to have an ARC again in the foreseeable future, I'll take the 5th Super team, thank you very much.
There have been a few from the other side of the ditch stating the opinion that Oz did not deserve a 5th team. Maybe be they are right, but they should not blame us, but their own rugby union for siding with us against the SAffers.
As for some of the Oz double header games being boring - there have been some. but give me a boring Oz derby over a boring SAffer or Kiwi derby any day of the week.
.
When I saw the S15 proposal first mooted, around May 2009 IIRR, I was a happy camper. Mind you - that was before we knew, for sure, that Oz would get the 5th team. But I supposed that we would get it.
I mentioned such and the argument against it was that we didn't have the player depth for a 5th team. I didn't really care. What I saw was the opportunity to have a defacto national domestic competition and that's what it will be, in effect, if you take the long view of when the excess foreigners from the Rebels depart our shores.
Also, that 5th team will then be a reason for younger Oz players not to go overseas in the 1st place. Fewer will leave early and in a few years time we will see more valid candidates for the Wallabies emerge than would have been the case had they left.
Even this year, with all the foreigners at the Rebels, we have seen the emergence of such players as Phipps and Pyle who would likely not have been on the Wallaby radar were it not for the 5th team. I'm not saying for 2011, but later. Would Kingi have got so many games for the Reds - would Saffy have returned to rugby union from the dark side?
The rebuttal to that theoretical exercise 2 years ago, was that the quality of the 4 Oz Super teams would be diluted by introducing a 5th team and would be further weakened as contract terminations made more players available for Year 2 of the Rebels.
Of course it would: lowering the chances of winning a Super tournament was the price we had to pay for getting a 5th team, though the impact of players not leaving in the first place, the odd returnee from overseas, the odd young player taking the union pathway instead of the league pathway and the odd senior player switching - and all because there was another pro team - would all mitigate against the dilution down the track..
Two years ago those were the arguments, in theory, and, early days I know, but nothing much we have seen in the present contradicts it.
As I said in May 2009: I would rather have 4 Super teams and an ARC every day of the week rather than a 5th Super team and no ARC, but given that we aren't going to have an ARC again in the foreseeable future, I'll take the 5th Super team, thank you very much.
There have been a few from the other side of the ditch stating the opinion that Oz did not deserve a 5th team. Maybe be they are right, but they should not blame us, but their own rugby union for siding with us against the SAffers.
As for some of the Oz double header games being boring - there have been some. but give me a boring Oz derby over a boring SAffer or Kiwi derby any day of the week.
.
