Where to for Super Rugby?

[Rebel man]

I don't see why this would be an issue? We should be looking to transition to a franchise model in the medium-long term anyway. The provicial unions have proven unable to effectively run both the professional and amateur/development aspects of rugby in their states and have ended up half arsing both.

Let the teams be privately owned and let the Unions focus their funds on more effectively supporting grassroots and development. Having to operate both is just a massive waste of their resources.

You can’t have the NSW Waratahs and a western Sydney side same deal with Queensland

 

[hifflepiff]

You can’t have the NSW Waratahs and a western Sydney side same deal with Queensland

Sick, the Waratahs can become the Sydney Waratahs or the East Sydney Waratahs. Those are the regions their brand is associated with anyway.

No one in Western Sydney gives a fuck about the Waratahs and the Tahs don't seem to care about them either. Let them just formalise whats already the reality.

 

[kiap]

You can’t have the NSW Waratahs and a western Sydney side same deal with Queensland

Sure you can.

These are names. What's really going to happen, other than triggering your inner Rainman?

The tower is actually straight up.

 

[eastman]

^^ But they won't "see Kyle Godwin lining up against Hamish Stewart 5 times a year". And this is the point Rebels3 is making: they will only see them line up against each other the same amount of times if there was a full season TT.

I was being facetious but the main point was that Super Rugby AU lacked overall quality and on average the standard of rugby was not that high (exceptions being when Brumbies and Reds were involved).

 

[hifflepiff]

I was being facetious but the main point was that Super Rugby AU lacked overall quality and on average the standard of rugby was not that high (exceptions being when Brumbies and Reds were involved).

Alot of people get a hard on for 'quality', but as far as I can tell that's entirely missing the point. To make a sporting league enticing to fans, its far far more important that you have parity. With solid enough marketing and effective rivalries, casual fans won't really know or care about overall quality so long as teams are somewhat evenly matched. That's what makes for an attractive product.

As we saw with Super AU, many die-hard rugby people decried "its not as good as the Kiwis!".
But because the majority of games were close, tense, and meaningful, casual fans ended up watching anyway.

Notably, the Top 14 isn't as high quality as Super Rugby Aotearoa either, but it still gets massive fan and media support. Thats because relative skill level is far more important than overall skill level when it comes to making a commercially viable product.

The whole idea of the original Super Rugby was that it offered the 'highest quality' matches. But as we saw, Australians didn't care about how good the Kiwi teams were when Australian sides were getting blown out multiple times a season/every week. As such viewership, fan support and media attention steadily declined in Aus over the two decades of its existance (apart from a few short blips when Australian teams were doing well, which is kinda my whole point).

 

[Dismal Pillock]

Always been a big fan of the Super Rugby.....

 

[Dan54]

As we saw with Super AU, many die-hard rugby people decried "its not as good as the Kiwis!".
But because the majority of games were close, tense, and meaningful, casual fans ended up watching anyway.

Notably, the Top 14 isn't as high quality as Super Rugby Aotearoa either, but it still gets massive fan and media support. Thats because relative skill level is far more important than overall skill level when it comes to making a commercially viable product.
.

Many good points mate, but you hit it on the head when you pointed out Top 14 (that do get blow outs at times), and my main problem is remedied in title Top 14, show me any top successful rugby or almost any comp that has 5 teams. NZ has same problem that I keep saying to those here who wouldn't care fo Aus being involved for same reasons you saying.
The reason Ireland, Wales and Scotland etc have joined is that they know that their comps with only 4-5 teams can't be substained so they stared with Celtic League than now pro 14. England have stand alone premiership (12 teams) and top teams play what was Heineken cup, now I not sure what.
Let's face it even in International rugby (the peak or our game) the RC between 4 teams is getting a little tired because we play each other twice (and NZ-Aus 3) times a year. The crowds are starting to drift off there to and this pinnacle of our game!
I can't believe anyone thinks a 5 team comp can survive. It needs I reckon 8 teams at least to be viable in the medium long term.
I still wait to see a decent 5 team annual comp at domestic level anywhere in world, but maybe rugby in Aus is popular enough to buck the trend, I doubt it though.

 

[Bullrush]

NZ needs to change AB selection policy and allow players that play in any Super Rugby competition to be eligible for selection.

Australia needs players and player depth and NZ needs the Australian market.

 

[hifflepiff]

Many good points mate, but you hit it on the head when you pointed out Top 14 (that do get blow outs at times), and my main problem is remedied in title Top 14, show me any top successful rugby or almost any comp that has 5 teams.

No ones advocating for a 5 team comp long term mate, that's a complete straw man. Everyone that wants Super AU is pushing for an expansion of Australian teams in the short to medium term.

As I've pointed out, we could do this by transitioning to a franchise model and allowing private investors to buy franchising licenses for a fee. We could quite easily expand to a 7 team comp by setting up a privately owned team in WS and including the Drua. In the medium term we could also look at a North Queensland/Gold Coast team to bring us to 8.

As we've seen with Twiggy, this structure can absolutely work. We've also seen that he was able to get investors lined up for his proposed WS team. If just about every other professional sporting league in Australia can do it, Rugby Union can too.

As I've said before we have for a long time tried to reinvent the wheel with how we structure our professional rugby and it just hasn't worked. The Celtic/South African Pro #whatever the fuck is facing the exact same issues as us because its just not a structure that works.

 

[eastman]

NZ needs to change AB selection policy and allow players that play in any Super Rugby competition to be eligible for selection.

Australia needs players and player depth and NZ needs the Australian market.

This is absolutely it - a successful Super Rugby competition is only going to help NZ Rugby and the All Blacks in the long run.

David Havili playing in Australia shouldn't be viewed as the end of the world.

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

^ there are two flaws in that argument:

1. How many of the say 40 players in genuine contention for AB selection will want to play in Aus (& what if the answer is none)? And
2. How many of the other say 150 who'll never be AB's will represent a significant enough upgrade on what's already available to the Au teams to make them worth signing (& what happens to any displaced Au-eligible guys)?

I'd suggest 2. above is already possible but hardly ever happens, why is that?

Edit: was replying to Bullrush but equally applies to eastman's subsequent post. AFAIK Au already spends more on player payments than NZ so presumably they'd have to spend more again to make it worth David Havili's while to move to Au. Where does the money come from? Does everyone else at DH's new Club take a pay cut do they stay within the budget/ salary cap?

 

[hifflepiff]

I'll just copy what I said earlier regarding the 'open boarders' proposal.

"This is still only a band-aid solution:

(a) NZ are unlikely to give up control of their player development to Australia

(b) We likely couldn't attract top tier NZ players as they would be playing for worse teams with less airtime in NZ, therefore lowering their chances of selection for the ABs

(c) Even if we could attract current top tier NZ players, they would cost an arm and a leg (even more than top tier wallabies for the above reasons). This is money that would be far better spent on ensuring we can retain our young players that would otherwise go to League.

(d) It still doesn't solve the problem that Australia wouldn't have control over its own professional league, and would therefore have to handicap our ability to craft the best possible competiton for the Australian market in order to keep NZ happy.

(e) It doesn't stop Australian teams from still losing regularly (three or four All Blacks spread across all the teams are unlikely to make that much of a difference) meaning we won't get the media breakthrough that comes from having
successful teams + home grandfinals.

(f) It doesn't solve the problem that in a solely Trans Tasman league we're spending half the season playing against teams the majority of Aussies don't really give a shit about. Most people in Aus don't even know where the NZ teams are from let alone feel any inherent rivalry like that which exists between the Australian states. At the end of the day, the only NZ rugby brand that matters in Australia (beyond kiwi expats) is the All Blacks.

Don't get me wrong I'm all for maintaining Trans Tasman games to a certain extent, but we need to restructure our format to one where AU is the focus (as it has the most growth potential in the Australian market) and reconceptualise Trans-Tasman as a purely post-season champions league (which we can include Japan in for larger broadcast dollars, without affecting the core domestic competition)."

 

[eastman]

Alot of people get a hard on for 'quality', but as far as I can tell that's entirely missing the point. To make a sporting league enticing to fans, its far far more important that you have parity. With solid enough marketing and effective rivalries, casual fans won't really know or care about overall quality so long as teams are somewhat evenly matched. That's what makes for an attractive product.

As we saw with Super AU, many die-hard rugby people decried "its not as good as the Kiwis!".
But because the majority of games were close, tense, and meaningful, casual fans ended up watching anyway.

Notably, the Top 14 isn't as high quality as Super Rugby Aotearoa either, but it still gets massive fan and media support. Thats because relative skill level is far more important than overall skill level when it comes to making a commercially viable product.

The whole idea of the original Super Rugby was that it offered the 'highest quality' matches. But as we saw, Australians didn't care about how good the Kiwi teams were when Australian sides were getting blown out multiple times a season/every week. As such viewership, fan support and media attention steadily declined in Aus over the two decades of its existance (apart from a few short blips when Australian teams were doing well, which is kinda my whole point).

Why would anyone outside of the 12 people who use this forum watch a bog average Aussie rugby product when the NRL product is so brighter, faster and more appealing?

That's the reality of things in Australia, so comparisons against Top 14 in France are completely moot.

 

[hifflepiff]

Why would anyone outside of the 12 people who use this forum watch a bog average Aussie rugby product when the NRL product is so brighter, faster and more appealing?

That's the reality of things in Australia, so comparisons against Top 14 in France are completely moot.

(a) We've already seen that people will watch the supposed 'bog-standard' Australian Rugby. In fact the final of the 'bog-standard' domestic competiton got one of the biggest ever crowds and the largest ever TV audience for an Australian Super Rugby game.

(b) We've already seen that people don't give a fuck about the 'standard' of the competiton if Australian teams are getting blown out every week. In fact we've seen that for 20 years.

(c) Its actually possible for people to follow two sports at once.

 

[eastman]

^ there are two flaws in that argument:

1. How many of the say 40 players in genuine contention for AB selection will want to play in Aus (& what if the answer is none)? And
2. How many of the other say 150 who'll never be AB's will represent a significant enough upgrade on what's already available to the Au teams to make them worth signing (& what happens to any displaced Au-eligible guys)?

I'd suggest 2. above is already possible but hardly ever happens, why is that?

1. If a franchise is willing to throw big money at a top 40 All Black and that player is not actively disencouraged from moving then it shouldn't matter- economics and personal interest will trump in the end. At the end of the day, playing anywhere in the Tasman is better than over the Atlantic.

2. It really is a failure on recruitment (and a reflection of the poor financial state of rugby). If you compare the backline of the Waratahs against the Hurricanes on Friday night, the Hurricanes were better in every single position (arguably bar halfback) and even some of their reserves were stronger. We should be targeting the Billy Proctors and Orbyn Ledgers of the world.

 

[Braveheart81]

Does that just make Australian rugby on the whole worse because we have less Wallaby eligible players playing domestically in order to provide slight improvements to our Super Rugby teams?

 

[hifflepiff]

Does that just make Australian rugby on the whole worse because we have less Wallaby eligible players playing domestically in order to provide slight improvements to our Super Rugby teams?

It'll also cost insane amounts of money to attract top tier All Blacks because the players that do come would be lowering their chances of being selected for the AB's by playing for what would likely be a worse team outside of NZ.

Thats money that would be far far better spent on ensuring we can retain young Australian players that would otherwise go to League.

And at the end of the day, 1 or 2 Kiwis aren't going to suddenly make Australian teams win substantially more than they are already. What's more likely to happen is that these 'star Kiwis' just force young up and coming Australian stars out of the starting side, stunting their development.

 

[eastman]

Does that just make Australian rugby on the whole worse because we have less Wallaby eligible players playing domestically in order to provide slight improvements to our Super Rugby teams?

You could argue that current set-up forces us into using players who will never be Wallabies just to put teams on a field - I'd rather increase overall competitiveness then continue throwing contracts at Kyle Godwin or Alex Newsome?

 

[Adam84]

For all the talk of a 5 team comp been boring, I’ve got to say I find the TT a bit boring for the emotional connection piece. Why do I care about places like Waikato or Dunedin? The truth is I don’t, I don’t know 80% of the players and geographically It provides zero tribalism or emotional connection.

I enjoy watching the Crusaders and Blues because of their history and who they are, same fo the Hurricanes. But I couldn’t really care for the Highlander or Chiefs.

Maybe RA extend an EOI to 2-3 kiwi teams to join the Australian comp

 

[Braveheart81]

You could argue that current set-up forces us into using players who will never be Wallabies just to put teams on a field - I'd rather increase overall competitiveness then continue throwing contracts at Kyle Godwin or Alex Newsome?

As long as it is those guys you are replacing and not forcing more up and coming players to look offshore.

The reality is surely that it would be some of each because talent identification is an inexact science.