stoff
Trevor Allan (34)
The arbitrator now goes away to consider the submissions and make their decision.
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Where to for Super Rugby?
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WorkingClassRugger
Michael Lynagh (62)
Cutting a team could prove an even bigger stuff up if some of the language used in the Pro14 statement regarding the inclusion of the SA franchises. Apparently it only represents the 1st phase of the expansion as the Pro14 evolves into a truly global competition.
I reckon we'll see the other 4 franchises move across in a block at the end of this deal alongside other possible options. If the Jaguares are tempted to follow suit we could find ourselves in a far less than enviable position.
I reckon we'll see the other 4 franchises move across in a block at the end of this deal alongside other possible options. If the Jaguares are tempted to follow suit we could find ourselves in a far less than enviable position.
lou75
Ron Walden (29)
This is the gist of the Q & A that was held at Harlequins Melbourne on Saturday with Patsy Cam Clyne as posed by ex-Melbourne Rebels CEO Peter Leahy:
The general consensus from the audience was that they did not come away feeling comfortable with the prognosis for the Rebels.
There were three themes to the questions: (i) Process, (ii) Strategy and (iii) Finance. In summary:
* Process. Clyne was asked how after saying it would take 72 hours to finalise some 100 days ago, this was still dragging on. He said that the franchises were all in favour of reducing to 4 teams but then changed their minds. He gave no evidence of this. He would not answer the question as to when the board formed this view. When asked if he had his time again would they have done anything differently, he again avoided the question. Likewise when it was suggested perhaps it would have been best to have done this after the season was over and that by doing it after round 4 or 5 it impacted the performance of all the Australian teams as it was a distraction for not just the Rebels & Force but for all teams. He would not accept this and said Australia had a culture of blame and not taking ownership.........whilst not seeing the irony of himself blaming the franchises for dragging out the 72 hours to 4 months!
* Strategy: Clyne was asked how shrinking the footprint could be a catalyst for growth. He is convinced we don't have the talent pool to support 5 teams and believes all the coaches believe that to be the case as well (didn't mentioned they also believe they should all be on the eastern seaboard). He believes that as we have continually increased our teams from 3 to 4 to 5 our performance of Australian teams has declined. It was pointed out that in the first 15 years of Super Rugby we won 2 titles. In the first 5 years of having 5 teams (ie first 5 years of Rebels) we won 2 titles. It was also pointed out that if the Rebels were cut then the pathway for the likes for Jordan, Sione, Fereti and Rob would be blocked and we would be back to the bad old days of our local talent leaving the state in their teens to pursue their pathway........at a time when our U/20s are ranked 2nd or 3rd in the country. His response was appalling........"I'm not saying there won't be some unfortunate consequences from this decision"...........in other words.....tough!
Clyne was asked why the Brumbies were in and then out. The question was asked about what the decision criteria was as we had never seen it. Basically he said that because the Brumbies had won two titles, has been the most successful Aussie team and had not required a bail out, they deserved a spot. Missed the point that they had been beneficiaries of substantially higher Wallaby tops than us and in recent years had not produced the talent locally that they did 20 years ago. One of the questioners rightly pointed out that this was a backwards looking view of strategy and surely the decision should be based on where the greatest growth potential was......a city of 400,000 with no commercial base or a city heading to 5,000,000 and soon to be the biggest city in Australia.
* Finance: Clyne was asked to talk to the finance business case for shutting down a franchise. He parroted back the same "saving" of $6m. When he was asked what were the costs of shutting down a team (players contracts & commercial arrangements that need to be severed), he would not quantify these and said that these were "one offs". Clyne was then asked if their cost benefit analysis had taken into consideration the costs of leaving a jurisdiction and gave the example of Rugby League exiting WA 20 years ago. Again, no real answer. In case he didn't get the hint, it was pointed out in the closing remarks that the ARU has made over $130m from Victorian tax payers and sports patrons over the last 20 years. In other word, if you shut down the Rebels, the Victorian Government will wipe their hands of you which will cost you millions.
Clyne was asked what other options were considered to save costs like looking at the NZ model of centralised contracting. He said this was looked at and didn't stack up.....again no further detail. He said no one had come forward with a better financial model to support 5 teams.
On a number of occasions, Clyne kept mentioning the unbudgeted costs of $28m to support Super Rugby franchises in the last 7 years and the $11m in unbudgeted "additional" support to the Rebels since inception. He did not acknowledge that this does not include the Wallaby top ups that the Reds, Waratahs & Brumbies get as opposed to what the Force and Rebels get. A true like for like comparison of ARU support has to include these numbers or it is deliberately misleading.
In summary, the audience did not get a good feeling. He is not across what is happening with grass roots here. Did not know our numbers had doubled since the Rebels arrived. Did not appreciate that our U/20s were ranked as high as they were and that we had 5 in the Aussie U/20s. Did not really appreciate what Hendo and others have done with the likes of Jordan, Sione, Rob, Fereti and many other. Also the social dislocation consequences most prevalent when the boys are forced to leave their families to pursue their Rugby careers......as would be the case if the Rebels shut down. Most tellingly he did not know that there was no Victorian university team in the Australian women's sevens competition announced just 24 hours earlier.
The general consensus from the audience was that they did not come away feeling comfortable with the prognosis for the Rebels.
There were three themes to the questions: (i) Process, (ii) Strategy and (iii) Finance. In summary:
* Process. Clyne was asked how after saying it would take 72 hours to finalise some 100 days ago, this was still dragging on. He said that the franchises were all in favour of reducing to 4 teams but then changed their minds. He gave no evidence of this. He would not answer the question as to when the board formed this view. When asked if he had his time again would they have done anything differently, he again avoided the question. Likewise when it was suggested perhaps it would have been best to have done this after the season was over and that by doing it after round 4 or 5 it impacted the performance of all the Australian teams as it was a distraction for not just the Rebels & Force but for all teams. He would not accept this and said Australia had a culture of blame and not taking ownership.........whilst not seeing the irony of himself blaming the franchises for dragging out the 72 hours to 4 months!
* Strategy: Clyne was asked how shrinking the footprint could be a catalyst for growth. He is convinced we don't have the talent pool to support 5 teams and believes all the coaches believe that to be the case as well (didn't mentioned they also believe they should all be on the eastern seaboard). He believes that as we have continually increased our teams from 3 to 4 to 5 our performance of Australian teams has declined. It was pointed out that in the first 15 years of Super Rugby we won 2 titles. In the first 5 years of having 5 teams (ie first 5 years of Rebels) we won 2 titles. It was also pointed out that if the Rebels were cut then the pathway for the likes for Jordan, Sione, Fereti and Rob would be blocked and we would be back to the bad old days of our local talent leaving the state in their teens to pursue their pathway........at a time when our U/20s are ranked 2nd or 3rd in the country. His response was appalling........"I'm not saying there won't be some unfortunate consequences from this decision"...........in other words.....tough!
Clyne was asked why the Brumbies were in and then out. The question was asked about what the decision criteria was as we had never seen it. Basically he said that because the Brumbies had won two titles, has been the most successful Aussie team and had not required a bail out, they deserved a spot. Missed the point that they had been beneficiaries of substantially higher Wallaby tops than us and in recent years had not produced the talent locally that they did 20 years ago. One of the questioners rightly pointed out that this was a backwards looking view of strategy and surely the decision should be based on where the greatest growth potential was......a city of 400,000 with no commercial base or a city heading to 5,000,000 and soon to be the biggest city in Australia.
* Finance: Clyne was asked to talk to the finance business case for shutting down a franchise. He parroted back the same "saving" of $6m. When he was asked what were the costs of shutting down a team (players contracts & commercial arrangements that need to be severed), he would not quantify these and said that these were "one offs". Clyne was then asked if their cost benefit analysis had taken into consideration the costs of leaving a jurisdiction and gave the example of Rugby League exiting WA 20 years ago. Again, no real answer. In case he didn't get the hint, it was pointed out in the closing remarks that the ARU has made over $130m from Victorian tax payers and sports patrons over the last 20 years. In other word, if you shut down the Rebels, the Victorian Government will wipe their hands of you which will cost you millions.
Clyne was asked what other options were considered to save costs like looking at the NZ model of centralised contracting. He said this was looked at and didn't stack up.....again no further detail. He said no one had come forward with a better financial model to support 5 teams.
On a number of occasions, Clyne kept mentioning the unbudgeted costs of $28m to support Super Rugby franchises in the last 7 years and the $11m in unbudgeted "additional" support to the Rebels since inception. He did not acknowledge that this does not include the Wallaby top ups that the Reds, Waratahs & Brumbies get as opposed to what the Force and Rebels get. A true like for like comparison of ARU support has to include these numbers or it is deliberately misleading.
In summary, the audience did not get a good feeling. He is not across what is happening with grass roots here. Did not know our numbers had doubled since the Rebels arrived. Did not appreciate that our U/20s were ranked as high as they were and that we had 5 in the Aussie U/20s. Did not really appreciate what Hendo and others have done with the likes of Jordan, Sione, Rob, Fereti and many other. Also the social dislocation consequences most prevalent when the boys are forced to leave their families to pursue their Rugby careers......as would be the case if the Rebels shut down. Most tellingly he did not know that there was no Victorian university team in the Australian women's sevens competition announced just 24 hours earlier.
andrewM
Herbert Moran (7)
There are many people, like my Fine Friends at TWF
but also in Club land, who are doing both - raising money to buy shares in OtF, but then bestowing those shares on Junior Rugby, either RugbyWA Juniors or individual junior clubs.[shameless plug]
[/shameless plug]
The ARU said if we get to 400 pages before anything is announced, they'll give us a prize.
andrewM
Herbert Moran (7)
A free Tah's jersey?
By definition, you can't give those away.
James Pettifer
Jim Clark (26)
So basically he has no idea about rugby in Victoria and doesn't really care that he has no idea.
I'm sure he would have little idea about rugby in WA either.
It isn't the players leaving their families to pursue their rugby career, it is players leaving rugby to pursue their career. One thing that was quite noticeable in Tasmania circles was that a lot of players who were multi sport players started picking cricket over their second sport (often Aussie rules) as they didn't have to leave their families. This lead to a disproportionate amount of players born in Tasmania in the Australian sides (in the past year there have been 47 Australian players in international cricket, 4 of whom were born and bred in Tasmania - 8.5% of players compared to the 2.15% of population). Often high performing sports kids will have to pick a sport. Pulling rugby out of Victoria (or WA) just means they are just more likely to choose another sport.
swingpass
Peter Sullivan (51)
In spite of the fact he once played here !
Jon
Chris McKivat (8)
Even tahs fans didn't want one this year! That's no prize!A free Tah's jersey?
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Jon
Chris McKivat (8)
Honestly, the cynic in me wouldn't be too surprised if he knows all of the RWA/Force figures. Given that the force have been the team that the ARU has wanted to kill off since (I'm betting before) April
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Omar Comin'
Chilla Wilson (44)
It is so frustrating to continually hear or read this argument. It is irrelevant whether Australia has the depth for 5 teams or not, because rugby has an international player pool. If 10-20% of our players aren't good enough for Super Rugby, then there's a pretty obvious way of removing those players without killing the code in an entire region of the country.
And if the argument is that you want combinations to build within teams that may benefit the Wallabies, then only allow 2 teams to become say 1/3rd foreign. No fan will care, just like no Manchester United fan cares where the players in their team were born or went to school.
Highlander35
Steve Williams (59)
So, as we all knew from the beginning, Clyne confirms that nepotism played a huge part in the decision making process, and the whole process is nothing more than an attempt to return the traditional teams to "their rightful place" up there with the Kiwi teams.
And in the end, it will accomplish nothing but setting Rugby in Victoria or WA back at least a decade, as we watch Super Rugby fade into continuing irrelevance, both in community support and financial interest.
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And in the end, it will accomplish nothing but setting Rugby in Victoria or WA back at least a decade, as we watch Super Rugby fade into continuing irrelevance, both in community support and financial interest.
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
KevinO
Geoff Shaw (53)
Can someone explain the maths,
Own the Force is $1000 a share, 4700 shares have been bought raising $4.7 million.
How is it being reported 4700 raising nearly $8 Million. That increases each share to roughly $1700. Don't take it personally Force fans cause I know your heart is in the right place but this does not sound correct.
Own the Force is $1000 a share, 4700 shares have been bought raising $4.7 million.
How is it being reported 4700 raising nearly $8 Million. That increases each share to roughly $1700. Don't take it personally Force fans cause I know your heart is in the right place but this does not sound correct.
L
Leo86
Guest
I dont think anything has been released on shares sold but what was pledged.
With Twiggys loan of buying the share and repayments made to RugbyWA is basically $2000 per share. Reports are then speculating 4700 shares at $2000 each
With Twiggys loan of buying the share and repayments made to RugbyWA is basically $2000 per share. Reports are then speculating 4700 shares at $2000 each
Killer
Cyril Towers (30)
I find it interesting, tho I probably shouldn't, that nearly every comment and article is condemning the ARU for pretty much everything they have done.
The pressure on Clyne, Puller and the board must be enormous. There must be big cracks opening up amongst them all behind closed doors.
My guess it is probably just one person, Clyne, driving the current direction. I think if he was to go there would be whole different discussion going on. Which I think the vast majority of rugby people would think was positive in comparison to the current cluster of lurching from one disaster to the next.
Hopefully the decision will be for the Force and Clyne can disappear forever. Then we can simply tell Sanzaar that we will be having five teams and lets sort out the best way to run it.
The pressure on Clyne, Puller and the board must be enormous. There must be big cracks opening up amongst them all behind closed doors.
My guess it is probably just one person, Clyne, driving the current direction. I think if he was to go there would be whole different discussion going on. Which I think the vast majority of rugby people would think was positive in comparison to the current cluster of lurching from one disaster to the next.
Hopefully the decision will be for the Force and Clyne can disappear forever. Then we can simply tell Sanzaar that we will be having five teams and lets sort out the best way to run it.
Killer
Cyril Towers (30)
KevinO
Geoff Shaw (53)
Just trying to understand where the extra 3.3 million came from?
todd4
Dave Cowper (27)
I think people could buy more than one share.
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