Where to for Super Rugby?
- Thread starter Quick Hands
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B
BLR
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So the change to make is to cut arguably the most promising team in almost every measure in Australia at the current time?
There is a reason Australian Rugby is in the shit and I would argue the Force were having a good go of showing how to get out of it. But nah, can't have that, back to business everyone, I am sure there is another golden generation of players out there, all we need to do is wait for them to magically materialise!
kiap
Steve Williams (59)
Yeah. Struggling to see an increase coming in real terms, and that's trying to take in SA and UK as well Australasia.
Sports rights are fully priced, and SANZAAR products are sliding.
Obviously the outlook might change in three years, but they'll really need to.
Super Rugby as a regular season club comp is a ridiculous concept when you think about it. Massive overhaul needed.
Sports rights are fully priced, and SANZAAR products are sliding.
Obviously the outlook might change in three years, but they'll really need to.
Super Rugby as a regular season club comp is a ridiculous concept when you think about it. Massive overhaul needed.
Bullrush
Geoff Shaw (53)
Which is why I think SANZAAR are desperate to hold on to the Sunwolves and the Jaguars - for the bigger audiences.
I think SA really want to stay with NZ and AUS because they know playing the best is how develop the best. It wasn't that long ago that SANZAR were considered the best rugby countries in the world. Australia has slipped a bit but it can be turned around.
B
BLR
Guest
I must have misunderstood, 'something had to change' I understood to mean although you would have preferred the Rebels 'something had to change' anyway so the Force at least makes that change, implying your approval in a way, despite not being your ideal option. That's how I read it anyway, sorry mate.
Ulrich
Nev Cottrell (35)
It's a bit difficult with Aus/NZ being so far from everyone else apart from the Pacific Islanders where there is no money either by all accounts. Small countries, smaller populations.
If you could at least integrate the Force into another competition the blow would be a lot less. From what I've read the players from WA's academy will continue to be incorporated into the rest of the franchises?
The problem with that is who in WA is going to get into rugby when there's no pro team to support or to aspire to?
EDIT: Fixed mistake.
If you could at least integrate the Force into another competition the blow would be a lot less. From what I've read the players from WA's academy will continue to be incorporated into the rest of the franchises?
The problem with that is who in WA is going to get into rugby when there's no pro team to support or to aspire to?
EDIT: Fixed mistake.
kiap
Steve Williams (59)
Yeah, that's the killer. Pro rugby (and, it would seem now, even semi-pro rugby) will just disappear.
The WA academy is/was totally local with no funding from the ARU. How long that continues, who knows.
But if WA reverts to being fully amateur, then there will obviously be nothing remaining but amateur players.
M
Moono75
Guest
Ulrich you have hit the nail on the head. Who are the role models, the heroes for our junior players to look up to. There won't be any Force players doing coaching clinics, visiting schools etc like they do now.
The reason why Western Australia has the highest junior rugby participation outside of NSW and QLD is due to the Force being introduced in 2006.
M
Moono75
Guest
Article by Wayne Smith, The Australian
An open letter to Cameron Clyne and Bill Pulver of the ARU
Dear Sirs,
You both are decent, honourable men and you must hate the position that you find yourselves in at present. You believe you are killing off the Western Force in order to save Australian rugby. I am asking you to consider that in the process you may be killing the very soul of the game.
It is not entirely your fault that Australian rugby is in this mess, though you have contributed to it through decisions you made in the past. Well-meaning decisions, decisions based on the proposition that bigger is better. We, all of us involved in this ambitious experiment known as SANZAAR, have come to realise that bigger, in fact, is not always better, which is where the backtracking comes in and the Force go out.
Perhaps you can’t conceive of any rugby life bar one spent in the company of New Zealand and South Africa. One partner the more powerful on the field, the other more powerful in a financial sense, off the field. And over time, you have allowed them to dictate terms to you. It’s flattering being in such company, with two of the greatest rugby nations on earth, but don’t forget that Australia itself won two World Cups and played in two other finals. OK, we might have fallen off the pace, pretty severely this year especially, but Australia will rise again. There are too many good people putting their shoulders to the wheel for it not to happen.
You clearly know what a dreadful thing you are doing in condemning the Western Force to death. It’s written in your faces at press conferences. You outline the reasons it is necessary but perhaps not so much to convince us, but to try to convince yourselves. All those reasons you give — the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few or of the one, et cetera — they may belong in Star Trek movies but they don’t belong in a team sport. The needs of the one do count, or at least they used to count when I was growing up.
We’ve all seen those movies, where a bunch of survivors are drifting for days and weeks in a lifeboat and the food and water running out. And eventually someone turns to the weakest member and says: you must die so that we might live. In the dark of night they do the deed and in the morning there is one less body in the lifeboat. But now their eyes are all watching each other nervously. And the next likely victim shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Doesn’t he, Melbourne?
So, Mr Clyne, Mr Pulver, please don’t speak of how you are only following the decisions made at the AGM and EGM. Those votes were taken by nervous men, men who could see no way out of their own dire predicament. They tell you to proceed and then they avert their eyes and lower their heads. And in the morning there is one less body in the lifeboat and, curiously, no one ever mentions the horrific deeds done in the dark. But that should not be the way things are done in this game. Where are the voices defending the one singled out?
If Geoff Stooke, who until Friday was a member of your company until he resigned as an ARU director when you ordered the Western Force on to death row, acknowledges that the financial situation is grim but it can be worked through, why is no credit given to him? Presumably he is operating from the same set of (unseen) numbers as you. How can sensible people, working from the same script, arrive at such totally different conclusions. Yes, he was once chairman of the Force but rather than block him out because of obvious bias, why not tap into his experience of working through the hard times.
One last thing, something that has mystified me. The Force and, indeed, the Melbourne Rebels have largely sorted out their financial problems. They proved what could be done in a crisis and are becoming viable again. Which begs the question: why terminate one of them now? There was a time during the lengthy lead-up to the arbitration process when you were reconciling yourselves to being stuck with five teams. Reluctantly, you were looking at ways to make it work. So why stop now, just because you’ve had a win at arbitration? Please tell everyone, but especially the people of Western Australia, that you are not doing this to honour your word to SANZAAR.
Well-respected colleague Paul Cully, writing yesterday in the Fairfax newspapers, said Australians want to know why opportunities for Australian players have been reduced by 20 per cent in part to fit a SANZAAR model they no longer like, and whose leaders they barely know, never mind respect. SANZAAR, I might add, was forced to adjust its model to correct the mistake it made in expanding to 15 teams, so the Force are paying for a mistake they didn’t make. “Quite simply,” Cully wrote, “they want to know if being part of Super Rugby is still serving the interests of Australian rugby.”
That raises questions for another day, of whether Australia should stay in Super Rugby or go off on its own, or in company with New Zealand. But you have enough problems on your hands at present. One of the few advantages of this process having lasted 127 days is that the landscape has changed since you started down this path. The Australian rugby public and most especially the WA rugby public have been energised by this crisis. Things may be possible now that weren’t possible before.
You know what you have to do. Look inside yourself.
Use the Force.
An open letter to Cameron Clyne and Bill Pulver of the ARU
Dear Sirs,
You both are decent, honourable men and you must hate the position that you find yourselves in at present. You believe you are killing off the Western Force in order to save Australian rugby. I am asking you to consider that in the process you may be killing the very soul of the game.
It is not entirely your fault that Australian rugby is in this mess, though you have contributed to it through decisions you made in the past. Well-meaning decisions, decisions based on the proposition that bigger is better. We, all of us involved in this ambitious experiment known as SANZAAR, have come to realise that bigger, in fact, is not always better, which is where the backtracking comes in and the Force go out.
Perhaps you can’t conceive of any rugby life bar one spent in the company of New Zealand and South Africa. One partner the more powerful on the field, the other more powerful in a financial sense, off the field. And over time, you have allowed them to dictate terms to you. It’s flattering being in such company, with two of the greatest rugby nations on earth, but don’t forget that Australia itself won two World Cups and played in two other finals. OK, we might have fallen off the pace, pretty severely this year especially, but Australia will rise again. There are too many good people putting their shoulders to the wheel for it not to happen.
You clearly know what a dreadful thing you are doing in condemning the Western Force to death. It’s written in your faces at press conferences. You outline the reasons it is necessary but perhaps not so much to convince us, but to try to convince yourselves. All those reasons you give — the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few or of the one, et cetera — they may belong in Star Trek movies but they don’t belong in a team sport. The needs of the one do count, or at least they used to count when I was growing up.
We’ve all seen those movies, where a bunch of survivors are drifting for days and weeks in a lifeboat and the food and water running out. And eventually someone turns to the weakest member and says: you must die so that we might live. In the dark of night they do the deed and in the morning there is one less body in the lifeboat. But now their eyes are all watching each other nervously. And the next likely victim shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Doesn’t he, Melbourne?
So, Mr Clyne, Mr Pulver, please don’t speak of how you are only following the decisions made at the AGM and EGM. Those votes were taken by nervous men, men who could see no way out of their own dire predicament. They tell you to proceed and then they avert their eyes and lower their heads. And in the morning there is one less body in the lifeboat and, curiously, no one ever mentions the horrific deeds done in the dark. But that should not be the way things are done in this game. Where are the voices defending the one singled out?
If Geoff Stooke, who until Friday was a member of your company until he resigned as an ARU director when you ordered the Western Force on to death row, acknowledges that the financial situation is grim but it can be worked through, why is no credit given to him? Presumably he is operating from the same set of (unseen) numbers as you. How can sensible people, working from the same script, arrive at such totally different conclusions. Yes, he was once chairman of the Force but rather than block him out because of obvious bias, why not tap into his experience of working through the hard times.
One last thing, something that has mystified me. The Force and, indeed, the Melbourne Rebels have largely sorted out their financial problems. They proved what could be done in a crisis and are becoming viable again. Which begs the question: why terminate one of them now? There was a time during the lengthy lead-up to the arbitration process when you were reconciling yourselves to being stuck with five teams. Reluctantly, you were looking at ways to make it work. So why stop now, just because you’ve had a win at arbitration? Please tell everyone, but especially the people of Western Australia, that you are not doing this to honour your word to SANZAAR.
Well-respected colleague Paul Cully, writing yesterday in the Fairfax newspapers, said Australians want to know why opportunities for Australian players have been reduced by 20 per cent in part to fit a SANZAAR model they no longer like, and whose leaders they barely know, never mind respect. SANZAAR, I might add, was forced to adjust its model to correct the mistake it made in expanding to 15 teams, so the Force are paying for a mistake they didn’t make. “Quite simply,” Cully wrote, “they want to know if being part of Super Rugby is still serving the interests of Australian rugby.”
That raises questions for another day, of whether Australia should stay in Super Rugby or go off on its own, or in company with New Zealand. But you have enough problems on your hands at present. One of the few advantages of this process having lasted 127 days is that the landscape has changed since you started down this path. The Australian rugby public and most especially the WA rugby public have been energised by this crisis. Things may be possible now that weren’t possible before.
You know what you have to do. Look inside yourself.
Use the Force.
Hoolly Doolly
Fred Wood (13)
link moono??
M
Moono75
Guest
If you go to google news and type in "An Open Letter to Cameron Clyne and Bill Pulver of the ARU" you should be able to bring it up. Posting the link doesn't get you past the pay wall.
Ulrich
Nev Cottrell (35)
It is obviously all about money, for if it were about anything else the Sunwolves would have been dropped or at least also dropped.
Does anyone know what the yearly average attendances were for the Force dating from 2006 until now and also for the Rebels from their inception?
A lot of this to me stinks of South African politics to be honest. I think the Kings (Spears back then) were supposed to be included much earlier and in turn Australia got a franchise.
I don't know how long Andy Marinos has been CEO of SANZAAR, but there may be something there. We have a tendency to produce people who are excessively greedy. I know he is technically not a South African, but to my knowledge he is the chief South African representative at SANZAAR - although I could be wrong.
Getting back to the attendances, 2016 and years prior may have inferior attendees for the Force (and maybe even the Rebels) than this year and one has to wonder how much of that has to do with being on the chopping block if that is the case. Perhaps it will emerge that this entire debacle is of South African origin in reality and I would not be surprised.
If that is indeed the case, the Australian media would do well to release such details in the week leading up to the test match at NIB stadium (coincidence or not this is the Springboks' first test there?).
It just seems very dodgy that SARU had their house in order, as admitted recently they started the process of a solution to the Kings and Cheetahs 18 months ago whilst the ARU did nothing.
Does anyone know what the yearly average attendances were for the Force dating from 2006 until now and also for the Rebels from their inception?
A lot of this to me stinks of South African politics to be honest. I think the Kings (Spears back then) were supposed to be included much earlier and in turn Australia got a franchise.
I don't know how long Andy Marinos has been CEO of SANZAAR, but there may be something there. We have a tendency to produce people who are excessively greedy. I know he is technically not a South African, but to my knowledge he is the chief South African representative at SANZAAR - although I could be wrong.
Getting back to the attendances, 2016 and years prior may have inferior attendees for the Force (and maybe even the Rebels) than this year and one has to wonder how much of that has to do with being on the chopping block if that is the case. Perhaps it will emerge that this entire debacle is of South African origin in reality and I would not be surprised.
If that is indeed the case, the Australian media would do well to release such details in the week leading up to the test match at NIB stadium (coincidence or not this is the Springboks' first test there?).
It just seems very dodgy that SARU had their house in order, as admitted recently they started the process of a solution to the Kings and Cheetahs 18 months ago whilst the ARU did nothing.
Ulrich
Nev Cottrell (35)
And possibly the Stormers and Sharks. They near upset the Lions twice this season did the Sharks and had some success too last year against the Kiwi. The Stormers have improved somewhat albeit still a way off when traveling.
Exposure to quality does wonders though - which brings us a full 360 basically. Where is the limit drawn when you decide a team is becoming better or is just a disgrace for facing the best?
Jaguares definitely better and could be better with less travel. Sunwolves, well, still difficult to say.
dru
David Wilson (68)
I'm really struggling with what to do. Anything just seems like a childish tantrum and whatever happens I'll still love rugby.
I feel sorry for the players but this won't stop me acting against ARU (and NSW and Qld) if I can work out a response.
For now, I'll be watching the Wallabies by recording replays. I'd committed to reporting during NRC on the Rams. Doing this is uncomfortable but I will.
Next year is trickier, guess I'll cross that bridge later. Themes are focussing on club rugby, Soup by replay, possible focus on watching SA over Aus and NZ teams. I certainly won't be getting season tickets or going to live Soup/WB games in 2018. Unfortunately, as much as I am outraged with the ARU, I will still watch rugby.
Unless of course this gets turned on it's arse and I won't miss a Force game.
James Pettifer
Jim Clark (26)
I'll be a Rebels member. Go to all the games that I can.
I want rugby in Melbourne.
Also if the Force don't appear next year, I think it will be disrespectful to Force fans to stop going.
FiveStarStu
Bill McLean (32)
Same. I'm well aware that, through no fault of our own, there's an image of blood on the Rebels' hands now.
I'd be insulted as a Force fan if the Rebels fans that went before stopped going. We're playing for two teams now.
Dismal Pillock
Michael Lynagh (62)
Easy, just change the team name to the Rebel Force. Hoover up all the Force players and disenfranchised WA fans with a "Rebel Alliance" promotional initiative, easy pickings snaring random Star Wars fans who dont give a shit about rugby, cosplay at the stadium, kids would love it, free light sabres at the games, fans waving them instead of flags, everyone belting each other after every try scored. Yes, only about 12 celebratory beltings a season but what celebrations they would be!
swingpass
Peter Sullivan (51)
its hard not to like where you're coming from Dismal, and i don't mean Pitcairn Is.
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