Where to for Super Rugby?

[Rebels3]

After reading posting on this thread I've headed that way too.

And with the announcement of the Global Calendar, a Feb-June 16 week home and away NRC then finals. Followed by the Inbound Tests then TRC would be just fine by me.

But do we have the fortitude to take 2 steps back now to take 3 forward over the next generation.

Can't we just have an 8 week domestic competition. Then from there, wait for super rugby to implode then have a champions league style comp. Make the domestic comp 12 weeks if needed.

 

[Dan54]

Gee we getting stranger ideas all the time, ok lets have an 8 week competition and stuff super rugby, and don't worry about the fact there will be bugger all money to pay the players, we know they won't bugger off to Europe and the big dollars. I know a few are getting pissed off waiting, but if these ideas are what some think are great, I think it perhaps better that Sanzaar takes it's time to sort it out!

 

[Inside Shoulder]

Gee we getting stranger ideas all the time, ok lets have an 8 week competition and stuff super rugby, and don't worry about the fact there will be bugger all money to pay the players, we know they won't bugger off to Europe and the big dollars. I know a few are getting pissed off waiting, but if these ideas are what some think are great, I think it perhaps better that Sanzaar takes it's time to sort it out!

Aha - so you guys really are worried about us going it alone

 

[Quick Hands]

Gee we getting stranger ideas all the time, ok lets have an 8 week competition and stuff super rugby, and don't worry about the fact there will be bugger all money to pay the players, we know they won't bugger off to Europe and the big dollars. I know a few are getting pissed off waiting, but if these ideas are what some think are great, I think it perhaps better that Sanzaar takes it's time to sort it out!

It's not the waiting, is the realisation the super rugby isn't working from an Australian perspective. The money that SANZAAR has brought with it hasn't strengthened the game in Australia on or off the field. Quite the opposite. The base of the rugby pyramid here has shrunk to the extent that if the current trend continues it won't be enough to sustain a professional presence in Australia.

As for SANZAAR sorting it out, I can see no evidence to suggest that that body is capable of sorting anything out. As a group, the partners have less in common now that when super rugby was first established. Every country has completely different needs, completely different markets, completely different problems (to the extent that rugby in NZ has any problems at all) and each have mutally exclusive demands.

EDIT: NZ and SA want more games against each other - with Australia out they'll both have their wish.

 

[Joe King]

Part of me hopes SA can't sort it out so that the ARU and NZRU realise SANZAAR needs to change.

If you give the fans in Oz something they love, the market here has real potential, which could benefit NZ too.

 

[Quick Hands]

Part of me hopes SA can't sort it out so that the ARU and NZRU realise SANZAAR needs to change.

If you give the fans in Oz something they love, the market here has real potential, which could benefit NZ too.

You have to be able to watch your team every week. Disappearing for a couple of weeks to play games at 3 in the morning and then a bye here and there to compensate for the travel and over to Argentina just doesn't work from a fan engagement perspective.

Even last week with 2 Aussie teams SANZAAR couldn't get it right - Brumbies v Force in Canberra at 7.30pm , i.e. 4.30pm Perth time. Half the Force fans would still have been at work or in transit for most of the game.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

After reading posting on this thread I've headed that way too.

And with the announcement of the Global Calendar, a Feb-June 16 week home and away NRC then finals. Followed by the Inbound Tests then TRC would be just fine by me.

But do we have the fortitude to take 2 steps back now to take 3 forward over the next generation.

As much as I would like a domestic long form nrc comp I can't see it as realistic _ a.trans Tasman Asian league with more innovative product (e.g...allowing imports.outside of Set minimum domestic.quota), I.could.

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[gel]

Some interesting options being suggested in this thread.

I imagine Sanzaar will somehow manage to come up with something else entirely, and for it to be unimaginably worse.

Improbability fields and bistro mathematics have nothing on the powers welded by a boardroom full of suited idiots.

 

[Dan54]

You have to be able to watch your team every week. Disappearing for a couple of weeks to play games at 3 in the morning and then a bye here and there to compensate for the travel and over to Argentina just doesn't work from a fan engagement perspective.

Even last week with 2 Aussie teams SANZAAR couldn't get it right - Brumbies v Force in Canberra at 7.30pm , i.e. 4.30pm Perth time. Half the Force fans would still have been at work or in transit for most of the game.

Understand Quick Hands, but although would be great for Aussie to have all games at 6-7.30, you do realise that a 7.45pm kick off here is 9.45 in NZ which to a lot of people is too late. That is one problem we all think we are hard done by if we have to get up early but noone seems to be worried worried how it suits any other country at all!!

 

[TOCC]

Understand Quick Hands, but although would be great for Aussie to have all games at 6-7.30, you do realise that a 7.45pm kick off here is 9.45 in NZ which to a lot of people is too late. That is one problem we all think we are hard done by if we have to get up early but noone seems to be worried worried how it suits any other country at all!!

5:30 AEST on a Sat or Sun is also prime time in New Zealand, this time zone thing can work both ways and suit all parties

 

[louie]

First port of call should be fixing the standard of referees. I'm sick of having parts of game just ignored. The standard changes with every game. Really not good enough.

 

[dru]

I've become convinced that the only way for Australian rugby to recover is to get out of super rugby. There may be some short term pain, but long term it's the only way.

I'm not there, Quick. But I may be getting there.

In the mean time I DO think we are not doing Aus rugby justice to do anything less than have a well developed plan to be out on our own

I'm liking the idea of SOO style teams to take Aus rugby into a Champions League thing. As long as the domestic comp is serious.

It's not that this proposal is becoming enticing, it's that I am failing to envisage something on offer that comes close.

 

[Quick Hands]

Understand Quick Hands, but although would be great for Aussie to have all games at 6-7.30, you do realise that a 7.45pm kick off here is 9.45 in NZ which to a lot of people is too late. That is one problem we all think we are hard done by if we have to get up early but noone seems to be worried worried how it suits any other country at all!!

But this was an all Aussie game that I was talking about, with no real impact on NZ or SA.

I think that the time zone issue is one of the problems with super rugby in general. No matter when the games are played, there are supporters in another country whose team will be playing at an unwatchable hour. I think that it impacts us in Australia more, not because we're special, but because the game is much weaker here in terms of fan support and media coverage than in either SA or NZ.

Where I work, there's a few rusted on rugby fans and even some of them can't really get engaged with super rugby, but the guys who either follow league, aussie rules, soccer or just take a passing interest in sport and have a reasonable idea what's going on in all of those sports, don't even engage in following rugby because the team is invisible for parts of the year and the competition is incomprehensible. (If they take any interest in rugby, it's more likely to be the local Shute Shield team that the Waratahs). So the Australian circumstance is that we're losing support from casual followers of rugby and we're also failing to engage many/any new supporters.

As I said in an earlier post, we've had super rugby for about 20 years and in that time (mainly in the past 10 years) the game here has gone backwards. So it's just not working for us.

From my observation, we're pretty much the only place in the world where rugby is in decline. Doing the same thing that we've been doing and expecting any change in the result, seems to be a folorn hope IMO.

 

[half]

I'm not there, Quick. But I may be getting there.

.

I been their for 18 years.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

As much as I would like a domestic long form nrc comp I can't see it as realistic _ a.trans Tasman Asian league with more innovative product (e.g.allowing imports.outside of Set minimum domestic.quota), I.could.

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

someone posted there are 100 pro players OS.
If we can't pay them to stay here how can we afford to attract non Aussies who have no reason other than money to play here.
The problem is epitomised by Meakes at the force. This guy played with Beale at schoolboy level, was in oz 20s and was a good 12 for Norths. He may have had a training contract with a super side but I'm not aware he did. Went to UK because he was not wanted here. Over there he won 2 (at least) player of the year awards in the premiership.
On what I've seen he is playing better than any 12 in oz, bar - possibly- hodge.
This guy was not a late bloomer.
How did the rugby geniuses who anoint the talented for higher honours miss him for so long?
How does Horwitz leap frog a bloke like this?
Amongst many things we have a talent identification problem and don't need to make it worse be reducing the spots through importation.

 

[Dave Beat]

There are two common characteristics which succesful sports in Australia possess (even sports with a lower profile than rugby)

1. A system of junior and youth development which is club based rather than school base

2. A national competition at the elite level

We've now had super rugby for 20 years and in that time the game of rugby in Australia has gone backwards at exponential speed. Surely it's time to re-evaluate our continued participation. I've gone from being a 100% supporter of our participation to having the view that we'd be better off out of it. To me the super rugby concept is almost unsalvageable from where it is now. Let's all go our separate ways and stand on our own two feet.

QH - I'd sooner make the trip out to Penrith and watch Marlins v the Emus than make a trip to Moore park.
I support rugby, but the difference between ARU, and Australian rugby has lost me.

 

[dru]

QH - I'd sooner make the trip out to Penrith and watch Marlins v the Emus than make a trip to Moore park.
I support rugby, but the difference between ARU, and Australian rugby has lost me.

These discussion get circular. But its a different thread.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

5:30 AEST on a Sat or Sun is also prime time in New Zealand, this time zone thing can work both ways and suit all parties

And why time zones for trans tasman competition could work. Tend to agree we have nz come with us or go it alone with 2 steps back to go three steps forward. As we can't sustain super rugby in its current conference form as will only lead to dwindling interest.

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Rugbynutter39]

I been their for 18 years.

I think more people are quickly realising you have been right for 18 years half.

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Skunk]

When you're supposed to be in a meeting but time zones are more important...