Where to for Super Rugby?

[WorkingClassRugger]

I am a very passionate Tahs supporter however 6 home games a season is not going to cut it for me and hence I don't see myself renewing my membership, I have expressed my concerns already to the Tahs (And other franchises via SM) and I am yet to get a response.

Play Super Rugby round robin and then have all the Aus Super Rugby franchises play each other home and away plus Fiji Drua plus Force and maybe another team, there are enough wider squad players available so there is no player burnout, you capitalise on existing franchises and take Tahs games to North Sydney oval for instance or somewhere in the country if they need to.

Now I would definitely sign up for that even pay more for a membership, you get Super Rugby round robin which let's face it will be good AND you get a extra games via an NRC type comp featuring Aus Super Rugby sides.

This seems to be the preferred compromise of many here and something I'm all in favour of. The 4 Super Rugby teams plus at the very least the Force and Fiji at a minimum. That would be 10 games. Could spread the games around a bit. Look to involve Wallaby squad members when not required. And I mean all of them. If we could sort out a couple of other teams then that would be great.

Without the NRL and AFL to directly compete with it the Aus games were rating quite well. I'd go as far as to suggest we move it back to after both of those seasons are played. We know we have over the A-League. Twilight games. Smaller venues. More atmosphere.

 

[Jamie]

Yep, keep Super Rugby as is from now on, the rugby has been great this year and hopefully round robin will make things even better and then have our own thing BUT with Super Rugby sides and as you mention spread games around a bit, no need to play all games at the same venue and plenty of games to be able to play at different venues

 

[Rebels3]

Its all very bizzare logic.

Even the current system with 8 games, i am having issues with a bunch of mates that signed up for memberships this year. There is 8 of us that signed up, only 3 of us are what you'd call hardcore rugby supporters, the rest are casual watchers (primarily NRL supporters) but wanting to start engaging the team as they enjoy the game and love a night out. Of the 8 of us, only 4 of us will be attending the game this Saturday because the rest had completely forgot the Rebels were around and had organised other commitments, purely because the Rebels aren't front of mind as they have been away for a month. That'll be a good couple of hundred dollars lost to the venders at game and i can almost guarantee a couple of them won't resign for a membership next season, because they won't see the value in doing so. I wonder how many others are in the same boat, they will probably end up being guys that come purely because i can get a free ticket for them as they become people not engaged in the team, despite at some stage they had invested money in the form of a membership into the club looking to build rapport with something they can share with their mates/family.

I'd be happy for 10-12 home games a season, and taking a game or two to Geelong or Ballarat, it'd be the perfect excuse for a night away and support for the local club in the area. Then all of a sudden you are talking about government funding for city councils, etc. more opportunities for sponsors to be exposed, more opportunities for emerging talent to play, etc. i can see more positives from it, the only issue would be "player burnout" but that's easily solved with squad rotation and im sure the players also wouldn't mind the extra financial incentives associated, which might actually keep a few of them around longer.

Its ridiculous to think if we got to the stage where our teams are playing 20 games a season and the Wallabies 11-12 matches a year, that'd be too much exposure for the game. Anything drastically more and you'll be reaching the stage where its over doing it, anything less and its the case of under doing it.

 

[Rebels3]

Yep, keep Super Rugby as is from now on, the rugby has been great this year and hopefully round robin will make things even better and then have our own thing BUT with Super Rugby sides and as you mention spread games around a bit, no need to play all games at the same venue and plenty of games to be able to play at different venues

Yep, plus the one thing it will offer Australian rugby, that its struggled for in recent years, is associated success.

If the Waratahs won the "Australian Championship" itd be a lot easier to build into the next super season, commerically (because everyone loves a winner) and fans towards memberships (they think they are building into something greater), instead of all teams sucking and having nothing to hang their hat on. Then if you looked at cohesion with players exposed to playing with each other and the young players exposed to a higher level of play.

 

[Jamie]

Spot on! How can you build momentum like that? I'm in the same situation, we started a Tahs group and we all attended the Canes game and due to other commitments we have not been able to all attend the rest of the games as a group, but we are trying.

What is crazy though is the fact that any decision maker at RA level could jump on this forum and pick ONE of the solutions being presented by fans

 

[Bandar]

Yep, plus the one thing it will offer Australian rugby, that its struggled for in recent years, is associated success.

You mean you didn't really care about a Lions - Crusaders grand final played at 3:00 in the morning??? Can't believe it myself

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

So I've read the Aus article. It's not encouraging. A few ideas have been thrown about. One is to play mid week games against touring sides. Which seems unlikely and hardly worth it if your playing A sides. Another option is a mini-tournament in Dubai featuring two Aus teams. A couple of Kiwi teams and some from Europe. Any monies derived would be shared equally four ways. Because what Aus Rugby really needs is another irrelevant, poorly situated competition. A real boost that will be.

They suggest a pre-season comp but sight the lack of draw of trial matches. Maybe because they are TRIAL matches. If they are going to do something like that they need to push for Super Rugby to be pushed back as far as possible to make room for it. You could use GRR laws if the heat is an issue (though the Cheetahs and Kings play in the Sth African summer and that gets pretty warm) or introduce water breaks. Have the 4 in Super Rugby, the Force, Fiji and Samoa plus invite the winner of the Top League.

 

[Jamie]

I read the article also, I bought the paper at lunch for once They don't get it do they?! a mini tournament featuring two Aus teams in Dubai doesn't solve anything, in fact is the last thing I would want as a fan. Spot on with the trial matches, we HAVE to play our own comp after the Super Rugby (Fiji and the Force are already onboard the NRC)

As far as playing international sides, I'm fine with that but don't just rely on that, one extra game does not add much

 

[Rebels3]

There’s this notion that any competition minus the wallabies players is irrelevant and not worth supporting. I for one would rather an Australian Championship with the Super Rugby teams minus the wallabies contingent to support than some make shift tournament with random teams or the current version of the NRC with manufactured teams

Let’s say the comp was Reds, Rebels, Waratahs, Brumbies (post Super Rugby comp) Force and Drua (post GRR) over 10 weeks. You could have the matches on in the lead up to the RC games.

Friday
730-930 = Australian Championship

Saturday
3-5 = Australian Championship
530-730 = Rugby Championship
730-930 = Rugby Championship

Sunday
2-4 = Australian Championship

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

There’s this notion that any competition minus the wallabies players is irrelevant and not worth supporting. I for one would rather an Australian Championship with the Super Rugby teams minus the wallabies contingent to support than some make shift tournament with random teams or the current version of the NRC with manufactured teams

Let’s say the comp was Reds, Rebels, Waratahs, Brumbies (post Super Rugby comp) Force and Drua (post GRR) over 10 weeks. You could have the matches on in the lead up to the RC games.

Friday
730-930 = Australian Championship

Saturday
3-5 = Australian Championship
530-730 = Rugby Championship
730-930 = Rugby Championship

Sunday
2-4 = Australian Championship

And with weeks that the Wallabies are either playing in Aus and several squad members aren't required or in the weeks when they aren't playing at all they could come back and play in this structure.

 

[half]

In any given population, there is a percentage of people who watch sport and a percentage of people who don’t.

Modern sport has become a business, and many see the sports as a market segment.

Within the market segment called sport in Australia there are three [3] main team sports, in Cricket, AFL & NRL, at a professional level. The next level down would be motor sports [V8’s] rugby, & soccer. The next professional down would be basketball, netball.

There are also more individual sports in tennis, golf, surfing.

Then we have the more Olympic sports like Hockey etc.

Within the teams sports area, the A-League has been a disrupter in that it grew and caused, cricket, AFL & the NRL to react. Thus the Big Bash, AFLX, women’s AFL, league into a move into Oceania. Netball and the V8” s also reacted.

Essentially other codes reacted by increasing competition. Soccer in turn has had to react to changes around them and had a three-year civil war. Today soccer has 2 major discussion papers out with a third due soon. In a nut shell soccer is reacting by totally changing their management structure both now and into the future, and talking of expansion and new operating models.

I mention all this to consider all other codes have reached decisions they need to determine how to expand their “National Domestic Competitions” . The crust of this is the sporting segment of the population is reasonably flat. New immigrants to Australia are soccer / cricket supporters.

Rugby by this continual shrinkage of the product on offer will simply slide off the map slowly if we don’t react. The Wols are no longer along with cricket our national sides, soccer, basketball, netball, volleyball are all grabbing the national heart strings.

We need a National Domestic Competition and new operating procedures and lots of new capital. Anything short of this is merely delaying the final days of judgement. Further to long a delay to moving to new structures could be to late as there could be so little left to save.

 

[Jamie]

Agree, I would support that 100% makes two us and I am sure there will be plenty more, you only have to look at the Currie Cup for instance the Sharks, Bull, Stormers brand play both Super Rugby and Currie cup - minus test players.

Also we solve the "Mack Mason" dilemma, imagine fringe players getting a run regularly

 

[Slim 293]

Within the teams sports area, the A-League has been a disrupter in that it grew and caused, cricket, AFL & the NRL to react. Thus the Big Bash, AFLX, women’s AFL, league into a move into Oceania. Netball and the V8” s also reacted.

Essentially other codes reacted by increasing competition.

What???

 

[Jamie]

If anybody has a GGR connection here please pass it on so hopefully it reaches the powers that be, they had Cheika on the podcast so who knows, with enough noise they might listen

 

[Ignoto]

Friday
730-930 = Australian Championship

Saturday
3-5 = Australian Championship
530-730 = Rugby Championship
730-930 = Rugby Championship

Sunday
2-4 = Australian Championship

Interesting proposal, but your Saturday games will have an impact on the local scene or inversely, impact on the higher level games. A large rugby population watches their Premier Grade games after their game or pops down to the local oval. As a result, those people either can't attend the higher level games or can't be infront of a TV.

 

[half]

What???

Do you really want me to explain.

The short answer, pre 2005 in summer we had cricket and in winter AFL, League & Super Rugby.

The A-League came along and started to rate, expanded and cricket ratings started to fall. With the advent of the A-League and W-League their player numbers exploded from an already high base, especially in the AFL states.

Cricket, netball & AFL said they had to react and they did / have. You could argue it may have happened anyway. However I have read a number of reports and media articles which go into considerable detail, essentially saying cricket, AFL, netball need to react. The AFL held open meeting about how to react.

But all this is somewhat silly when discussing rugby, as we do SFA, we just keep shrinking, we appear to deny available evidence in front of us, often we deny this because of bias.

As I see it we have two clear choices, we either change our operating models and to do that we need lots of capital and lots of smarts as revenue in the short term will fall at the same time we increase the number of teams. Or we can as we always do sit back and hope someone overseas fixes it all for us.

 

[Rebels3]

Interesting proposal, but your Saturday games will have an impact on the local scene or inversely, impact on the higher level games. A large rugby population watches their Premier Grade games after their game or pops down to the local oval. As a result, those people either can't attend the higher level games or can't be infront of a TV.

I don’t see how it’d impact it.

It’s no different to the AFL or NRL games been on at the same time as the VFL or Q-Cup.

 

[Finsbury Girl]

My 2 bob, I don't want to see Qld play NSW, ACT etc 3 or 4 times a year.

Promote NRC post a shorter Super Rugby season & try and seque into premiership footy in Sydney and Brisbane.

Ideally I'd like to see:

early season club cup comp
Super rugby
club premiership
NRC
EOYT

with Internationals in between somewhere

A great autumn winter and spring season.

I'd prefer a shorter super season with less teams to make it meaningful.

 

[half]

Me I want a 10 team national domestic competition, playing out of 10 to 20K stadiums.

2 rounds over 18 weeks, plus finals

Using this as the linked model to set up and introduce private capital into rugby. https://medium.com/@isaac_krasny/unpacking-the-major-league-soccer-business-model-827f4b784bcd


2 Brisbane,
1 Newcastle,
4 Sydney,
1 Canberra,
1 Melbourne,
1 Perth

Some suggested owners, Twiggy, Lang Walker, BHP,

 

[Slim 293]

Well, I had no idea that the A League was so influential that it led to the creation of women’s sports, the international popularity of T20 cricket, and Brexit.