Where to for Super Rugby?
- Thread starter Quick Hands
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Forcefield
Ken Catchpole (46)
Go to your bathroom. Light a candle. Turn off the light. Say "Shiggins" 5 times to the mirror.......
Quick Hands
David Wilson (68)
Brumbieman
Dick Tooth (41)
Yup....exactly, ties in nicely with the NRC! Randwick/Sydney Uni too...
IT's a great comp, but the regions need re-jigging to try and harness some club rugby hated. Manly might hate Warringah, but if the rep team they feed to is up against Uni/Randwick' feeder team....how hard could it be to get people interested in that?
Really, any average marketing agency with a little bit of $$ to spend on making sure people actually know the game is on, could get a bit of rivalry going with those options.
It's the only thing the NRC is missing - club rivalries being carried up into the rep sides
IT's a great comp, but the regions need re-jigging to try and harness some club rugby hated. Manly might hate Warringah, but if the rep team they feed to is up against Uni/Randwick' feeder team....how hard could it be to get people interested in that?
Really, any average marketing agency with a little bit of $$ to spend on making sure people actually know the game is on, could get a bit of rivalry going with those options.
It's the only thing the NRC is missing - club rivalries being carried up into the rep sides
KOB1987
John Eales (66)
I'll be watching the NRL tonight and over the weekend purely to expand my current sports viewing options beyond horse racing. Only FTA though, I certainly wouldn't pay for the shit. How many others in the same boat? It's only a short term fix till Super AU starts, there is a real opportunity here for Rugby if they can get the sales mix right.
The_Brown_Hornet
John Eales (66)
I can't imagine anything would make me watch league these days. It bores the tits off me.
WorkingClassRugger
Michael Lynagh (62)
A way of doing something similar would be to make the NRC all about representative Rugby. Being bring back North Sydney, Sydney and Western Sydney and align clubs within each region of the City. Similar for Brisbane with a North/South divide and Canberra with the Vikings vs the rest etc.
They tried that in Sydney in the first NRC. The Rays were north, Rams in the west, Stars in town and Country for the regions.
The clubs and club fans didn't embrace their new rep sides, sadly. Now there were many reasons why that happened, but I suspect another go at that format would yield a similar result.
WorkingClassRugger
Michael Lynagh (62)
North Sydney was about the only true representative side though. The Stars were Sydney Uni plus Balmain. Eastwood didn't join with Greater Sydney which had to be called because Souths had been lumped into it and Eastern Suburbs and Randwick aligned with Country. It was a mix and match from the start. Similar with Qld with Brisbane joined by Country playing out of the GC.
But the case of the Rays was still indicative. Here was the golden triangle - Norths, Warringah, Manly. Three big Shute Shield clubs that all could point to big crowds in the past. Heartland areas with strong junior clubs too.
If any NRC team could pull a big crowd, it was this one. But they couldn't do it. It just didn't quite work. They had modest enough crowds, there wasn't nobody there, but it didn't exactly scream 'make this a permanent feature of our game'.
.
drewprint
Dick Tooth (41)
Did it need more time to build that though? I’m definitely not in the club rugby loop here in Brisbane (two years of colts for Souths about 15 years ago), but I think a north/south rivalry could be built with a bit of time and application. Souths/Sunnybank/Easts/Bond vs UQ/Norths/GPS/Brothers/Wests.
Maybe, but the Rays had at least four years (off the top of my head) and never got close to reaching the support levels you might think they would be able to achieve.
So it might be hypothetically possible to develop, but you'd need 7-10 years at least. And I'm not sure we can afford that.
Quick Hands
David Wilson (68)
Manly and Warringah are indeed bitter rivals on the field, but both clubs have always had the position that if ever a national competition came into being then they would combine as one 'franchise.' Manly Warringah is the name of every just about every major sporting club/group on the beaches. League, soccer, cricket, hockey and others all use the name and with the league team in the NRL the name has national brand recognition. It might also give everyone someone to hate, although if Randwick and Sydney Uni were involved we'd have to get in the queue for the hatred.
Quick Hands
David Wilson (68)
The Rays had good crowds early when it was a genuine Manly Warringah Norths Gordon joint venture. Where it ran off the rails was when you had players who played for Manly and Warringah end up playing for the Rams or the Stars. It completely lost the parochialism and that was all she wrote.
Quick Hands
David Wilson (68)
Yes, but the problem with this iteration of the ARC was that the Sydney North team played at Central Coast stadium and Sydney City played at North Sydney Oval.
Quick Hands
David Wilson (68)
I've followed Manly Rugby and Manly Warringah RL all my life. Rugby is definitely my first love, but I'll be tuning in to the league tonight. Very difficult match for me as decades of Parramatta hatred comes up against more recent (since they shafted Bennett) Broncos hatred. But it's this dislike of opposition teams (as opposed to the players or supporters of those teams I add), which gives sport it's parochialism and passion.
Jimmy_Crouch
Peter Johnson (47)
I want Foxtel/Kayo to know I am a rugby fan and I am not happy about their treatment of our sport. I also don't want to hear the headlines on the spike of memberships due to league.
Although staved of live sport I wont be giving them anything until the day rugby is back.
Although staved of live sport I wont be giving them anything until the day rugby is back.
Brumbieman
Dick Tooth (41)
That's exactly the approach i'd take - and your other post addressed another good point. If you do segment into regions, then you cant have players jumping ship to a different franchise.
Brisbane has several top teams each side of the river, Sydney much the same. Canberra could do the same with the lake if two NRC teams were based in Canberra. Vikings down south use their own budget and support to get a semi-pro team up to standard like they keep suggesting they could, and north of the lake you have the Kookaburras, the original ACT rep team that the Shute Shield didn't appreciate coming up the highway and beating them. There is built in hatred there already, even I could turn that into a grudge match with just a megaphone and two jersey.
6 city based teams at minimum, ideally Western Sydney gets their own team, then a country team from NSW and QLD along with Melbourne/Victoria and Perth/WA. Name them literally by region so no one is confused, put out maps etc with demarcation lines drawn in place.
That won't happen until people get behind the NRC though, so you stick with one in ACT, rearrange the Brisbane/Sydney regions into north v south strictly rep teams, even down to schoolboy level, and then market the shit out of it and have people shmooze all the various clubs to try and get them to see the benefit and buy in.
It's as much a coaching pathway as it is for players, and that is probably the area we are most desperate for talent right now. Jake White proved in 2012 with the Brumbies that you can have a squad of nobodies and journeymen playing with 3-4 Wallabies and they'll turn into gold if you coach and recruit well lets take that proof and run with it by developing high quality coaches all coaching the same basic skills, all the way down to U8's.
KOB1987
John Eales (66)
After reading all these excellent posts, and taking on board some genuine concerns re tribalism, the disconnect with the NRC, there can only be one pro tier below the Wallabies etc, I have reached a dramatic conclusion. There are only 2 models that can work, they are polar opposites, and they are both problematic.
For this illustration I am going to exclude any PI involvement at a team level. The objective is to build a competition from which we select our national team. PIs can play for any team, but can’t enter their own one.
The first is a top down model, essentially using the 5 existing state franchises. The initial problem is that there are only 5 teams, so potentially 4 rounds, and all bar one making the finals. Could get boring. However, over time NSW and Qld could split into two or even three teams, this needs to be well managed though and I have no idea what the best approach would be.
The second is a bottom up approach, specifically a national club comp, say 4 each NSW & Qld, 2 x ACT, Melbourne and Perth. Which clubs make it though? Could cause division, and those that don’t will effectively be dropping back to 1st division subbies (NSW & Qld anyway), or more viably the top subbies clubs would be promoted. Would run as a promotion/relegation setup, the relegation side is easy to pick but how to you pick the potential promotion side? They are all playing in separate comps.
I’ve come to the conclusion that aside from governance our biggest problem is that our country is too fucking big.
For this illustration I am going to exclude any PI involvement at a team level. The objective is to build a competition from which we select our national team. PIs can play for any team, but can’t enter their own one.
The first is a top down model, essentially using the 5 existing state franchises. The initial problem is that there are only 5 teams, so potentially 4 rounds, and all bar one making the finals. Could get boring. However, over time NSW and Qld could split into two or even three teams, this needs to be well managed though and I have no idea what the best approach would be.
The second is a bottom up approach, specifically a national club comp, say 4 each NSW & Qld, 2 x ACT, Melbourne and Perth. Which clubs make it though? Could cause division, and those that don’t will effectively be dropping back to 1st division subbies (NSW & Qld anyway), or more viably the top subbies clubs would be promoted. Would run as a promotion/relegation setup, the relegation side is easy to pick but how to you pick the potential promotion side? They are all playing in separate comps.
I’ve come to the conclusion that aside from governance our biggest problem is that our country is too fucking big.
Rugbynutter39
Michael Lynagh (62)
I just want someone to stop continuing on with status fucking quo which has fans deserting in droves at rapid rate over last 5 years and even more alarming is stats in more rapid decline in young fans.
RA need to get to the table with twiggy who also want change and work this shit out. Only a very small minority (read not any mass to make commercially viable) want super rugby and more than most don’t.
The dialogue so far from our new RA chairman positive but we are all tired of talk and want real action and real change. Not continuing to put lipstick on a pig.
RA need to get to the table with twiggy who also want change and work this shit out. Only a very small minority (read not any mass to make commercially viable) want super rugby and more than most don’t.
The dialogue so far from our new RA chairman positive but we are all tired of talk and want real action and real change. Not continuing to put lipstick on a pig.
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