Where to for Super Rugby?

[The torpedo]

Is the "running track" on top of the new ARU facility at Moore Park actually a helipad?

It is and they are also being followed by the rest of the exces. Trying to get out before the people overrun the place and they get the guillotine

Is that Pulver and Kline jostling to be first in the helicopter?

As rugby supporters break down the gates to overthrown the regime.

That's Gnostic and I sitting on the front of the tank, Reds Happy on top and half is inside in the driver's seat.

Make sure to destroy the chopper. I'll bring the cake for the celebration.

 

[Rebels3]

One of today's best statements, herewith extracted media comment (news.com.au) re the RUPA statement and from Xenos' actual statement (my emphasis):

"Amid reports the ARU are negotiating with Melbourne Rebels owner Andrew Cox about buying his licence back and shutting the franchise down, Xenos said that option didn’t line up with the ARU’s narrative about the financial problems the game is facing.​

​

“Axing an Australian team and disenfranchising a Rugby community was justified five weeks ago by the ARU based on financial savings,” Xenos said.​

​

“Now, anywhere between six to ten million dollars promised to be invested into the game, including at the grassroots level, could be burned so that the ARU can cull a team and save face around the SANZAAR table.​

​

“Why are we are cutting a team at all and limiting Australian Rugby’s future if there are such discretionary funds within the game that ARU can afford to buy a license, only to scrunch it up and throw it away?”​

​

Where is the 'Like' button for that common sense and simple business wisdom?

I find it staggering and beyond belief that the ARU can allegedly find $6m in cash _just to close a franchise_ when for years we have heard of its poverty, 'no funds for investment' etc, etc.

Plus the related close down costs which, when discussing the actual creditor, player contracts pay-outs, and such like close-down costs for the Force, this figure was put at not far off $5m-$6m on its own.

Not just that, let's say the minimum $6mil is used to buy the franchise back, for that money the brumbies could sign To'omua and tomane, reds could have gill and genia back, berrick barnes could be steering the rebels around plus McMahon could be resigned add Luke jones into the second row, Force could bring JOC (James O'Connor) back and prob add to their frontrow greg Holmes and the tahs could prob have sitaleki Timani back plus room to sign a nick white, Jesse mogg, Hugh Pyle, ben mowen or Peter kimlin to add to the squad. Suddenly improved performances = improved crowds = improved tv audience = more kids playing = more sponsors

 

[dru]

half, I keep reading you're quitting the forum and then it's

I for one welcome his return (s).

 

[No4918]

Make sure to destroy the chopper. I'll bring the cake for the celebration.

Have you got anything to go with all that wine in the cellar? The ARU's most valuable asset will disappear in 5 hours.

 

[Ulrich]

Looks like this is really going to happen:

http://www.sarugbymag.co.za/blog/details/axed-sa-teams-to-join-celtic-pro12

 

[The torpedo]

Have you got anything to go with all that wine in the cellar? The ARU's most valuable asset will disappear in 5 hours.

Mate we're just destroying the chopper, the exces, and probs the top floor or 2 with the tank.

The cellar should be fine

RH, prepare to fire!!!!

Gnostic and QH, I strongly advise you to put your fingers in your ears (and maybe jump off the front of the tank)

 

[dru]

So, just like the Yanks in Vietnam, you are all in favour of bombing the village so as to save it?



I really do not understand some of the comments on this thread, I really don't.

It seems to me, Wam, that you frequently mistake the ARU for rugby in Australia.

 

[RedsHappy]

Mate we're just destroying the chopper, the exces, and probs the top floor or 2 with the tank.

The cellar should be fine

RH, prepare to fire!!!!

Gnostic and QH, I strongly advise you to put your fingers in your ears (and maybe jump off the front of the tank)

Should that glorious day arise, be assured I will be more than well-prepared.

The conquest will go smoothly and the arrested parties will be dealt with humanely (provided, that is, the secret combination code to the ARU's notoriously superior wine collection is promptly turned over after the clean-out).

 

[Rebels3]

Looks like this is really going to happen:

http://www.sarugbymag.co.za/blog/details/axed-sa-teams-to-join-celtic-pro12

Everyone wins here. At least the SARU is looking at other options. One suggestion a few weeks ago that lost any traction was having aus teams in the npc. There's already 2 divisions of 7 teams, so you could make another division with the 5 aus teams + Fiji. Or... reduce the aus teams to 3 in super rugby (nsw, qld and act) then have 4 teams (nsw, qld, Vic and wa) join the 2 npc divisions making it 2x9 team divisions. Not perfect but at least everyone gets some professional rugby. Our 3 super teams would have 4 teams feeding talent. It'd also save the aru cash, because the wa and Vic npc teams would be run on a dramatically smaller wage budget + less travel costs. Keeps professional rugby and a point for local wa and Vic players to aim for.

 

[The torpedo]

Should that glorious day arise, be assured I will be more than well-prepared.

The conquest will go smoothly and the arrested parties will be dealt with humanely (provided, that is, the secret combination code to the ARU's notoriously superior wine collection is promptly turned over after the clean-out).

Quite excellent. Begin your preparations.

 

[Gnostic]

Should that glorious day arise, be assured I will be more than well-prepared.



The conquest will go smoothly and the arrested parties will be dealt with humanely (provided, that is, the secret combination code to the ARU's notoriously superior wine collection is promptly turned over after the clean-out).

I am well known for by compassion and humanity.....

Now where did my wine go?

 

[RedsHappy]

It seems to me, Wam, that you frequently mistake the ARU for rugby in Australia.

...........or mistake it for a Guinness Book of Records holder as the sole, unique, never-before-seen supervisory body sitting over a globally-played, professional sports code and staffed with numerous well-paid executives, and yet where that body had no culpability, responsibility or accountablity for any deterioration of any kind in this code's fortunes in its own home market.

And so where that code's downfall was just an unstoppable, inevitable, fated outcome that no such body could have prevented, limited or modified thus justifying its relaxed insouciance and detached observation as the path of self-destruction unfolded. Questions were often asked that, given all this, what justified the body's large cost and its very existence, but no one ever cared to answer or seemed to know.

Finally then, Guinness BOR record intact, at the death there appeared still a small coterie of this body's celebrants chanting 'as we always told you, they were good people at heart, there was nothing they could have done otherwise'.

 

[Braveheart81]

Not just that, let's say the minimum $6mil is used to buy the franchise back, for that money the brumbies could sign To'omua and tomane, reds could have gill and genia back, berrick barnes could be steering the rebels around plus McMahon could be resigned add Luke jones into the second row, Force could bring JOC (James O'Connor) back and prob add to their frontrow greg Holmes and the tahs could prob have sitaleki Timani back plus room to sign a nick white, Jesse mogg, Hugh Pyle, ben mowen or Peter kimlin to add to the squad. Suddenly improved performances = improved crowds = improved tv audience = more kids playing = more sponsors

Surely the funds to close a team come from the broadcast deal that would have otherwise have been distributed to that team (possibly over more than one year).

This is in no way an endorsement of the plan but I don't think it is rocket science to work out where the funds the ARU and SARU might need to shut down a side will come from.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

[RedsHappy]

Surely the funds to close a team come from the broadcast deal that would have otherwise have been distributed to that team (possibly over more than one year).

This is in no way an endorsement of the plan but I don't think it is rocket science to work out where the funds the ARU and SARU might need to shut down a side will come from.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Not really.

Overall point re the background to this:

In any normal franchise operation - and I have seen many sizeable ones at close quarters - it is NEVER the case that the governing franchisor needs to pay substantial sums to simply to (a) buy-back local franchise rights from a franchisee where that franchisee is performing appallingly and (b) where such a buy-back would be _before_ and in addition to actual operational close-down costs to landlords, creditors, staff etc.

Any contract in such a context that did not so permit a franchisee's full termination without compensation upon conditions of sustained non-compliance with core policies or KPIs is extraordinarily deficient and commercially negligent in its nature.

Next, 'taking' from ARU broadcast income the cash to close a franchise like the Rebels solely as a buy-out payment to its owner in the first instance grossly magnifies the total, ultimate, all-in cost of such closure as the actual close-down costs thereafter will be, to the ARU's own admission, vary large in the multi-million $ range.

After an ARU cash investment of c. $15-18m in the Rebels to date, and then we add to it say $8-10m in final close out costs (both buy-out and close-down costs), how would we all feel after that c. $23m-$28m was spent and, in that eventuality.............it was all for precisely nothing.

 

[lou75]

Not really.

Overall point re the background to this:

In any normal franchise operation - and I have seen many sizeable ones at close quarters - it is NEVER the case that the governing franchisor needs to pay substantial sums to simply to (a) buy-back local franchise rights from a franchisee where that franchisee is performing appallingly and (b) where such a buy-back would be _before_ and in addition to actual operational close-down costs to landlords, creditors, staff etc.

Any contract in such a context that did not so permit a franchisee's full termination without compensation upon conditions of sustained non-compliance with core policies or KPIs is extraordinarily deficient and commercially negligent in its nature.

Next, 'taking' from ARU broadcast income the cash to close a franchise like the Rebels solely as a buy-out payment to its owner in the first instance grossly magnifies the total, ultimate, all-in cost of such closure as the actual close-down costs thereafter will be, to the ARU's own admission, vary large in the multi-million $ range.

After an ARU cash investment of c. $15-18m in the Rebels to date, and then we add to it say $8-10m in final close out costs (both buy-out and close-down costs), how would we all feel after that c. $23m-$28m was spent and, in that eventuality.....it was all for precisely nothing.

I would feel shithouse

 

[Inside Shoulder]

Still to do: Work out how to get rid of the Reds so that South Sydney can have a team ..

have to include south western Sydney so in its on the way to the snow - or the place where the snow used to be before climate change

 

[Strewthcobber]

In any normal franchise operation - and I have seen many sizeable ones at close quarters - it is NEVER the case that the governing franchisor needs to pay substantial sums to simply to (a) buy-back local franchise rights from a franchisee where that franchisee is performing appallingly and (b) where such a buy-back would be _before_ and in addition to actual operational close-down costs to landlords, creditors, staff etc.

Any contract in such a context that did not so permit a franchisee's full termination without compensation upon conditions of sustained non-compliance with core policies or KPIs is extraordinarily deficient and commercially negligent in its nature.

Are the Rebels performing appallingly or not complying with core policies or KPIs?

 

[RedsHappy]

Just in - a 'new urgent ARU stakeholders meeting'.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-...-urgent-meeting-over-super-rugby-saga/8534526

So predictable, but at least RUPA had some balls at last.

Clyne and Pulver want to avoid an EGM at all costs. Funny about that.

 

[Quick Hands]

Mate we're just destroying the chopper, the exces, and probs the top floor or 2 with the tank.

The cellar should be fine

RH, prepare to fire!!!!

Gnostic and QH, I strongly advise you to put your fingers in your ears (and maybe jump off the front of the tank)

I've been fighting this battle too long to jump off now. I'll be there till the last bullet and then the bayonet will the fixed for the final charge.

 

[Mr Doug]

In that situation, was there any way that any other franchise could have found out about Cronk once the Reds had rejected him?

chibimatty, Richo dropped in for a chat this afternoon. He said he didn't approach any other Super Rugby franchises about Cooper Cronk.
He rang several of his Reds mates, without success. It was Richo's last year as a Queensland schoolboys' Rugby selector. He wanted Cronk in the First XV squad as a 1/2-5/8, but they chose a GPS player. Cronk made the second XV.

Richo said, even then, Cronk displayed versatility, the ability to set up his backline, and an overall quality well-beyond that of his contemporaries.