However, if by some miracle they do decide to at least look at a ressurection there was a rather in depth discussion on TheRoar a week or so ago on the ‘how’ such a competition could be run at limited cost to the ARU.

The solution. Independent ‘franchises’ outside of the ARU funding envelope. Essentially each team that wants to compete has to raise through sponsorship and such to be able to pay for their own travel, ground hire, merchandising/promotion and accomodation. The door will be open to any group that can prove they have the ability to run a squad. So if say NSWCountry can prove they can run a squad they are free to enter.

In terms of Sydney and Brisbane Clubs no one club could go it alone. Instead co-op teams would be the ideal set-up. With the four Eastern Suburb club forming say Sydney. The Northern Suburbs Clubs forming North Sydnet and the Western Clubs forming Western Sydney. A similar split could be established in Brisbane. Each Club would hold an interest in the National Rugby Championship club( by the way if it does get up once again they should under no circumstance use the ARC title. It was a failure intially and is forever now associated with failure so NRC would be a good subsitute).

Such a competition should start a month or so after the end of the Super14/15. Run in for one and a half rounds. Wallabies will participate when not on national duty. So somewhere between 12-16 rounds followed by a finals series. Ideally there would be say 10-12 teams. Each representing different areas of the country.

1. Sign the likes of Berne, Carter, Davidson, i.e. players who will give you 110% every time. That ensures the culture is strong now and for all incoming players in the future: Team spirit and “Us against them” ethos.

2. Ensure that they are very, very fit;

3. defence that will keep going all day.

4. Then you build from there with a backrow that wins the breakdown every week and

5. an attack based around possession. See, this reduces the amount of energy sapping defence required. Have them attack and support the ball carrier. ride the tackle, slip off loads and short passes through the forward channels and get the backs to run clever lines and loop for support.

6. Add a solid, reliable 9 and 10, say Phibbs and Halangahu,

7. Add a safe 11, 14 and 15 and

8. Add a good goal kicker.

9. Now, who can coach it, because it is quite simple. It is just a matter of “rehearsing” till it is instinctive. current coachs tend to be trying to reinvent the wheel, so go for a “steady as she goes” “man manager” coach, Bennett rather than Gibson.

there you have it: a team platform, culture and cattle that will win more than they lose. Teams can only beat you if they want it more. And that is your strength because you have signed players and built team culture that wants it real bad!!!!!!!

It was just blame shifting. Thats why it was only two lines at the end.

It simply refers to private ownership, rather than ownership by a recognised sporting organisation.

The Bronco’s and Melb Storm sre private equity, there is no old club with a chairman. Manly also was owned by Mr Delmege, their sponsor, for a while.

1. Not really
2. Not enough to step on some toes and crack a few heads
3. No

Are the ARU listening? My God I hope so….

In another thread about Melbourne becoming the 15th franchise, I suggested that the additional revenue for the ARU from a renegotiated broadcasting deal could fund a revamped and streamlined version of the ARC. Each competition is individually costed and presented as an entity in its own right for sale to broadcasters so establishing a national comp does offer financial benefits as well as costs because at the moment the ARU can only get cash from Super rugby and Tri Nations rugby from any broadcasting deal.

1. are they listening
2. do they want to fix the problem
3. do they have a plan

- How was this agreement reached?
- What sort of structure would the coaches like to see for the 2nd tier?
- Does the ARU agree with its State and National coaches (and the Qld physio!)?

and a thousand other questions that logically flow from here. Instead, it’s just buried at the bottom like an after-thought…

Why would they want to spend money on domestic rugby teams? The ARC went broke and there is nothing to suggest that the new idea can make any money. How many shirts will they sell? What will their gate taking be? How much corporate sponsorhip can they really hope for? Not much.

Unless there is money to be made, Private Equity WILL NOT be interested.

Geeze I tell you what, I’d love to be a fly on the wall to hear what the coaches & Deans are thinking and proposing for an ARC.

There just seems to be so much to fix at the present from head to toe it seems Rugby needs a complete make over. Well as they say about being this low ‘the only way to go from here is up’.

I’m sure if the correct amount of planning was done, it could become a reality. Start planning next year, kick it off in 2012. You know, NOT a World Cup year!!

Start speaking with travel partners, hotel partners, apparrel partners, etc all now and give them five-year exclusive sponsorship/partnership deals if needed. ONE HD would love the opportunity for extra FTA content.

Start on smaller grounds if need be, fill them, and then move to the stadiums. That can be your link with the grassroots in the initial years.

There just seems to be so many lessons learnt from the ARC v1 that getting it re-established should be a cinch!! The mistakes have already been identified, just don’t repeat them!!

The way I’m seeing things going, unless the ARU acts sooner rather than later, ‘the product’ will become steadily less and less valuable. Or to put it another way, sponsors may not wish to be associated with the Wallaby brand name.

Some serious thinking & decision making needs to be done now. Get it wrong and our chance to be competitive on the world stage against the likes of Sth Africa, the All Blacks, Ireland, Wales, France and England may be lost forever.

We must get the ARC up and running asap. End of story.

Surely short term pain (the club presidents) is worth the long term gain (more professional depth)??

Robbing Peter to pay Paul continues to bandaid the folly of the top down growth approach which only adds to Unions precarious state in Oz. The illussion of growth at the top tier could be likened to what happened to Iceland in the most recent recession.

Until a healthy NPC is established and NOT in conjunction with any Super expansion, Union will continue to regress beyond its current meagre status in this country. It needs to built from the ground up with alot more national fortitude. This is NOT NZ or Saffa and the sooner the custodians of the game here accept this the more hope for it’s future here in Australia.

The positive to this is that it is easy for the wallabies to get a settled starting team as they arent really spoiled for choice, the obvious setbacks are that if a player does not perform who do they replace him with and if the team suffers a few injuries the strenght of the team is greatly reduced.

This as always been the case though and for periods of time it has been shielded by the fact that the wallabies where able to scrape together a strong 15 that shielded the lack of playing talent in the country.

At the moment i think the ARU are stuck between a rock and a hard place as they need to make money to develop more players and to make money they need to win more and to win more they need to recruit outside of australia to boost their teams and hence block future wallabies from getting exposure, See the visouis cycle. I mean every team is now alowed to recruit two players from outside australia (correct me if im wrong i think it is two not 100% sure) that means that 8 of the wallaby positions could be potentially only be conteasted by three maybe four players. Contrast that to south africa and New Zealand for example who both have five super14 teams plus the currie cup and the NPC backing that up. So they can still pick young players from outside the super 14 which happenes often look at Francouis steyn for example made is Debut for the springboks before playing for the Sharks.

Now add that with the future possibality of kiwi and SA players playing for the Aus S14 teams and still being ellegable to play for their countrys.

Who do you think is really going to benefit from this?

RESULT aust needs a provincial comp like nz,sa. gosh even dexter dutton would agree with that
but alas the brains at aru cant fathom the reasoning or cant afford it

why not get the wallies to raise some cash by playing extra games if dempsey persuades them OR
allow some star at aru to initiate sponsorship like other sporting administrators ,take a pay cut, get lote to donate to the cause or get the kids to give up their toys.
surely its the basic function of aru to tidy up once and for all this vexing problem
hard to do deans if the product is shite

The curse of the digital age is that any idiot with internet access can get online and spout whatever rubbish they want. Growden & Poidevin for example.

At the moment the Rugby seems more like money gone mad. Everyone’s big on expectations and demands but low on responsibility and delivery. Maybe players need to learn about and reflect on our humble beginnings and how we raised money with car washes, BBQ’s or what ever it took to get our team kitted out. Do players today even get it?

But there has been plenty of talk… people have such differing ideas… some want to start on the existing base, others want a “new” provincial arrangement separate to clubs… who knows what will ever come of it.

But while you have people like Simon Poidevin believing Sydney club rugby is sacrosanct, you just can’t really see anything happening.

” A meeting of Wallabies and Super rugby coaches yesterday reached an agreement that Australia needs a second-tier competition to provide depth and a pathway for players.”

Will the ARU take notice?

Here’s my take on things:
1. It’s seems pretty clear that we need something done to improve things between club & Super 14/15.; and
2. Money is a problem & the ARC while it produced good results & provided opportunities, was canned because of the lack of $.

Meantime I wonder if more can’t be done with less. By this I mean that way back in the bad old days of amaturism, we used to actually do things for the love of it. Blokes like me would board a slow train from Sydney to Brisbane to play, get flogged, have a good time & take the train back home. I paid for the transport, the accomodation & all my own expenses. I got zero except the fun of being with mates & having a good time playing. That was it.

Yes, yes, I know things have changed and no one with half a brain would do it like that ever again. But maybe just maybe we need to step back somewhat from professional or should I say commercial thinking to perhaps reflect the reality of our situation. If we had people prepared to do more for less, then the money available could go further and more would be achieved.

I just read that Robbie Deans is meeting with Australia’s Super 14 coaches. This is really good news. No doubt they are having a brain storm about what can be done and how to go about it. My advice would be to try asking people if they would be willing to do more for less. They may be surprised that not everyone is only after money.