The terrible year for Australian rugby continues
Columnist
By Spiro Zavos, 22 Oct 2009 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert
- Tagged:
- Rugby Union, SANZAR, SARU, South African Rugby Union, Southern Kings, Super 15, Super Rugby, wallabies
212 Have your say
Australian rugby coach Robbie Deans watches his players warm-up before their game against the New Zealand All Blacks in Sydney, Australia, Saturday, July 26, 2008. AP Photo/Mark Baker
Around 3 o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, the ARU issued a press release headed: Super 15 decision heads to arbitration. The SANZAR executive committee, the release stated, “could not reach agreement.” As a result, “no vote was taken” and the matter goes to arbitration where the decision will be binding.
What the bland wording of the release hides is the sheer bastardry of the South African Rugby Union in pushing for a Super 15 spot for a sixth South African team when it already has five teams, along with New Zealand.
The bastardry is compounded by the fact that the Southern Kings, the SARU option, is a mediocre team not even strong enough to do well in the Currie Cup, let alone in the Super 15 tournament.
The SARU option is all about South African politics and the promotion of a black side in a major rugby competition.
SARU can have the Southern Kings in the Super 15 tournament by eliminating one of the current sides, probably the Lions. But it prefers to try to compromise the viability and integrity of the Super 15 by pushing for a bid that has no merit from a playing point of view, in spectator interest, or a balanced tournament structure for local derbies home and away, or from television payment interests.
The nuns taught us to always exercise forgiveness.
But I hope that the ARU, after the arbitrator makes the inevitable decision in favour of the Melbourne bid, never forgives or forgets SARU’s behaviour in this matter.
There will come a time of reckoning for South African rugby when they need something very badly from the ARU. Let’s hope that the ARU screws SARU as ruthlessly as it has screwed the ARU over the fifth Australian franchise and, earlier in the year, over the extended Super 15 concept that comes into force in 2011.
There will be critics of the ARU who will blame it for this failure to complete the Melbourne bid. The fact is that nothing the ARU could have done would have stopped SARU from its determination to press forward with the Southern Kings bid.
It is also a fact, however, that the failure of SANZAR to endorse the Melbourne bid application represents yet another setback (although temporary, hopefully) for Australian rugby in what has been a terrible year for it.
Let me outline the ways it has been terrible.
There has been a massive falling off in ratings and crowds for the Wallabies and for the Australian Super 14 sides.
The rugby public has been disenchanted with the confusion over what laws games have been played under, with the ELVs for the Super 14 and club rugby (which had strong television support in Sydney) and the modified ELVs for the Tests.
The style of play of the Australian Super 14 sides, especially the NSW Waratahs with their ‘win ugly’ game (with only the second word in the phrase being carried out), and the Wallabies in the Tri-Nations, with the exception of a brilliant win against the Springboks at Brisbane, turned spectators and viewers off in their droves.
Even Robbie Deans was disgusted with the performance (or lack of performance) of the Wallabies in their third defeat this season by the All Blacks at Wellington. Deans accused his players of not respecting and honouring the jersey.
The Wallabies had a poor Tri-Nations series, winning only one Test out of six.
No Australian Super 14 side made the finals.
The vicious hostility of RUPA (the players’ trade union) poisoned the attempts of the ARU to get recalcitrant players to do their jobs, on and off the field.
The case of Lote Tuqiri was the trigger for some more RUPA nastiness towards the ARU, despite the fact that the player was not game enough to explain to the public why he was being booted out of rugby.
The coverage of the Tuqiri affair on Fox Sports’ The Rugby Show was biased against the ARU to such an extent that Wallabies were told they could not appear on the show at one point.
The television presentation of Super 14 and Test matches by Fox Sports suffered from an abysmal understanding of the laws by Phil Kearns and boosterism for the Queensland Reds and the Wallabies by Greg Martin that insulted the sensibilities of supporters of teams in the SANZAR countries that did not support Martin’s preferred sides.
The other football codes, especially rugby league, benefit greatly from a brilliant television coverage of their games.
The ARU’s own polling showed that the ‘brand health’ of rugby for the March-June quarter confirmed (hardly surprisingly) Australian rugby’s popularity was on the wane and that the public passion had gone out of the game.
Rugby was deemed ‘exclusive and hard to follow.’ Rugy league and AFL were deemed to be more tribal.
A week or so ago, Greg Growden had an interesting interview with John O’Neill in The Sydney Morning Herald about the sad state of the union in Australia.
O’Neill candidly admitted “the game is not where it should be and not where it has been.” Rugby, he said, has a “very loyal fan base but they are getting very impatient.”
He pointed out that the Wallabies have won only two Tri-Nations tournaments in 14 years; that they finished last this year; that they haven’t won the Bledisloe Cup since 2002; that, despite two Rugby World Cup victories, the Wallabies were somewhere between 5th and 8th in the 2007 RWC; and that only two Super Rugby titles have been won.
“It all revolves around success on the field. People can blame the laws of the game and all sorts of things but, at the end of the day, everyone is operating under the same laws. We can’t blame anyone but ourselves,” O’Neill told Growden.
O’Neill insisted, and it is hard to disagree with him, that a lot of the problems facing Australian rugby will be resolved when, and if, the Wallabies start winning the big Tests.
Robbie Deans has coached the Wallabies for 25 matches (23 Tests and two Barbarians matches) for 15 wins and 10 losses. Nine of the losses have been against the Springboks and the All Blacks, the two best teams in the world.
Under Deans the record against the All Blacks is 6 – 1 to them, and 3 – 3 against the Springboks.
“We’ve got to get ourselves back into the 75 – 80 per cent win-loss ratio,” O’Neill insists.
He also insists that successful sporting bodies are “hallmarked” by the administration, the coach and the captain being “on the same wavelength.”
We see here, I believe, the reason why George Smith and Stirling Mortlock lost their leadership positions in the Wallabies. Mortlock did not (initially) publicly support the ARU on the Tuqiri affair, even though he knew the full story.
A captain like John Eales, who worked splendidly with O’Neill and coach Rod Macqueen through an earlier depressing period to eventually win the 1999 RWC tournament, would certainly have supported the ARU over Tuqiri’s dismissal.
The Super Rugby franchises also need to pick up their game and start delivering strong winning results and attractive rugby to win back their supporters.
Rugby in Australia suffers from a lack of product to sustain a full season.
Deans has joined the clamour for some sort of equivalent of the Currie Cup and New Zealand provincial tournaments. Personally, I think some form of national club tournament in Australia after the local tournaments are completed might be the answer.
The top four Sydney sides, three from Brisbane, a Melbourne side, Canberra and a NSW Country side, and President side of the best of the other unions might provide the answer.
The expanded Super Rugby format in 2011 will provide more matches in Australia, with Test and Super Rugby going on from late February to October. This will make a difference to answering the ‘lack of product’ problem, provided Australia gets its fifth Super Rugby franchise, that franchise is run out of Melbourne by the Melbourne bidders, and that Australian teams perform well in the expanded tournament.
Which brings us back to the absolute necessity of a rational SANZAR arbitration decision.
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Billo said | October 22nd 2009 @ 1:25am | Report comment
The problem for rugby in Australia is that when the Wallabies or the Super 14 sides hit a bad patch, which is inevitable at some stage, the fans have two other major football codes they can migrate to during the rugby season. Neither South Africa nor New Zealand have this problem.
So success, and attractive rugby, is more important for Australian sides than for their SANZAR rivals.
The trouble is that the ARU operates under a structure that doesn’t allow it to address this central problem.
If rugby had a second tier competition that was merely Australia wide, the impression of Australian failure across the Super 14 teams would automatically be removed.
I’m coming to the conclusion that SANZAR actually holds rugby back in Australia, and the attitude of the South Africans simply highlights that point.
sheek said | October 22nd 2009 @ 3:40pm | Report comment
Billo,
I actually agree with you that ,”SANZAR actually holds rugby back in Australia”.
Which is why I would like to see the super format truncated to a Heineken Cup style format, & more exposure given to the national comp creation.
You have to keep the super format in some form to retain TV revenue streams. But while S12 was tremendously beneficial for Australian rugby, the high water mark of that benefit was probably reached several years ago.
Australian rugby needs to have more control over its destiny. The time for surfing off the wave created by South Africa & new Zealand is passing. We have to make our own waves (sorry for the poor cliches).
Spiro,
With respect I don’t like your national club concept one bit. Like so many other poster’s suggestions, it’s too itsy-bitsy & too fawning of Sydney.
Contrary to popular opinion, I would support a an existing clubs national club, if I saw one worth supporting. But so far, no-one has satisfactorily convinced me.
general comment,
If by some unbelievable blight of all that is supposed to good & true, & the S15 decision goes in favour of Southern Kings, the ARU should withdraw immediately from SANZAR. I would be surprised if the NZRU didn’t follow suit.
The South African govt, & their dogs, the SARU, are an absolute disgrace!
mcxd said | October 22nd 2009 @ 1:38am | Report comment
Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t ?
Maybe SARU know what the obvious and sensible decision is and know the likely outcome yet may be want to be seen pushing hard for their team due to SA politics ?
Skip said | October 22nd 2009 @ 10:09am | Report comment
I agree mcxd. The Sanzar reps from South Africa have to fight toooth and nail to get the 15th team even if it is not in the best interest of SANZAR and Rugby. I imagine there would have been serious repercussion for SA rugby if they had voted for Melbourne.
sportym said | October 22nd 2009 @ 3:01am | Report comment
The real question, are we really surprised by what the SARU did? Its seems that have very little respect for the SANZAR agreement and only care about themselves. Though I am not sure if OZ can really support a 5th team, I am very confident that SA cannot support a 6th team.
Does anybody know what Eddie Jones record against the All blacks was?
Jerry said | October 22nd 2009 @ 6:44am | Report comment
From memory it’d be 5 wins and 6 losses. Started out well, winning both in 01, then split the series in 02. In 03 the Wallabies lost both TN matches but of course won the crucial WC semi and then they split the series again in 04. In 05 the Wallabies didn’t win a match in the TN from memory.
Lee said | October 22nd 2009 @ 9:02am | Report comment
Since when is looking after your own interests not the SANZAR way? Its what the ARU has done since day 1.
warrenexpatinnz said | October 22nd 2009 @ 3:19am | Report comment
mcxd you are pretty well right, the SARU decision is based aroung it knowing that it will have to have a playoff relgation match to allow the KIngs to play. South African supporters are extremely loyal and unless the SARU wanted to be accused of laying down it had no option.
Regards Melbourne’s impending side, I believe it will succed and very well as a lot of people are forgetting the Super 14 (15) has an obvious international feel about the competition and on a comparison have a look at the Melbourne Storm/Warriors games played in Melbourne, full house as the Kiwi support from its expats in Melbourne is huge.
Yes the fifth side will dilute our player base but very briefly as the increased revenue that can be generated and the extra third party sponsorship for a Melbourne side will attract large numbers of players to its club.
The Melbourne side, very much like the Western Force will perform well but has greater potential to reach the top and maintain as per the Storm as no baggage, good money and having sports mad Melbourne fans jump on board as the Super 15 competition will get to fill that void of an Aussie side versus an overseas side that lacks on the Aussie sporting calendar with only the current range of trans Tasman netball, league and football being the present options.
Ace said | October 22nd 2009 @ 3:23am | Report comment
Gee Spiro, take it easy. You’ll break your electronic whinge machine.
Viscount Crouchback said | October 22nd 2009 @ 4:01am | Report comment
Yet more parochial poppycock. Only a madman – or an Australian – can truly believe that Australian rugby has sufficient strength-in-depth to form a competitive fifth S14 team. The South Africans have dozens and dozens of fantastic players playing abroad – if the South African government is serious about supporting the Southern Kings, then it would merely require a few cheques from ANC HQ for these players to come flocking home and form a formidable team.
A Melbourne team will merely dilute the quality of the competition still further; a PE team has much greater potential upside.
Knives Out said | October 22nd 2009 @ 4:37am | Report comment
Would a handful of very good players improve the Stormers, Cheetahs, Lions and this new team?
Lee said | October 22nd 2009 @ 5:11am | Report comment
Would diluting the Australian player pool further really improve the Reds, Brumbies, Waratahs or Force?
Knives Out said | October 22nd 2009 @ 6:04am | Report comment
No, but it’s probably harder to argue for a further SA franchise when 3 finished in the bottom five of the table.
Lee said | October 22nd 2009 @ 6:22am | Report comment
Yes, but the point that adding very good players to a team will improve them is valid, I can’t see how adding a Melbourne franchise will help the Reds etc.
Knives Out said | October 22nd 2009 @ 6:28am | Report comment
I’m not really sure what you’re getting at Lee? Of the SA players in Europe a lot of them aren’t Super standard, and others are too old. There is a handful of very good players who would make a difference: Human, Joubert, Brent Russell etc, but there’s also a lot of SA journeymen. How are these players going to aid a 6th team? Further, the more pressing argument is why SA would deserve a 6th team when 3 of the current 5 are so abysmal. You could equally say that adding Australian players plying their trade in Europe would aid the Australian team.
Hendo said | October 22nd 2009 @ 12:43pm | Report comment
Perhaps the added oppurtunities a fifth OZ team would provide would mean more young players that would otherwise go would choose to go with rugby rather than go down the League route.
Australia has great depth in league.
So initially perhaps it wont help the reds – but in a few years time – definitely.
fox said | October 22nd 2009 @ 7:45am | Report comment
VC you are the one spouting a bunch poppycock – and I never use that word! But that is what it is (if poppycock actually means “reactionary, biased, makey-uppey rhetoric”). Save your vitriol for a topic whose issues you can adequately get across. The South Afircans have dozens and dozens of….. Well why the hell are there only really two competitive super rugby teams? Yet people like you criticise Australia for its lack of depth (which admittedly is in some respects a truism) but to say that South Africa have all these great players running around foreign competitions is absolute tripe. There are a few, but they are not going to come home and play for the Southern Kings, unless they are the great black hopes of South Africa – because that is what this team is proposed to be: a political pod of puppets. The Lions are terrible and have been in perpetuity, the Cheetahs not much better and the Stormers despite their ranks of obvious talent are inconsistent at best, perennial disppointments. There I said it. South African rugby is strong. But don’t pretend its strong enough to support a sixth team.
As I said yesterday in relation to kwiis who would want to rob Australian rugby of its growth prospects: How does a weak ARU help other SANZAR nations? The revenue to the respective national unions from super rugby is massive. To suggest it is not in the best interest of everyone that Australian rugby prosper (and so be given adequate opportunity to) is short sighted at best. There is massive room for growth in this market in a relative sense. Stop acting the clown.
taylor bridge said | October 22nd 2009 @ 11:19am | Report comment
well thought out ,Fox and well written. Spiro’s article was ok but it criticises rather than promote solutions. Surely it was expected that the vote would hav eto go to the next step as otherwise it would have representeda we dont care from the SA’s. I am sure if positions were reversed we would do the same.
Having articulate and look them in the eye rugby leaders such as Nick Farr-Jones, Michael Lynagh and the best of all , John Eales runs parallel with success on and off the field.
AC said | October 22nd 2009 @ 8:32am | Report comment
That depends on whether the SA government wants these players from overseas to play for their “black” team?
By chance, do you know how many great black SA players are plying their trade in Europe?
Steve said | October 22nd 2009 @ 4:05am | Report comment
Spiro; lets face it, you just don’t like South Africans and South African rugby. At what point was Australia entitled to a 5th team,even though the non sensical structure that has been proposed by SANZAR (which was heavily influenced by john O’Neill) would make alot more sense with a Melbourne team. I think SARU has been far more than accomidating to Australian rugby:
– sharing the Broadcaster money equally when S.A generates the most income from viewership
– Allowing the the Home and away matches in the conferences,which almost clashed with the currie cup and will surely further devalue it. It will only really benefits Australian rugby as S.A and N.Z both have enough product to fill their calenders(some say to much).
The truth of the matter is that it was a tendering process, there wasn’t a unanimous decision, so it is going to arbitration. Its not the end of the world, Melbourne will get it. But maybe you should see the merit for the kings bid:
Its an amalgamation of 3 professional teams(the combined resources and government backing will mean a very competitive team, without dissolving South Africa’s player base)
A new stadium.
Some of the best rugby playing schools and universities in the country( Selborne, grey, dale college, queens, St. Andrew’s etc. where school matches usually attract 10000+ spectators every week)
A large support base, that have become disillusioned with infighting in the local teams and thus have started supporting the bulls, sharks ext. The Eastern cape population has been wait for this for nearly 15 years now.
If you compare this to the Melbourne bid, it is only the travel factor that swings the vote in favour of Melbourne. Its time to end the charade that is super 14 and call for competition reform. Australia needs it’s own local comp and super14 should become a Heineken cup style comp. As some one so aptly put it super14 should be the icing not the filling.
But I 1000% agree with on Phil Kearns
Nelson said | October 22nd 2009 @ 4:26am | Report comment
“Australia needs it’s own local comp and super14 should become a Heineken cup style comp. As some one so aptly put it super14 should be the icing not the filling”
Absolutely. that’s the best way of putting it I have heard and it seems like more and more people are coming to this conclusion. when are the administrators going to realize this?
mitzter said | October 22nd 2009 @ 7:08am | Report comment
Why do you think the super 15 structure is non-sensical?
Bay35Pablo said | October 22nd 2009 @ 7:34am | Report comment
Why go to the conference system then? Why didn’t SARU just say earlier “You weak Aussies can p!ss off and have a 4 team conference and no wildcard. and we’ll have 6 teams. You Kiwis can just sit there”?
fox said | October 22nd 2009 @ 7:47am | Report comment
Exactly. It’s 11th hour politics driven by non-commercial motivations. The SK bid has absolutely nothing to do with rugby.
Hermin said | October 22nd 2009 @ 12:57pm | Report comment
Neither does the Melbourne bid if we are to believe posters such as reds fan its all about the money.
If it were soley about the rugby neither SA or Australia would get a team it would go to NZ no questions asked if we were to go on results of actual rugby.
reds fan said | October 22nd 2009 @ 1:02pm | Report comment
Spot on Hermin. If it was about Rugby it would be probably 6 kiwi teams, maybe 3 australian and about 4 south african. Super 13…. we never did do that number did we….
Dingbat said | October 22nd 2009 @ 4:37am | Report comment
How delighted Spiro must be to be able to bash South Africa. The venom with which he does so means he loses all objectivity and should therefore be ignored.
Of course it should go to the Spears. SA is the only one of the SANZAR countries with massive rugby growth potential. There is a massive black population to be tapped in that region (from a player and marketing perspective). I keep hearing complaints from Kiwis that moms are forcing their sons to play soccer and in Aus union is the poor third brother to Rules and League. The only growth either country has in rugga is Saffas moving there/producing rugga offspring.
Aus can hardly put a national first XV together, so how the hell can they justify a 5th team?
altus said | October 22nd 2009 @ 5:05am | Report comment
Anybody who read Spiro’s book about the rivalry between the Springboks and All Blacks knows exactly how he feels abou South African rugby.
The entire premise of the book, which goes back to the English Public school rivalry between Rugby School and I think Winchester, is that South African rugby is the evil (kicking) empire while the All Blacks are the White (running) Knites trying to save the game.
I actually don’t think that the Southern Kins are the better option, but the reality of rugby politics in South Africa means that Saru could not give in. That is Saru’s weakness to be sure, but for Spiro to say that the ARU should forgive and forget, is laughable.
The truth of the matter is that the Super 12 worked and should still be the format of the competition.
Lee said | October 22nd 2009 @ 5:14am | Report comment
Exactly altus.
For people to really believe that SARU think they will be granted the new franchise is laughable – they are doing it for political reasons. They have to show the government they are serious about transformation even if it is just a token jester. Make no mistake, the Kings will join the comp but at the expense of either the Cheetahs or the Lions.
I was actually surprised that this article didn’t take more of an anti-SARU stance, maybe Spiro is changing his ways?
altus said | October 22nd 2009 @ 5:11am | Report comment
And Dingbat and Steve…
Rugby in the Eastern Cape is a basket case. Yes, EP have been better this year since Cheeky Watson have taken over, but the teams are shit and they don’t draw crowds. Border and EP won 7 matches out of 20 in the Currie Cup second division. Not a single player if those teams would start for the Cheetahs or the Lions, the two worst SA teams in the S14.
Face it, even when the Currie Cup, during the 80s, was at its strongest and a five team league, EP was always the worst.
If it wasn’t for the pressure from government, nobody in SA rugby would push the Eastern Cape as a rugby alternative.
Steve said | October 22nd 2009 @ 6:41am | Report comment
The point that you are so clearly missing, is the potential for growth in the Eastern Cape is 10 fold compared to Melbourne, the Eastern Cape is a factory of rugby players which other unions snap up straight out of school(Luke Watson, Ryan kankowski, keegan daniels, rory kocett, Mark Andrews ect.) When the kings played the BI lions there were over 30000 people in the stadium.
Furthermore this is an amalgamation of three unions SWD, EP, Border not 2…SWD made it to the final and are presently playing for promotion to the premier division. SWD were bought by a private consortium and are in the process of setting up academies and structures that will develop young players from the area, convince them to stay and hopefully attract players from other provinces. Subsequently SWD signed both Bevan Fortuin and Gaffie Du toit(who are both former springboks).
Your fact that EP was the worst team in the 80′s is also incorrect, they came second on the log in 1980. The Sharks/Natal were not even in the first division till the early 80′s and have built a successful team the same can and will happen in EP.
But what I was really trying to highlight was Spiro’s constant attacks on South Africa and South African rugby as being baseless and biased. Each team has its merits for being included into the comp, but who cares its time for a comp. revamp rather than keeping a stale comp.(like the super 14 which is completely illogical and an extremely resource heavy exercise) The two semi finals in the currie cup produced some of the hardest rugby and most intriguing rugby ive seen in a long time and was far superior to some of the crap that was dished out in super 14. Further to this point, news from New Zealand is making it out that the public is rengaging with their local provinces in the npc even though super 14 ratings are dropping.
True Tah said | October 22nd 2009 @ 7:11am | Report comment
Maybe Spiro lost a girl to a South African bloke once, might explain the bitterness?
Bay35Pablo said | October 22nd 2009 @ 7:36am | Report comment
Spiro’s being pretty soft. If you think that’s harsh, you’re pretty sensitive.
Rah Rah Rasputin said | October 22nd 2009 @ 10:25am | Report comment
“potential for growth”, how? what sort of growth? it is not going to bring anymore revenue into the game.
As has been pointed out the broadcasters see far more growth in the melbourne market then they do in SA.
Rugby Union in SA is at saturation point. There is probably to much rugby as demonstrated by some poor crowd attendances.
A SA team in an Australia conference will just poison rugby in Australia or any potential growth from an expended S14.
Picking the SK would mean forgoing revenue, incurring extra costs and embracing an inequiltable and confusing draw in order to make up the SARU foresaking the Southern Spears for the Afrikaans in the High Veldt.
Aust and NZ shouldn’t have to cow tow to ANC’s affirmative action policies. How does an all black/coloured team encourage racial harmony and integration? It is beyond me.
This is all about politics and what people appear to be doing. The SARU know they won’t win but mustn’t appear to be rolling over. Its a waste of time and money. Dump the Lions or the cheetahs, and lets get on with it.
altus said | October 22nd 2009 @ 4:54pm | Report comment
Which broadcaster Rah Rah?
Remember News Corp has now presence in SA. They get a set fee from SuperSport (MIH) and therefore has no interest in what happens in the Eastern Cape. They do have a interest in the Australian market and will therefore push that option.
Also the people who always talk about the broadcasters are Spiro and Growden who are basically O’Neill’s sockpuppets. I never take anything seriously that Growden writes about Sanzar because he always just front’s for O’Neill.
steve said | October 22nd 2009 @ 5:52pm | Report comment
A what stage was the team suppose to be an all black\ and coloured affair, if you believe that then you will believe that Spiro loves South Africa and that John O’neill has the best intentions for rugby. The reason why there is such an interest for rugby in the eastern cape region by the ANC (and once again the anc is not a monolithic organisation it is made up of different faction, certain faction don’t even care about it) is because the majority of the ANC members that grew up in the Eastern Cape opted to play rugby instead of soccer and now see an opportunity for rugby to grow in that area.
Further to that point what sort of growth you ask, you have about 1.5 million people in p.e a 1 million people in East London and just under that in George, they have no other substantial pro teams. Whereas Melbourne has 5 Pro teams.
Attendances poor? this is incorrect they not poor the prices of tickets are far to exorbitant, 1100 rand a ticket for the lions matches. The average South African just can’t afford that but if you look at the viewership you’ll see a different story. Plus SARU highest attendances in the last 5 years this. If you look at the super 14 and currie cup attendances you will see very high numbers of people attending.