Personally I wonder if the amount of travel the Super 14 players do is a factor in the quality of the play – or is the defence just so much stiffer at that level making it very difficult to have free flowing games?

Whatever, I would have thought the NZer’s should be making every effort to ensure the game in Australia begins to thrive if they want professional rugby to succeed in NZ. There is no tribal history in OZ as there is in NZ and in the NRL and AFL which is the main reason the battle to establish genuine enthusiasm for the game in OZ was always going to be difficult – not to mention the Ra Ra tag the game is still stuck with. Do I have any solutions?

For one we do need to get some genuine animal aggression back in the game if we are ever going to compete with the NRL – that means bringing back rucking in my opinion – probably the one law change that has really stuffed the game.

The second point is – the tribal aspect of the game in NZ and SA should be retained and introduced into the Super 14 by somehow linking NPC & Currie Cup comps with the super 14. Asking supporters to follow more than one team in a season is asking too much. There has to be one comp only, not three as we have at present. The present structure is doomed to fail I believe – regrettably.

I’ve got to agree with True Tah and yes Pippinu SUPER does bring in the money and a Super 15 will bring in more, but (as above) it is not sustainable when peak oil hits.

Personally, I’m not in favour of a TT. Kiwis would consider a TT to be a poor consolation prize, much prefering a stand alone ANZC/NPC.

I also believe many Aussies would prefer a stand alone ARC/APC if it could be managed.

There would still be a super series, but it would have to take the shape of a Heineken Cup format.

Anyway, at the moment, the game of rugby union is crap frankly, & Australian rugby has no heroes like Greg Inglis, Jarrod Hayne, etc.

So all our talk is just pissing in the wind!

But isn’t super rugby what’s bringing in the money at the moment?

What part do you think the fear of Northern Hem money plays in the decision-making of administrators in NZ?

I think both OZ and NZ are very concerned about the pound, euro and yen on offer, and know that without Super Rugby/TN revenues neither country could afford to retain their Test stars. I get the sense this makes it very challenging for the NZRU to meet player demands, both monetarily and competition standard wise, with the demands of NZ supporters who, like most sports followers, love the tradition and triablism of their established competition.

For any nation to sustain a national sporting code it must have a viable national competition. Any deal with Australia about a club or provincial competition would have to be ‘in addition to’.

Why does the NZRU support an expanded SUPER competition, which in my opinion would be against the general view.
Quite simply, and ‘simply’ is the key word here, the NZRU has a history of sheer incompetence, and that continues into the present.
Very important also for Australians to realise is that the NZ media is almost wholly owned by Australian companies. These companies are very much top down managed and the NZRU would be influenced (in mostly a subtle way) by these institutions.

Mr Tew, in particular, cannot see past the big wad of money from Murdoch, for the expansion of the SUPER comp. Tew argues that the wad of money will help solve the NPC debt and sustain only a 10 team comp. That economic view is a narrow window of how current NZRU finances can be responsibly managed.

It ignores what is best for NZ rugby. If it was not for our strong grass roots rugby we would not have the All Blacks or the bargaining power to broker any TV financial deal. Tew is trying to juggle the grass roots and the money on the basis of a competiton that is unsustainable. The pending world economic crisis will also help dry up that money and the sooner all nations attend to the survival of their own economies of scale the better.
In my opinion the NZRU is gaga and killing off the golden goose.

The culling of teams will be very difficult indeed – esp as Nth Harbour finished in the bottom 4 … if the NZRFU save their bacon at the expense of say Tasman – then expect some threats and challenges … especially as the NZRFU’s criteria model will need to be brushed off and that may well mean that a firm case could be made for a repreive for my lot Manawatu – who ticked all the off field boxes last time around and now can also claim to have vastly improved their on field performance …

WCR – a TT competition won’t go ahead without a break up of S14 … no way will NZ provinces accept being replaced by Aussie ones … and even then it wouldn’t be well received

It appears from the opinions I read on here, and hear from kiwi mates, that their own supporters consider that supporting super expansion diminishes the domestic provincial comp. And that the supporters much prefer the domestic provincial comp. Are the NZRU out-of-touch or strategically changing the provincial game within NZ? or are the opinions I read and hear a small minority out of touch with the commercial realities of the professional game?

For while Australia struggles with the concept of establshing a tier of rugby between our state/Super/”provincial” level (what would we call that level? distrinct rugby? regional rugby? shire rugby? council rugby?) and club level, NZ are in this long arm wrestle between Super Rugby and NPC/ANZC.

I’d love to hear some NZ thoughts on this (preferably from those that can discuss the issue without it deteriorationg into “get your own comp” and “our provincial teams are better than yours”).

What is your opinion of a Trans-Tasman comp involving 10 NZ Provinces and 6 Aus States/Provinces.