By NZPA
December 18th 2009 @ 4:06am
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NZRU agree to collective employment agreement
The New Zealand Rugby Union and the New Zealand Rugby Players’ Association have agreed terms for a new collective employment agreement for 2010 to 2012.
The proposed new agreement will feature an agreed domestic competition structure as well as a range of new and updated terms, including an adjusted player payment pool which introduces franchise contracting [...]
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Ora said | December 18th 2009 @ 1:57pm | Report comment
This is a sad but also good day for New Zealand rugby
It is prettyu clear that the 5 big unions have had most of the say in this deal and it would be their players that would have been spoken to not the players from the like sof Manawatu or Counties.
Effectively we are going back to three divisions of rugby with some token crossover games inbetween where we can expect huge blowout scores and the occasional upset. Lets get real here the top 7 teams will get to play each other week in week out while the bottom seven will play the rest and their rugby is in danger of stagnating or falling to the wayside completely. I find it hard to believe that the likes of Jimmy Cowan, Andrew Hore Tanerau Latimer even Aaron Cruden will hang around in their respective regions should they not make the top 7 next year. This in turn will take some of the class and competitiveness away from the Championship division.
Now flip that on it’s head and look at it from another angle, the splitting of the two divisions could also create a much superior competition to what is in place at present and create a standard of footy not much below that of the Super 14 should the ABs be available, this in turn would create an exciting competition for fans and players alike from the respective regions.
This then once again takes me back to the top, will this new format create such a gap that is too wide to be bridged by those teams on the next tier down. come promotion relegation will we see the newly promoted getr soundly whipped over time as those top teams will be so good from consistantly playing each other like it was when we last had Promo-relegation?
There is many positives anjd negatives to this new formast but only time will tell how much it will hurt or inject New Zealand rugby.