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.
primus in indus
Guest
thanks Knives out that is what i meant but i also mean tribalism. The brits support teams in a different way to us. It is much more social and they identify with the towns and counties at a far deeper level. This is why the top clubs have not messed with the names. Bath is Bath etc. Club union has thrived in Britain and France and i was over in Ireland in September and watched the youngsters playing at Ballanahinch. The whole atmosphere was wonderfull and family orientated. The population base is far smaller. Crowd attendance increased after England won 2003 so the marketing was better. The tri nations is not the 6 nations. More is sometimes less. Yes the southern hemispere teams produce a higher standerd but i have been to 6 nations and tri nations games yet give me the 6 nations to watch. The teams are all diferent yet we have a sameness down here....
Knives Out
Guest
Crowd attendances have nothing to do with the theme of tribalism. In any case, I think you misunderstand what primus in indus is saying. I believe that he is referring to the historical tradition of the English clubs in contrast to the Super franchises.
Paley
Guest
I wouldn't say there is a tribal fan base in union in England. It's only recently that club union has been getting decent crowds.
primus in indus
Guest
The reason rugby has such a low profile is its complete lack of exposure on normal tv. super 14 needs to do a few years on the free to air to build up a fan base. Should have been done in 2003 when rugby was very much in the public eye. Aus does not have a tribal fan base like the brits and french so some thought in to how to create one. So glad the elvs were binned and i cant stand the carping we give some of the european teams when they win ugly. It can be some of the best rugby to watch but we have a culture of despising the forwards and then wonder why we dont produce the best. Like the french and english we need to idolise the forwards and understand what they do and then we wont get bored by the win ugly approach. Just the beauty alone of the front rows clashing.... whats the point we only like it when its free running rugby but thank God the game is more than that. We need to change the way we enjoy our rugby
circus
Guest
SARU has put forward a gambit. There are so very many brilliiant black and coloured rugby plyers - much better than there white counterparts - but they are not selected by the SA's Currie Cup or Super 14 teams beause of racism. To see the dreadful Stefan Terblanche being selected for the Sharks when Waylon Murray is not selected - the ponderous Afrikaans centres in all the SA Super 14 sides refusing to pass to the flying wingers such as Nokwe or Noble. To say that they have to have a 'black' side to satisfy the ANC is such a lie. They could actually pick these talented players in the existing sides. The Cheetahs from Bloemfontein and the Lions from Johannsberg must be the two weakest sides that have ever existed in the Super 14. When the Lions lost a match the Afrikaans coach famously turned on the only two coloured players in his side - Earl Rose and the prop - and blamed then for the loss. It's fantastic to see the South African 7s side coached by Paul Treu win the IRB sevens series. The speed, skill and power of that team are a joy to watch. That they are predominately black and coloured is a tribute to the transformation of South African rugby. They don't need their own team in the Super 15 to demonstrate their worth.
Hammer
Guest
What quality players ? - it's evident Aust haven't got enough players of quality to fill 4 teams - it's not SANZAR's job to provide pathways for Australian players - it's the ARU's job ... you're last paragraph is 100% correct - developing players is the fundamental role of a domestic national comp - not the top tier having 5 teams languishing around playing mediocore rugby won't generate new supporters or encourage existing ones to continue watching
NJT
Guest
I think that, if you asked someone very familiar with the SK, they'd list a team that'd also have several really good players and decent "benchwarmers" from the other sides. I know there's a couple of older former springboks playing down in those teams at the moment. I think De Wet Barry is one of them but I might be wrong on that but that's not the point. I've also read as article of the number of SA players playing in Europe (there's tons, seriously, can probably field four or five teams with Currie Cup experience) who could come back and play for this team and the writer of the article named a bloody strong team but and suggested that that's the type of team that could be gotten to play for the SKs. But the problem is that most of those players (the better ones anyway) went because they were offered more money than the big SA unions could afford ... so why would they go play for the SK team for less? They might get some of the lesser players back and they might get some benchwarmers ... but that way you'll only ever be, at best, a middle of the log team which, to me, defeats the object of playing. If you want to be in the Super Rugby arena, in my totally irrelevant opinion, you should be able to prove you have some decent plan (not just a wishful ambition) that shows you can be competitive with the top side in say three to five years. I also, don't believe the Melbourne side can do that without poaching either. They either need to poach the Islands, the N-Zealanders or the SA teams or junior (which is what it seems the ARU have targetted rather than developing their own nursery and encouraging Australian school to switch to Union but that's a whole other topic). My honest opinion is that, should either of these teams get the 15th slot, then, without poaching from other teams, they're both going to be the whipping boys for quite a while. Admittedly, the SK do have great feeder teams/schools/varsities that can prop them up in the future but the truth is it's not a very cash-flush area so their chances of holding onto the best of those players is very slim. Melbourne, on the other hand, don't have as much chances of quality youngsters coming through there systems which'll mean that they'll be forced to poach other teams/nations. I'm sure if they're allowed to field a half NZ players team then they'll get more spectators from the Nea Zealand ex-pats but is that really building a support base? Are there a whole bunch of Melbourne schools just waiting to switch over to playing rugby union now just because they've got a Super 15 team? I assume the answer to that is no. Also, if it's going to take a couple of years for them to be competitive, will the crowds still support them during this building phase when they might be getting whipped week in and out. Or will the Melbourne area get tired of that and rather decide to stop watching it live or on the TV? In which case News Corp might not be very happy Super Rugby parents. From what I gather the ARU is really trying very hard to make sure this new franchise doesn't weaken the others which means, unlike the Force, they really do need to start from scratch which means this is a very real possibility. I think also, in terms of TV viewership, most Saffers and Aussies won't watch the ZA derbies, most Saffers and NZealanders won't watch the Aussie derbies and most Aussies and NZealanders won't watch the SA derbies. Which'll mean the competition will be in a type of "sleep" mode until the finals. It also means the overall viewership might come down because less people will be watching the games. At the moment Saffers watch all the SA games and support all the SA teams playing the other side. Similiarly, are Aussies and NZ supporters going to stay up late at night/early morning to watch SA teams slug it out? Probably most of them won't. I think what will happen therefore is most people will only watch the game that affect their team and, overall, less viewers will wind up watching the whole product that what we have now. As you might have guessed, I'm not in favour of this "conferences" thing and not in favour of any expansion. Actually, since I'm going on here. Here's another option, why don't they increase the number of teams in each conference and let SA play the Currie Cup as their conference, let NZ play the NPC as their conference and then let the ARU make a comp for theirs. Then everyone's happy. ARU get their "next tier" with extra teams since we can maybe give each conference 8 sides. SA and NZ get to keep their showpiece tournaments and play them with their best players (unlike now when the Boks and All Blacks don't play mostly). And, on top of that, NZ and SA can keep all their smaller teams happy because they can, during the Super Rugby finals phase, play promotion games which allowed their next "tier" teams a chance to get into the Super Rugby league. But that's just a plan that makes sense to me and, from what I can see, deals with nearly all the differences and political problems that the thre countries have. It allows the NZ rugby guys to appease and keep their smallers teams (which is their big rugby political issue). It allows SA to put the Kings in (which is their big "political" political issue) and, like NZ, keeps the smaller teams happy since they will forever have the chance to get into Super Rugby should they one day have the ambition and finances (very unlikely but at least they can have "the dream").
BigAl
Guest
Well !!??! - if that is '. . . the fundamental role of a domestic competition' , - the only interest you can really expect from the general public is from close friends and relatives of the player who actually has the ball in hand at that particular moment !
AndyS
Guest
Give the trend of S12 results from 2003, a fair argument could be made that the advent of the Force had no effect on the Reds at all. It might also beg the question how the Force could manage to get better performances out of the underperforming players recruited (even if the results were merely better rather than good).
Temba
Guest
I know this is keo, but still a very intresting article from a SK perspective. I tend to agree with this. http://www.keo.co.za/2009/10/22/why-the-kings-must-rule/
sheek
Guest
Hammer, The whole point of having more provinces/super teams is provide more opportunities for more quality players. There is a combined pull/push effect here. You have to provide the opportunities, but also be sure you have the talent coming through. Rugby union is now a professional game. Unless we provide more opportunities for professional players, we won't be able to compete in the market place. How often Aussie super teams win the S14 or whatever is largely irrelevant. Ironically, if Australin rugby is doing its job properly, & the talent is evenly spread among the 5 provinces, we mightn't win the super tournament that often! Providing plenty of quality players for the Wallabies, & plenty of competition for each position is the fundamental role of a domestic national comp ( & teams).
Republican
Guest
I dont believe the thinner and thinner spreading of available Union talent in this country to be rubbish at all. Australia does NOT have the Union player depth. It is a smoke screen that suggest it does. We are Robbing Peter to pay Paul to keep the illusion alive. So the Force are now competitive, o.k but they still rely soley on Qld and NSW in a nursery sense. Qld and NSW but not the ACT sadly, because they are no longer a formidable nursery, will continue to be decimated by WA, the ACT and now Vic. This is not rocket science.
Republican
Guest
Westy I am not suprised about that result. St Eddies have for years been under increasing scrutiny re their Union centricity. Parents and the community in general have been on a witch hunt to cut this tall poppy down. SEC are no longer a national power house as a result albeit they are still big fish in a little pond Union wise. The ACT Schools results are testament to this shift with NO representation in this years Aust Schools side to tour Eire and the u.K which is unprecedented for this famous Union nursery. The new College regime has been slowly moving the focus away from 'thugby' which has been a very healthy cultural evolution which should result in the school developing into a very strong Australian Footy school within the next five to ten years I believe.
Hammer
Guest
Yeah - and what's happened to the Reds since the inception of the Force - I've no doubt Melbourne will secure seasoned S14 players and perform reasonably well ... but the Reds, Force, Tahs and Brumbies will all suffer - some more a lot than others ... it's a god job that conference winners are guaranteed a final's spot so at least there'll be 1 week of finals footy for Aussie supporters
Grandpabhaile
Guest
"Can we stop with this rubbish about Australia not having the player depth for a 5th team? There was the same argument when the Force started, and look at them now, a couple of years later." You're right - that about sums it up neatly.
Jameswm
Guest
Can we stop with this rubbish about Australia not having the player depth for a 5th team? There was the same argument when the Force started, and look at them now, a couple of years later. The fact is that with another team, the bench players from other teams are lured in for the chance to start, and squad players become bench players. This means that more players get exposed to this level of rugby. The players are there - in club-land, Junior Academies etc - and with a couple of years' S15 experience, they will be solid Super rugby players. Look at the guys, not even including those overseas, who don't always get a great go with their team for whatever reason. They already form a very sold team 1 Sekope Kepu/Nic Henderson 2 Damien Fitzpatrick 3 Dan Palmer/Matt Dunning 4 Chris Thomson 5 Dave Dennis 6 McCalman/Timani 7 Beau Robinson/Lei Tomiki 8 Scott Fava (make it all 5 teams Scottie!) 9 Josh Holmes/Phibbs 10 Daniel Halangahu - assuming Barnes and Beale play 10-12 or Lealiifano 11 Nick Edwards 12 Tatupu/Pelesasa/Gordon no.12 - can never remember his name 13 Digby Ioane (because he's a local boy) 14 Ratu Nasiganyavi 15 Maybe Lachie Turner so he can play 15.
Temba
Guest
Guys you could say that SA have been looking better of late and Australia not, so over the next two years all these historical stats will fade. Looking to the future the prospects of SA teams are looking far better then Aus. Stats are great over a long period but to calculate the present they are useless. In the last three years SA has left the Aussie S14 teams behind. Even the poorest of the SA teams managed to beat some of the top teams. SA did not start good in the S12 and S14 but they are getting better and better each year as the franchises come to grips with professionalism. I still don’t believe the SK should get it.
fox
Guest
"I hope the whole thing stays in arbitration for 10 years." - Katzilla That is incredibly funny, mate.
ohtani's jacket
Guest
New Zealand and Australia wanted expansion. South Africa compromised so an agreement could be reached. If the Super 14 were anywhere near successful in Australia and New Zealand, they wouldn't have to expand. They could take the existing product to News and get more money for the same amount of games. As it stands, they'll probably end up getting less per game than the present deal. What tremendous gains are the NZRU going to get by having a franchise in Melbourne? Some private entity that tries to raid our playing stocks? One more game per season to increase the injury toll and wear our players out faster?
Justin
Guest
Run along...classic. Anyway we agree to disagree or do we? Sa certainly dont deserve a new team and perhaps AUS dont either but the fact remains that a new team from all reports is a certainty so perhaps its best to not bother arguing about things we cant change. By the way I dont appreciate the arrogant and condescending tone of your posts. I have merely pointed out some stats (which are accurate but open to interpretation) for you and provided an argument as to why derbies are an excellent option for the future (IMO) for all 3 countries.