Inaugural World Cup-winning skipper David Kirk is one of two New Zealanders who will determine whether Melbourne is admitted to an expanded Super 15 in 2011.
Former All Blacks halfback Kirk and retired NZ high court judge Barry Paterson QC have been appointed by SANZAR to adjudicate the dispute between Australia and South Africa over the location of the new team.
While the Australian Rugby Union believes Melbourne has a cast-iron case for inclusion in a five-team Australian conference in the revamped competition, South Africa is doing all it can to have the Southern Kings from the Eastern Cape admitted.
The independent panel of Kirk, who captained NZ to their 1987 World Cup win and is also the former chief executive of Fairfax Media, and Paterson is expected to hand down their decision within a fortnight.
They will review SANZAR documentation and the detailed applications from Melbourne and the Southern Kings. They can also request further information for clarification and validation.
The matter has been put into the New Zealanders’ hands after Australian, South African and New Zealand officials were unable to come to a unanimous agreement at last week’s SANZAR executive meeting in Brisbane.
All three nations have signed off on the arbitration panel but the South Africans will be pessimistic about their chances of gaining some Kiwi support.
Crusading former South African player and black rights supporter Cheeky Watson, the Eastern Province president behind the Kings’ application, last week attacked SA Rugby for not doing enough to ensure the side’s inclusion.
Watson believes Melbourne will certainly have the backing of New Zealanders.
“At this stage we’ll take anything that comes our way,” Watson told The Times. “But if you look at the relationships between the SANZAR partners, hell will freeze over before New Zealand and Australia will vote for South Africa.”
Paterson is the chairman of the New Zealand Sports Tribunal and a Member of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, as well as being a former New Zealand Cricket board member.
JustinB
Guest
SARU has to be seen to be pushing the Spears bid as much as they can - they probably don't want the team anyway, but the political heat to get the Spears playing is intense. Don't blame SARU, blame some of the nutters who hang out in the SA parliament. Also, those few who think that SA should be booted out SANZAR or the S15 are kidding themselves - both comps would be a shadow of themselves without SA (just as it would be if Aus or NZ were not playing).
Ben J
Guest
I believe it is just right that Melbourne get the nod, any other solution would make no logistical sense. Super rugby need South Africa, I believe NZ and Australian players would also feel that any competition that excludes the world's top rugby nation would dilute their own ambition to be measured against some of the worl's premier players. It might be a tad unfair to call South Africa "precious", competitive yes but any nation that looks after their own interests should be applauded. Australia, with all due respect, should have had another tier of rugby to sustain itself. For Australia it is Super rugby or bust and that cannot be a health situation to be in. It is a rich, firstworld country with an athletic population. The reasons why the Brumbies, Force, Waratahs and Reds cannot have their own mini provincial tournament outside of Super rugby defies belief. But then I am only a precious Saffer :)
Rickety Knees
Roar Guru
Sorry Hammer - I don't agree. The Saffers have become way to precious and are a PITA. IMHO the sooner we leave them to their beloved Currie Cup the better. Conversly, the sooner a Pacific Championship gets off the ground the better.
Hammer
Guest
So a boring Trans Tasman competition with the added excitement of playing for a match off with the powerhouse teams of Japan and to round it off lets throw the islands a bone as well (not really contemplating that their infastructure isn't up to the the task) ... Kirwan should stick to coaching .... like it or not the competition in SANZAR comes from the NZ and SA teams - culling them for a competitiion involving just the NZ and Aust sides will be boring beyond belief ... i like the way SARU protects the Currie Cup ... surely this year has shown the NZRFU that they should start to recognise what the NPC means to NZ fans ... the 15th team will go to Melbourne - but it shouldn't ... in reality the competition should stay at 14 - it needs to have time to get back to being at a competitive level the S12 was before further expansion
Spiro Zavos
Expert
The South Africans have to be careful now how they go about working in the SANZAR arrangement. Earlier in the year we had SARU holding out for a slightly inferior upgrading of the Super 15 in 2011 with an insistence that the Currie Cup take some precedence with the result that in the round-robin part of the new schedule not all the teams play each other. Now SARU has forced an arbitration over the control of the Melbourne franchise. If the Southern Kings win the aritration the home and away matches played within each of the five national franchises becomes threatened in Australia. John Kirwan has proposed a new format involving Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Island and Japan based on Japanese money from their companies as an alternative to the Super 15. The Kirwan concept involves 8 New Zealand teams and 5 Australian teams in a tournament, with a Heinenken Cup tournament bolted on involving Japanese and Pacific Island teams. The money for this format should be avaliable. With a Rugby World Cup in Japan in 2019 the big companies will be interested in rugby, one presumes. This sort of tournament format would be very attractive to pay television(Fox Sports particularly) in Australia, too. For one thing, the matches would be in the same time zone (the Tokyo Bledisloe Cup Test is being shown here at 7.30pm on Saturday). The travelling would be slightly easier, too. In five years time when SANZAR re-negotiates Super Rugby, the Kirwan plan should be ready to be up and running. SARU will need the ARU and the NZRU then, if it wants to continue with Super Rugby. But this support might not be so forthcoming as in the past if SARU continues to play its own games with Super Rugby. My guess is that even SARU will hope that David Kirk and Barry Paterson QC will decide, after a careful analysis of the documents, that the Melbourne Super Rugby team should be run by a Melbourne-based group.
Brett McKay
Guest
Katz, he may well be, he certainly resides in Sydney, and was Spiro's ultimate boss for a number of years as CEO of Fairfax Media. He only just stepped down/resigned from that role last year from memory. I'd love to think this will be a simple process now, with an obvious solution, but as I keep saying, this is SANZAR (or SANZAR-appointed, in this case)..
katzilla
Roar Guru
Isn't Kirk an Australian Citizen now? From a neutral standpoint I can't see any outcome to this other then Melbourne. SA rugby has fullfilled its Obligations. They tried.
Brett McKay
Guest
decision within the fortnight - should we hold our breath?