SANZAR should go back to domestic comps

Nah, the main problem is that the Super Comp has never gone out of it's way to promote itself as ONE league; it's always been seen in it's presentation, as somewhat more of a competition split over 3 countries. We have three different commentary teams, rugby shows & media covering it in a somewhat insular style. There has got to be more of an effort to focus on the international aspect of this league, to promote the fact that you get to see all of the great rugby heartlands and cities in the Southern Hemisphere involved in "One Magnificent Competition." At the moment, the Aussie show has an Aussie focus, the NZ show a Kiwi focus and the same for South Africa. We should be seeing some sort of promotion of the places involved in this competition to their international counterparts; eg: we have Joburg in there; what about talking about the sprawling metropolis it represents? Or the great rivalry between Transvaal and Northern Transvaal, who are in this comp as the Lions and the Bulls? What about the rugby histories of Auckland and Queensland? The grand tradition of the Waratahs? At the moment there are no identities attached to these teams and therefore the interest is really only for the rivals they know in their own country.

worth noting that the condensed ITM Cup format this year has been a surprising, and huge, hit with players, fans and TV people here in NZ. Midweek games have apparently generated viewer ratings of 120,000+, crowds have returned to the day games and the Ranfurly Shield continues to travel around the country (currently domiciled in Taranaki for the summer!). Players love it because of less training, more playing and the match conditioning has actually reduced injuries!! There's talk they may want to replicate the format for next year. This could mean more TV money for the domestic game next time the rights are up.

Im not sure about the South Africans not concerned with any of the Aust or NZ teams - the Crusaders generally draw full houses when they play in the Republic.

Correction John it's not 'called' the World 'Union' Cup. Only league xenophobes call rugby- 'union'. Nothing wrong with league, played it myself, enjoy the ball skills in some games, but really mate, get your mind out of the suburban time warp. How many people in how many countries watched the Tigers Dragons game? It's not a case of either/or, us'n'them, under/over refereeing. If you don't like rugby don't watch it. And don't waste space here when the grown ups are trying to grapple with an international sporting dilemma, a dilemma that the National Rugby League does not and cannot have - because it is not international.

Keyword, ''In Australia'', Rugby League's more popular in Oz so that's expected, everywhere else it would have been Union, believe more then 40 million watch the opening ceremony, how many watched that final your on about? 3-4 million if your lucky.

All year this debate has been going on on the roar. i think the Super 15 when pro rugby 1st came out was good, but has now no future it is a lost competion, and it does not know how to evolve properly or it's future , it is a lost comp the beginning of the end , i can not see the super 15 or 18 being alive in 20 years 2030. When one logically makes the time to think about it the super 15 is a 1 of a kind comp in the World. And a logistical nightmare. No pro sports comp in the world is as big a logistal nightmare as the super 15. And no pro regular season comps do well when time difference is more than 4 hours or 5 hours at the total max. NZ to south africa is 10 time difference , and Aust-south africa is 8 hours. It is insane for a regular season comp to have time zone differences like this. no other regular season pro sports in the world has these time zone differences. Terrible for tv viewing and maintaing veiwer interest. Not the same watching replays taping and getting up 8 am on a sunday to watch rugby, very unnatural indeed. Best way south africa is big nation 50 million.. They can srivie on local comp. Local derbies is what seels in pro sport anyway, that is why super 15 brought in local conference format. South africa can survey on a stand alone full strength currie cup, higher tv ratings, and bigger crowds will follow a 100%local comp. And australia and NZ can have trans tasman super series like the NRL and netball, and a league, and NBL basketball. Or australia can have stand alone full strength ARC with local clubs randwick,gordon, parramatta( or a western sydney team) pentrith and let it grow. And have a southern hemphisphere champions league style or Heinikan cup style comp running in conduction with local comp. Like they do in europe in rugby and soccer. People are local and gras roots by nature. Once the novelty wears off the regular fan in pretoria is not inerested in the regular fan in waikato or brisbane and vice versa. Local derbies sell for regular season. And have the SHemphisphere champions league big money spinner, like even have like a winners takes all and every player gets $1 million dollar bonus if they win. But best way to develop like Japan has calmly and sensibly done and countries ine urope is develop grassroots comp and build up, not huge logistal nightmare, massive timezones that hurt tv ratings, like the super 15. And crowds are down in many super 15 teams to. THe regular fan wants local derbies not intercountry derbies, south african and NZ matches do not rate, and vice versa. The supe r15 long term is to expensive for rugby to stain and not enough interest. GO local like the rest of the world , stick to ones own continent, and have a champions league style format. And the euro continent does not want south african club teams in there tournaments, just there players, even though south africa is very much in line with euro time zones. As that would destroy the meaning of having a euro style champions league. Africa and South africa as a rugby force is developing, eg kenya,nigeria,namibia. have a shemphispehere champions league on the side and encourage Asian , South amreicans, USA, CNADA TEAMS to enter the champions league, and encourage there local leagues to. Suuper 15 or super 18 has not long term future , it is a lost comp and to expensive and to many crazy time zones to follow properly, and no sense of identity or care once the novelty wears of for teams far away geoghrpaichally in other words other side of the world like in south africa. cant relate to it. Thes comp do not sell. It is hard enough in the AFL and NRL, fore interstate teams to be watched by Sydney and Melbourne teams. Only 2 teams that sydney rugby league fans watch outside of local derbies are the broncos, and occasionally the broncos or warriors. I know npo one who watches Cowboys,titans,raiders,knights in the regular season. And in afl no one watches, brisbane, gold coast when the novelty wears out, port, or fremantle dockers, .ocassionly sydney crows, or west coast may get a crowd. And maybe aust, NZ, pacific islands will be like soccer is in south america, where in relaity we just become production factories for euro league and union teams in the future and japan rugby and asian rugby and soccer, as they have bigger population. Which is not a bad thing as international rugby is basically like soccer turning into world cups, as the only meaningful countrry stuff as well as the continetal championship EG euro,Copa america, asian cup.

With the Heineken Cup idea for the SH/Pacific, I'd have it as a side competition to the main domestic leagues that I suggested above (AUS/NZ combined and SA currie cup), run over only 7-8 weeks. Setting the pools up how I suggested it would mean the SA teams would only have to travel to ARG or JAP once (So the average pool could look like this (Reds/Hurricanes/Bulls/Tokyo?). They'd also have to hit NZ and AUS to play a club from each of these countries but could do these 3 away games on a two week tour. So although there would be some distance to travel if you do it in one foul swoop over two weeks it could be more digestable. And including mid week games with an emphasis on using an extended squad, the 6 group stage games (3 home, 3 away) could be wrapped up in 4 weeks. Separating from SA in the domestic league, when playing an SA team it would be more of an occasion for home fans because you'd only meet one per year (assuming you don't make it past the group stage, and if you do obviously a knock out finals game regardless of the opponent is very appetising for fans). Probably the most disadvantaged teams would be those travelling from outside the Tri Nation countries, but I'm sure to raise the exposure of Rugby in their homelands and competing against some of the best Rugby clubs in the world (including games against them at home) is enough of a carrot for those leagues to get on board. So all in all a short intercontinental competition that runs later in the year that includes a bit of travel (only spending 2 weeks away from home for 3 games) but provides the opportunity to raise revenue through at least another 3 home games should be a mouth watering prospect for all SH clubs. With regards to having three seperate leagues I am of the school of thought that suggests it's a case of AUS and NZ needing each other. I think decisions need to be made for the sole purpose of doing what's best for the 3 SANZAR unions. I believe AUS and NZ being involved in an SA top flight league bring nothing to their game and vice versa. The Currie Cup gets great support in SA as it is, and with the full time involvement of Bok squad members and all their resources being focused on that league and the 8 teams in it, the comp would only get stronger. While I agree the idea of park football involving all the Rugby heartlands of NZ (and the wealth of talent that exisits their) is a romantic prospect, I don't believe it would be viable in today's professional landscape. As a mad Wallaby supporter it pains me to say it but NZ is undoubtedly the centre of the Rugby universe, however with a population less than Sydney, NZ will always at least need AUS to bring corporate dollars and more TV viewers. I have no doubts that if NZ went it alone the comp they would produce would easily match it with Top 14, Premiership, Currie and whatever us Aussies could come up with. But the reality is such a move would shut the door on millions of viewers and in turn dollars. The pie left over wouldn't be enough to go around to the 8, 10 or 12 kiwi teams to effectively operate in the professional environment. Making things worse the NH player drain would become a flood as the dollar situation would be far worse without some big nations to boost up the bottomline. Thus making the comp less attractive to the local audience. Even with the local AB policy the best you could expect is a 4 year tide (tide goes out after RWC and comes in a year before the next one). This is probably one of the most worrying trends for NZ Rugby as young guys get their shot but then get booted by some guy with a fat wallet and I think the NZRU should do everything they can to stop this and the answer isn't separating from some of their bigger (population and dollar wise) brothers. At the same time AUS needs NZ to bring us extra teams. A 7 team competition isn't very appealing to viewers and realisticly I don't think we could expect to field too many more competitive sides than that in a local league. Bring in 7 kiwi teams and we have 14 world class teams creating what would still no doubt be the premier Rugby competition on the planet. And as we saw at Suncorp this year when the Reds played the Crusaders in the regular season, we want to see the big kiwi teams with their AB's playing here. The kiwi teams bring that edge to a top flight competition that heightens interest in the game here, I don't believe the SA's do this for us. So I reckon a 14 team comp with 7 from each nation so the powers split straight down the middle is the way to go. Us ANZAC's need eachother for our different reasons, but not so much our SA cousins. Super Rugby has been popular in NZ before so we know it can work. Let's cut the Africans and come up with some ideas to make it work again. I agree day footy is hard to beat so Im all for that, especially when involving 2 kiwi teams. May be when playing one of the less powerful AUS clubs they could take those home games out of the stadiums in the big cities and to some of the parks in the provincial towns?

sounds interesting. I thought the problem with the ARC was that the teams didnt really mean anything to anyone. The ballymore tornadoes etc. If it were a comp with the best of Bris and Sydney with somehow constructing teams from WA and Vic it could work. That way you get people who are already connected with those clubs of sydney and bris feeling something for the competition. the lesser teams of the bris and sydney teams could play in a different comp with elevation and relegation like the EPL. the ARC also failed because there were no wallabies playing in it, but if the super rugby comp was no more, the coopers and genias would be available for it.

Okay ITM (10-12teams) and Currie Cup along With Arc run from say March to July ARC 4 Sydney clubs 2 Brisbane clubs 1 Sunshine caost 1 ACT 1Vic (rebels) 1 Wa (force) then July to September-October Heineken Cup knockout comp involving all teams from nz/aus/sa the issues the whole thing would have to be sold as a package as both the itm and currie cup teams would need extra funding the knockout stage (pay TV) would have to subsidise the local comps Arc would have to be club based apart from WA and Vic (both emerging states). what would happen to Nsw and Queensland, they simply would become to powerfull if they competed in the knockout stages, the novelty would wear of pretty quickly competing with smaller NZ/Sa provinces, ( i think it would be impractical to form super teams just for the knockout stage).

Beware of rugby leagues failures in trying to reinvent itself . Rugby has more or less got things right .

Thanks mate, means a lot.

i do agree something has to happen though living in Melb having the rebels here was fantastic, but a problem was their season effectively ended in late June just as people were taking notice it ended and so did any media exposure

the problem is would the local itm and currie cups generate enough income to offset the loss of super rugby, how would you compete for players when europe can offer higher pay packets