Super Rugby must resist rapid expansion

Oh, and a quote I heard once but I can't remember where it came from but I believe it to be true. "If Rugby League was never invented the Wallabies would be unstoppable."

I cannot believe that the author just said the NRL was full of mediocre players... The NRL is the most watched and attended rugby football comp in the world! It couldn't do that if the competition wasn't close and fierce, which it is. All you have to do is watch a couple games of NRL to see how close the competition is. Teams struggling for weeks can snap into a long winning streak.. And if the NRL is inferior then Super Rugby then Super Rugby has no excuses for the NRL murdering SR in attendences and tv audience.. Literally the NRL dwarfs SR in these categories. Wake up please.

PNG may not be getting a team in the NRL any time soon, but they are still expanding into Australia. Papua New Guinea will introduce a professional rugby league club into the Queensland Cup in 2013. The team will have 25 full-time athletes, all local talent. It'll help PNG increase the depth of its talent pool. They'll be ready for the NRL within a decade, easily.

You are right Johnno - I hadn't realised there was an extra game due to the World Cup Qualifiers. India as winners of Div 3 have a playoff game against the winners of Div 2 to see if they can gain promotion up an extra division.

You are right Johnno - I hadn't realised there was an extra game due to the World Cup Qualifiers. India as winners of Div 3 have a playoff game against the winners of Div 2 to see if they can gain promotion up an extra division.

jeznez you are right on every level, but the playoff regarding India and Thailand I will post the link up here mate for you to have a look at , it is from the IRB website no less jeznez. As far as I am aware yes India did beat Guam and china sadly came last they were smashed by Pakistan too. Now for some reason jeznez and others, with the promotion relegation issues India has won the right to jump 2 divisions in 1 year if they beat thailand in a1 off match, why i don't know I think it has to do with these matches doubling as world cup qualifiers I will post the link up here. But yes division 1 is different to the top 5 premier HSBC premier 5 nations I did not realize this but India can still get into division 1 if they beat Thailand but not the HSBC 5 nations but India will still keep there world cup qualifier hopes alive in 2015 if they beat Thailand. http://www.rugbyworldcup.com/qualifying/news/newsid=2062410.html

Johnno, not an accurate picture of what has been happening in Asia. This is the Asian 5 Nations website if you want to keep up to date: http://www.asian5nations.com/ In summary. Top 5 - this is the top division and Japan won as usual, Korea second and HK third. Kazakhstan came fifth and will be relegated to Division 1. Division 1 - Phillipines beat Sri Lanka in the final to gain promotion. Singapore disapointingly came last and go down to Division 2 which is a big come down from just missing promotion to the Top 5 only two years ago. Division 2 - Thailand defeated Malaysia to gain promotion. China came last and were relegated. Division 3 - India defeated Guam to gain promotion to Div 2. Essentially India are now in the third tier of Asian rugby but that has come at the expense of China. Note I haven't given the results for Divisions four and five as these are truly developing nations.

if you just added two new teams and made it free for all for those spots, then it's the same amount of opportunity as we have now, they just have more competition at those teams. regardless you can't gift everything to these young players, if they can't break into a team at super level then they were never going to be international standard anyway.

only problem is australia arent a top 3 nation in soccer. We are in rugby and it benifits us to always be playing the best year in year out. It means we stay at this level...

For those that don't know Asian rugby is booming and making progress. now it is in 7evens Olympics. India is making rapid progress fast in 15 a side, they are playing off with thailand for the right to be part of HSBC Asian 5 nations dvision 1 next year. So if inida win that is 1 billions people, who will watch India play japan, and south korea. Pakistan rugby is booming too, india beat pakistan in a play off to play Thailand. And Pakistan has 170 million people, and sri lanka love rugby union too. So if India and Pakistan develop at the rate they are going and china then band, 2.2billion new tv market huge $$$$. I would keep with south africa until 2019 season., and th eyear Japan host rugby world cup in 2019. But in 20/20, australia should break away and unite with Japan,China,india,sth korea,malaysia, indonsesia,singapore,phillipines. kazaksthan, and usa/canada, teams in asia pacific. And ditch argentina and south africa. Asia pacific is our natural home not Africa or south america. And like soccer Australia is getting massive benifit being part of Asia, as are Asia haveing us in the confederation.

One of the bigger load of bird poops I’ve seen on the roar for a while. Are you seriously suggesting that the NRL is an example of a league that survives on mediocre players making the grade to fill substantial gaps? I’m sorry but the state of the competition would say otherwise. This is a league where at any game on any weekend, no result is a sure bet. Take a few weeks ago with a Gallen-less Sharks bringing the undefeated Storm at the peak of their powers to their knees. I’m not suggesting that each game and the athletes involved are origin standard but that’s the case for all sporting leagues across the globe. You don’t understand the purpose of a domestic league if you are seriously setting the benchmark as high as you seem to be. The two teams currently sitting at the bottom of the ladder (Parramatta and Canberra) both have the personnel in their rosters to have been in most people’s top 8 predictions before a ball had been kicked in the 2012 season. For almost the last decade you could throw a blanket over the NRL competition. All teams have been competitive over that period and results being so unpredictable and the competition (usually) being so close is a bi-product of the depth and the standard of athletes playing NRL. I’m a Union fan first and a League fan second and I would love nothing more than to see Rugby realise its full potential in our corner of the world in a professional sense. The ARU needs to be looking at the NRL as a model that it should be moving towards. You need to get over the obsession that Super Rugby should be played at a test match standard. The NRL isn’t played at an origin level and it’s still the strongest professional sporting league in half of the country. The purpose of a professional domestic sporting league is exposing as many players and fans to a professional standard of play as possible. In this regard I believe that we can do better. Australia and New Zealand should break away from SA and create a new Super Rugby competition involving 8 teams from each country. Yes it will cause the standard of play to drop but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The ITM Cup obviously isn’t on par with Super Rugby standard yet they’re still playing an entertaining brand of rugby that attracts fans. It will just be important that the talent is distributed evenly across the 16 teams to ensure a close competition. The ARU needs to come up with a way of generating more income for themselves and the game and their current strategy of flogging the Wallabies around isn’t sustainable. The Wallabies and test matches in general are the absolute pinnacle of the game and should be treated as such. They have the potential to generate substantial amounts of income but if we keep on using them as we are we’re going to take the gloss off their brand. For example, tonight’s test match will go close to selling out but I don’t believe that’s a statement about the game being played. A patchwork Wallaby team playing against this year’s 6 Nations cellar dwellers isn’t exactly a blockbuster. The fact that Hunter Stadium will be almost at capacity is a statement about the huge rugby market that exists there and that’s being ignored by the ARU. Take that same game to Sydney or Brisbane and you’d be lucky to crack the 20,000 mark. We can’t continue to use the Wallabies in this way but we should be looking at capturing the large rugby populations that exist in Australia that aren’t currently being represented directly by a super rugby franchise. A more localised league will allow teams to be put in rugby heartlands like Newcastle, the Gold Coast and Western Sydney. More players will be exposed to professional rugby (a big plus for depth) and more fans will be engaged with the game meaning more dollars coming into the coffers. Fold the Waratahs and the Reds and replace them with an eastern Sydney team and Brisbane team respectively. This will open up the opportunity for putting the meaning back into these jerseys and establishing them as what they use to represent, an interstate clash that was as fierce a rugby rivalry that you would find at any level on the planet. Play a one off (don’t try and replicate origin) game at either Suncorp or ANZ each year following the Super season and prior to the test season (use it as a bit of a selection trial also) and this game would pack out those stadiums and generate more income than Australia A vs the majority of European teams. Rugby doesn’t have to be played at the highest standard to engage the public. We just need to find formulas to attract and hold onto as many fans as possible and more professional rugby franchises representing more rugby heartlands in a competition format that is more engaging for the public is a good start. On a side note, Rod Macqueen is no longer the Rebels coach so should they continue to make up the numbers or if they win the thing it will have nothing to do with him. And the Force’s best result was finishing seventh the year after they came into Super Rugby in 2007. The Lions haven’t finished above seventh since 2001 (when there were 12 teams) and the Cheetahs placed seventh in their inaugural year in 1997 (again when there were 12 teams) and haven’t placed better since. So should we be looking at dropping Super Rugby down to 11 teams and wiping out the teams that haven’t had any success?

I can sympathise with the article. There is something nice about having teams that represent whole regions/provinces, and one per major city, as opposed to teams representing little suburbs in a city that not everyone can identify with. Having said that, plenty of league teams are supported by people who never lived in that suburb. Good for them. I think expansion will happen, but SANZAR won't go overboard and dilute the comp too much. I personally wouldn't think a bigger expansion (say 8 teams per SA, NZ, and AUS) would be bad, mainly because the conferences would be closed and depth would be masked. Also travel expenses would be much lower. This may open the way for another conference (2xARG, 2xUSA, 2xCAN, 2xJAP). However, Kiwis would say "why?" when they already have a national comp (SA would be similar, but to a lesser extent). And it would mean a dramatic reduction in the salary cap in the ITM Cup. These are big issues and not to be taken lightly. However, in reality, I think the expansion in 2015 will involve a new team from SA, ARG, US, HK and JAP. And one more from either NZ or a second from JAP. They will be added to the 3 existing conferences. This will be massive enough for SANZAR, although it wouldn't be my first preference.

I think insecurity usually leads in the opposite direction - rapid expansion. This article might just be thinking confidently instead.

Ther probably needs to be a limit. If young Aussie players can't get a start, they will look elsewhere. If a team has the option of an international player verses a young unexperienced Aussie, they may take the former option most of the time.

For SR to grow, they don't need to expand, they need to stop scheduling regular season fixtures across the Indian Ocean. South Africa is a complete momentum / interest killer to the SR comp. Aus and NZ need to be their own conference with all games played in a suitable timezone.

3. the greatest shame 4. the forbidden blame

AFL, NRL, SUPER RUGBY, A-LEAGUE are all the same mate.

Good article, jmacredie with quite a few hard hitting reality checks. It is a pity that they can't have a couple of PI teams - maybe they could be subsidised, but the travel would end up being a logistical nightmare. NZ and SA could easily expand, but as you point out Australia is already exposed with 5 teams.

You seem to be working under the misapprehension that club sides are rep sides ...

in·se·cu·ri·ty [in-si-kyoor-i-tee] noun, plural in·se·cu·ri·ties. 1. lack of confidence or assurance; self-doubt: He is plagued by insecurity. 2. the quality or state of being insecure; instability: