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SANZAR must protect their core values to remain at the top

Roar Guru
29th August, 2013
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There are workhorses, and then there is South Africa's Duane Vermeulen. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
Roar Guru
29th August, 2013
127
1709 Reads

Since the start of professional rugby in 1996, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand have won 73 percent, 75 percent and 90 percent of their matches respectively against the traditional Five Nation teams.

If that is not dominating world rugby, then I misinterpret the terminology of world domination.

Against every one of France, England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, these three Southern Hemisphere giants hold a superior record.

In the era of amateur rugby, Australia barely held on to a 53 percent success rate against their Five Nation opponents, but has since become a dominating force in world rugby.

The Wallabies’ turnaround from 53 percent to 75 percent is proof the professional era has been good to Australian rugby, even their dismal success rate of 17 percent against the British and Irish Lions in the amateur era has turned around to a 50 percent success rate in the professional era.

New Zealand has cemented their position at the top during the professional era by increasing their success rate by 7 percent from a “lowly” 83 percent, while South Africa has dropped 1 percent since the professional era began.

It would be prudent to look at the factors that would have assisted Australia in becoming so much more successful in comparison to the amateur era, but also why South Africa and New Zealand have managed to remain at the top.

During the week I was reading on a blog site where the discussion centred around why the Southern Hemisphere manages to be so dominant over their Northern Hemisphere rivals.

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The usual genetics, diet, climate and other potential factors that might be responsible was mentioned, but one specific comment got me thinking.

“It’s all about attitude if you ask me,” one Northern Hemisphere commenter said. “In our stiff upper lip and keep everything fair and do not exclude the weaker people regime we live in now, we are always happy with the plucky performance. The southern countries are all of the attitude win at all costs, losing is nothing, I bet during the grass roots level at school or in the clubs they do not feel obliged to give the ‘little kid/or less talented kid’ a run out just to be fair.”

In spite of our diversities and individual needs as rugby unions, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa have one thing in common – we want to win, and we want to be the best.

There is no doubt in my mind that Super Rugby has been the catalyst that has not only improved Australian rugby, but also its depth in talent.

From a South African perspective, in spite of the internal politics in South Africa, Super Rugby has assisted us to remain in the higher echelon of rugby union, and similarly New Zealand has benefited from the SANZAR arrangement.

The simple truth is that without Super Rugby, New Zealand and Australian rugby players will not have a testing ground against big, physical Afrikaners which would teach them how to stand up to the forward dominated teams in world rugby.

Without Super Rugby, South Africa will not constantly play and be reminded that pace and space is a watchword for successful teams.

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You can draw your own conclusions, but when you are honest with yourselves you will find that the SANZAR arrangement has been to the benefit of all three countries to remain top dogs.

The current renegotiation of the SANZAR agreement could have far reaching consequences for each of the three nations, and to me there are two key issues that will influence the outcome of these negotiations.

South Africa wants a sixth team. This is not a luxury or “added demand” or South Africa Rugby Union “throwing their toys”, it is a necessity from higher up which if accomplished will give SARU breathing space to continue their day to day business activities without interference.

Even though you may not live in South Africa and experience or understand the necessity to satisfy the requirement of South Africa politics, just accept it is a reality.

Money: whether it is the ARU, NZRU or a collective requirement from all three nations, the sustainability of Super Rugby needs revenue.

The constant need of SANZAR to expand markets and looking towards increasing the number of teams from outside SANZAR in my opinion is sporting suicide.

Super Rugby has kept us strong, bringing in teams from outside our three nations will only dilute the quality of the competition. Japan and America simply should not be on the radar if they cannot provide the quality Super Rugby demands.

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The Pacific Islands simply do not have the market or potential revenue streams necessary to add value to Super Rugby. The fact that they are naturally talented rugby players is neither here nor there, unless SANZAR is prepared to fund a Pacific Island team. It shouldn’t be complicated at all, will SANZAR fund a team or not?

Argentina has now been included into the Rugby Championship, it is therefore logical that if any expansion is due to happen, the core of SANZAR should be intact. In other words, if Argentina has been selected as the nation with the potential to “rule” the rugby world with us, then if any expansion is on the cards it has to be Argentinian teams to be included into Super Rugby.

Due to the distances involved between the participating nations, travel is a large part of the expenses incurred to running Super Rugby. The only solution is closed conferences, but it has been discussed before, and I do not want to go into the detail of that.

Australia cannot expand any further, and it has nothing to do with the fact that the Force and Rebels have been perennial under achievers, it has to do with simple numbers.

Currently in the French Top 14, of the 512 professionally contracted players, 242 are foreigners, in other words, French rugby cannot sustain 14 professional teams with their own players, so the solution for their club owners is to buy success.

Australia needs to guard against that, their success in international rugby depends upon them having five Super Rugby teams developing five squads of Australian players.

Luring foreign players to their shores is only a short term solution and that is where the requirement for a semi-professional third-tier has become a necessity.

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South Africa might not be able to provide six top class teams, but in a closed conference the weaker teams will not qualify for a second round of play-offs and therefore not dilute the quality of the second round robin of matches. Similarly only the top teams from Australia and New Zealand will qualify.

The benefit of a second round robin by the top three teams of each nation will once again provide us with top class, fast paced and Test match quality rugby.

I know there are already many thoughts to discuss here, but if I may, my final point comes back to the money, the salaries and the revenues.

SANZAR will never compete with Europe when it comes to finance, yes Australia may have one of the largest GDPs in the world, and may be an economic leader. But the reality is a very small percentage of the GDP goes to rugby union.

Why try to compete with something you cannot? Why try to bankrupt your unions to attempt to keep the best players?

How many more foreign players can France contract when they are already pretty close to 50 percent?

The strength of SANZAR is Super Rugby, the development of our own talent, the depth of our player resources and the pride and hunger we have to succeed.

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Let the Europeans and Japanese clubs pay our players big sums of money, but let us do what makes our rugby strong, develop, expose and build experienced squads.

That is where our strength lies, and if our players want to leave, have a backup, have two, in fact have 10 backups for every position, because that is the only way we can remain at the top.

To summarise, SANZAR needs to be prudent in their future plans. They need to realise the quality of Super Rugby does not lie outside our borders, the need to ever increase revenue to enable us to compete with Europe and Japan is a futile exercise.

The necessity for all three nations (plus Argentina) to have their top teams compete against one another (and not only in a play-off series) is what benefits us as we learn from each other.

New Zealand will not benefit from playing 90 percent of their matches against Australia, as the physicality of South Africa will be missed.

South Africa will not benefit from playing 90 percent of their matches against Argentina as their styles are too similar.

Australia is not going to benefit from Super Rugby if half their teams are riddled with foreign players, it simply does not aid development.

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Australia will be the only winner if a two conference system is approved.

Ultimately SANZAR is the custodian of our rugby talent, and they must protect the core values of our rugby. Compromise and level headed thinking is a requirement.

Just my two cents worth.

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