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With all the club rugby grand finals around the country now behind us and the Wallabies’ last home game of 2013 played in Perth last weekend, rugby in Australia now enters its annual period of hiatus for the best part of five months.
It’s at this time of year, August through to October, we’re told, the ARU’s grand plan for a national club competition of sorts will be played, hopefully from next year.
Development of new tiers of rugby has certainly been something of a hobbyhorse for Bill Pulver since he first moved into the corner office at St Leonards in February.
The argument has been made – with a fair amount of truth to it – that Pulver has done more on the ‘national comp’ front in eight months than predecessor John O’Neil did in his second stint of five years in charge.
Talk of ‘the next tier’ has increased in recent weeks, as the major club comps around the country wound up.
Both the News Ltd and Fairfax press have been reporting on the various developments for a few weeks now and, if nothing else, it is at least good the discussion is ongoing.
Not that everyone is happy about it, mind you.
The Sydney clubs were said to be more than a touch bemused being told their continued ARU funding would be contingent on payments to club players ceasing.
And if that wasn’t enough, the ARU wants to legislate that Super Rugby-contracted players will remain in their ‘Super’ state for club rugby and not return to their Sydney or Brisbane clubs.
The most recent development is talk of Pulver’s double-barrelled vision for the Australian rugby calendar.
The national club competition at this time of year looks to be where we’re heading, but I’ll come back to that.
Bret Harris reported in The Australian last weekend that Pulver’s pet “Super B” project has had a shift of focus.
Instead of being the trumped up, supposedly made-for-TV modified rule format that Pulver has espoused for much of his time in the big chair, Harris reported the ARU has now hatched a plan with would see “Australia’s Super Rugby B teams [playing] in the Pacific Nations Cup.”
The Pacific Nations Cup is the IRB-funded competition comprising Japan, Fiji, Tonga, Canada, and the United States. Samoa sat out the 2013 competition, instead playing in the quadrangular tournament in South Africa, alongside Scotland and Italy.
While the PNC idea sounds more suitable and feasible than the original ‘Super B’ plan, Harris quoted Pulver as saying the plan to include the Super Rugby second XVs in the PNC was “…a work in progress, but hopefully it will be ready by next year.”
You would have to presume part of that work in progress would involve discussions with the IRB themselves.
At this point in time, the IRB has said nothing publicly of the ARU’s ambitious plan.
Where Pulver and the ARU might find themselves between the proverbial rock and a hard place is how they progress the national club competition structure.
Most reporting thus far has centred on a 10-12 team competition made of teams from Brisbane and Sydney, single sides from Canberra, Perth, and Melbourne, and possibly even NSW/Queensland Country.
Harris quoted Pulver last weekend as saying, “We will be looking for expressions of interest from the clubs. Whether they are stand-alone teams or combinations of teams is yet to be determined.
“In an ideal world we would like to get it up and running next year, but whether we can pull it off, I’m not sure.
“There are some funding implications that need to be resolved, whether by a broadcaster or other solutions.”
A single team from Canberra, Perth, and Melbourne makes obvious sense. A combined Country side is perhaps pushing things, from a logistics standpoint, but should still be considered regardless.
Where things will get ugly is how to accommodate teams from Sydney and Brisbane.
One of the major sticking points of the 2007 Australian Rugby Championship was that the Sydney and Brisbane teams were artificial creations, representative of no one.
The Sydney club presidents made no secret of their dislike of the format, and indeed, the crowds in both cities were underwhelming.
The ARU looks to be having a bit each way; in suggesting they’ll call for expressions of interest regardless of the fact they haven’t worked out whether to admit clubs in their own right, or through amalgamations.
It seems as though they’re waiting to receive the EOIs before they determine what they actually want.
Presumably, every Brisbane and Sydney club will want to prove they’re worthy of inclusion. ‘Amalgamations’ seems like a nice way of asking the clubs to fashion the artificial creations themselves, but it still seems to me the issues from 2007 are set to resurface.
Let’s just assume for the sake of example a ten-team format is preferred, and the combined Country idea doesn’t fly.
You would presume the remaining seven spots would be split, with four to come from Sydney, and three from Brisbane.
To randomly pick out seven clubs, let’s say Easts, Sunnybank, and GPS are admitted from Brisbane, and Parramatta, Warringah, Sydney Uni, and Souths get the nod from Sydney.
While the supporters of these seven clubs will be thrilled – and presumably enthusiastic – to see their colours run around on the admittedly niche national stage, will the supporters of the remaining clubs really get behind any of them? Is the ‘greater good’ enough to get them on board?
And if not, then how is that any different to the unsupportive stance the clubs took back in 2007?
If, as you would presume would actually happen, the four financially strongest Sydney clubs and the three strongest Brisbane clubs express their interest and win any tender process, wouldn’t that just confirm the split between the haves and the have nots?
And players from the ‘weaker’ clubs will gravitate toward the ‘big seven’.
All this seems to confirm is that despite all the misgivings and cock-ups from 2007, the ARC format was actually correct. Those artificial creations were actually representative.
And so this is the corner Bill Pulver is painting himself into. Clubs standing alone or amalgamated entities, however they go, it will be impossible to keep everyone happy.
Yet the perilous state of Australian rugby necessitates something must be done.
I’ve been saying this for years, that just as Australian rugby can’t afford a third tier, it can afford to not have one even less.
It is the $64 million question, Bill. And you simply must not get it wrong.