The greatest threat to rugby in the southern hemisphere is European club rugby.
The key to competing with the French and English leagues and keeping our best players in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa is to make our second tier rugby bigger and more lucrative than theirs.
The fact is the Top 14 in France is growing stronger very quickly due to its increased broadcast deal and continued private investment.
The Aviva Premiership has the same potential. If these trends continue there will be a tipping point where all the best players follow the money to Europe.
The lure of a Test jersey will not be enough to keep them.
Already we are losing experienced players who in years gone by would have stuck around and mentored younger players.
Our rugby gets a little weaker with every quality player that leaves.
While the ARU are busy sorting out the NRC, I believe SANZAR as a whole should be much more focused on strengthening the second tier. Super Rugby has to move far beyond developing Wallabies, All Blacks and Springboks.
The ambition should be to make it the best, most popular and most lucrative league in the world. To do that it needs to provide more quality content and expand its appeal.
Both Australia and South Africa have populations that could support a few more second tier teams. Player depth shouldn’t be considered an issue as rugby has a growing global player base that could and should be tapped into.
Whether that also involves adding teams in more countries I’m not sure.
But whatever the format Super Rugby should definitely involve the best non-European players.
Developing unions could even help fund additional teams based in Australia, New Zealand or South Africa in return for squad places.
If the best players from the Asia-Pacific, Americas and Africa were all playing in the same league you could also take Test rugby to the next level.
Imagine if Japan, the US, Canada, Samoa, Fiji and Tonga – to begin with, were all competitive tier one Test nations with recognisable stars.
The Rugby Championship would become a much more valuable competition for all involved.
This would happen sooner than later with their top players lining up alongside and against the best from SANZAR in Super Rugby.
People that say the pacific island nations bring nothing to the table are wrong. If they were genuinely strong and exciting, and played most of their ‘home’ matches in Australia or New Zealand, they’d create more quality content.
And quality content is the key to driving revenues in the larger markets.
But Test rugby should be the icing on the cake, not the cake itself.
The Test season should be significantly shorter than the super rugby season.
At the moment I believe the international season for top nations (as a total) is a little too long. I think an ideal breakdown would be for a top player to play a max of 20-22 Super Rugby/second tier games and 10-12 Test matches in a season.
To keep the status quo would be to concede top level rugby to Europe.
Our best players will move there earlier and earlier and professional rugby everywhere else will become second rate.
The only truly top level games played in the southern hemisphere would be a handful of home Test matches played by European based stars, and perhaps a couple of pre-season exhibition matches with teams like the NRC All Stars taking on Toulon.
Eddard
Roar Guru
Well that's exactly what I suggested in the article. Make super rugby a competition for all the best players from countries we would like to include within the rugby championship (or other international structures) in future - basically the competition for the best players outside Europe. In the short to medium term this would involve getting players from those developing rugby countries in super rugby teams within Australia, NZ and South Africa. In order to avoid lessening the number of local players this would require more teams. As I said in the article, I'm not sure about including teams based in other countries or regions - not until these countries could support their own conferences. And that would be a long term ambition. It would need some directive from the top though, because at the moment our teams are after short term fixes when it comes to imports. Australian teams are signing mostly South Africans and New Zealand journeymen because they are ready from the get go. If they signed players from Asia, America or Africa the super rugby teams would have to spend more time developing them (though it is encouraging a few Japanese players are getting in at the moment due to the influence of Eddie Jones). But if you could arrange a situation where teams, individual unions or SANZAR as a whole were funded in some way for recruiting and developing talent from these target regions then it would be possible. And the long term benefits could be highly lucrative.
one-eyed jack
Guest
The enjoyment of flogging the Wallabies on a regular basis is a big plus.
jonty
Guest
NZ should ditch Australian rugby they bring nothing to NZ there crap
jeznez
Roar Guru
Went and read up on it. Having promotion into test status is good, relegation has pros and cons. This whole idea that CA, BCCI and ECB can run the show and their sides would be exempt from the relegation pressure set on everyone else is ridiculous. You only need to see that there are 270+ comments looking at one change in the squad for the coming SA tour to see how excited Aussie fans are to heading across to play the world number 1 side. The idea that is being floated is nonsensical and I hope it doesn't go through in its current form.
jeznez
Roar Guru
Not across it. What is the plan?
Jeznez, have you not heard what the BCCI, CA and ECB wants to do?
one-eyed jack
Guest
Why do i get the feeling that Pulver is not wearing pants in his internet dating photo attached to this article.
The power grab
Guest
The recent proposal to the ICC to get rid of the icc, install oz, eng and india as the kings of cricket whilst implementing a two teir promotion / relegation system for test nations except that aus, india and eng are to be permenantly in the top tier and are exempt from relegation (big on equality this proposal). SA, the dominant team in world cricket is not wanted in the cool kids club and is to have no role in decision making... and they can be relegated, of course. NZ + WI have to suck it and start playing ireland/afghanistan with significant drop in revenue (because eng, ind and aus deserve a greater share of icc revenue) effectively destroying player interest and ambition in those two nations with a long test history. Lament the loss of the great WI teams of the 70's and 80's? This will make that loss permanent.
jeznez
Roar Guru
what makes you think Australia wants to ditch SA in cricket? People can't wait for the upcoming test series. The general public can't wait to find out if we have fixed some of our problems or if England were just that bad.
jonty
Guest
NZ & SA don't even need Australia, SA provide most of the revenue & SA just wanna play the NZ teams & vice versa Australia are like that ugly sister on the side if Australia wanna ditch SA & NZ in cricket then SA & NZ should ditch Australia in rugby
mick
Guest
Umagas son certainly has the pride in the black jersey.
Working Class Rugger
Roar Guru
Eddard, Personally I think Super Rugby is the best Rugby championship in the world. But I do get your point regarding expanding its reach. The question is how best to do it. I for one think doing as Dane has suggested would be the most immediately viable option with focus towards targeted Unions with ambitions to introduce them to our international structures and schedules in the future. This would also allow the SANZAR Unions to further grow their brands and add new locations within its current boundaries.
Justin3
Guest
The Roar is quickly becoming a graveyard for those living in la la land.....
Eddard
Roar Guru
SANZAR wouldn't and shouldn't help develop players from these countries just so their unions can later go off on their own and create their own independent tournaments. If rugby ever became semi popular as a spectator sport in the US and they created a thriving league then it would be another huge threat to rugby in the SANZAR countries. Unless of course, rugby in the US was part of super rugby and the rugby championship, Then commercial deals could be negotiated globally and split evenly. SANZAR needs to look long term and join up with these unions now. Help them in the present so they can help us in future.
Dane
Guest
I think the ideal scenario lies somewhere in the middle. I don't see the point of expanding the competiions into new territories. The timezones and travel factor make it unsustainable for players and less than ideal for broadcast, both significant negatives. By encouraging players from developing Rugby Nations (Japan, USA, Canada, Pacific Islands, Argenitina) to play in Super Rugby the quality and diversity of the competition improves, furthering the cause of strengthing the SANZAR nations SANZAR can be a great servant to developing Rugby internationally by allowing these players to play in our 2nd tier comp. I would hope that the inclusion of players from these nations would lead to increased popularity of the game in these places. Eventually competitions similar to the RC, can run separately. Japan, Canada, USA and possibly the Pacific island nations could all start their own annual tournaments.
Dane
Guest
The June tests are the European equivilant of the spring tour. Without them the only time European nations would play in the Southern Hemisphere is when world cups are held here. To all of a sudden cut out the June internationals would really irate the Northern unions. Reducing the number onf Australian teams is not the answer. Sure the Force and Rebels are not very strong at the moment but neither were the highlanders and the kings last year. The rebels have only been in the competition for 3 years. It will take time to make all 5 teams competitive after the initial dilution but the rebels and the force will have their day in the sunshine. In every competition there will always be a handful of teams that are weaker than the rest. This does not mean these teams should be shutdown.
chris
Guest
SH Rugby needs a complete change as it's so cluttered. Wish there was one Rugby code in Australia and wish no S15 but just go back to a 8 team Currie Cup and a 8-10 team NPC.
Eddard
Roar Guru
That would be quite a way down the line BB. And if/when that happened I don't think you'd have much play between different conferences so the travel factor would be no worse and maybe better than it is now. The time difference between Australia and South Africa is already just about as bad as possible so I don't see how that can become a bigger issue than it already is. But to begin with I think we should be focusing on getting players from these countries into super rugby within the current countries. Quality of talent wouldn't be diluted because you'd be accessing new markets and developing them within SANZAR's framework. And long term it may improve as with greater commercial clout countries like South Africa could keep all their best players.
I don't beleive I am thinking short term, our opinions differ, neither is short term thinking, it is ourely a difference of where you see Super Rugby go and where I see Super rugby go. You want us to travel to 5 continents and I see that as the death of Super arugby as we know it. Firstly the travel factor would be ridiculous, the time zones a joke, and the quality will be dilluted.
NicolasPA
Guest
If you want to make Super Rugby the real deal in 2nd tier rugby you should make some changes: 1) No more June Test. International rugby only hass to be RC and November Test. 2) SR teams have to change: 6 teams from SA, 5 from NZ, 3 from Australia, 1 from Argentina. Australia should keep only Queensland and NSW and make a fusion between Brumbies, Force and Rebels.