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The NRC could help shape Super Rugby's future

Roar Rookie
8th April, 2014
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A rejigged Super Rugby schedule could see Wallabies like Jesse Mogg (right) turning out in NRC club colours. (Photo: Paul Barkley/LookPro)
Roar Rookie
8th April, 2014
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1793 Reads

It seems the New Zealand Rugby Union and South African Rugby Union have already put their eggs firmly in the Super Rugby basket, and will maintain their traditional domestic competitions as development comps under Super Rugby.

I can only imagine that they saw this as a necessity.

In that case, it’s not unrealistic to expect Super Rugby to continue in a format similar to its current one for a long while yet.

The main problem for Super Rugby is the amount of irrelevant games. I don’t necessarily mean these games are uninteresting, but they are powerless to reach the Australian market. Games played in South Africa at 2am take the wind out of the sails for Super Rugby in Australia. The novelty of getting out of bed at that time has worn off.

This is coupled with no Super Rugby on free-to-air TV. Rugby needs more demand to become free-to-air worthy, but it can’t get more demand under the current set-up.

This situation looks likely to worsen with more games to be played in South Africa and less all-Australian derbies when the next broadcast deal is finalised. Because of Australia’s crowded winter sporting landscape, this has the potential to harm rugby in Australia in a way that South Africa and New Zealand won’t experience.

I think the ARU needs to go with the flow and see Super Rugby from the same perspective as the NZRU and SARU – a competition that pits the best players in the Southern Hemisphere against each other, and not as a pseudo-national domestic competition. It simply cannot fill that void for Australia and meet the demands and aspirations of the other nations.

Once the ARU does accept this perspective, however, perhaps we will be in a position to move forward together and maximise Super Rugby’s potential – whatever that might be.

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Going hand in hand with this, I would love to see the ARU strongly promote and invest in the NRC, which has the potential to quench the Australian thirst for a national domestic competition to call our own. And one of the positives for the NRC over the old ARC is that it appears to have the support from the grassroots, at least in New South Wales.

While this may have resulted in a few less-than-ideal (for some) arrangements in terms of who controls the teams, I think it has ended up pretty good, all things considered. And I’m sure there is room to tweak things as the competition goes forward.

Further to this, with the NRC complementing the Wallabies in The Rugby Championship in the second half of the year, rugby has the potential to pack a more powerful punch within the Australian sporting market at this time.

The Wallabies have been alone in trying to capture the public and media’s attention for a long time, but the NRC gives rugby more high-level content to catch the eye in the back end of the year. While the NRC won’t be on the same level as the NRL or AFL, the whole (including the Wallabies) may turn out to be greater than the sum of its parts.

Assuming the best-case scenario of the NRC doing well, then perhaps we will be in a better position to tweak the Super Rugby set-up as well.

For Super Rugby to be special again and more appealing, there probably needs to be less, not more. On top of my wish list would be the NRC generating more revenue than expected, taking the pressure off Super Rugby needing to provide more than it was designed for. I would love them to be in a position to scale Super Rugby back to finishing before the June internationals.

Assuming there will be 18 teams with a new team from South Africa, Argentina and Asia, my ideal would be for three conferences of six teams each, with the format as follows:

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Each team would play all the other teams in its own conference once (five weeks). After this, the top two teams in a particular conference would play the bottom two teams in the other two conferences.

At the same time, the two middle teams in a particular conference would play the two middle teams in the other two conferences. And at the same time, the two bottom placed teams in a particular conference would play the top two teams in the other two conferences.

This means that each team would play four cross-conference games – two home and two away (4 weeks). Then the top eight teams on the overall table would move through for the finals using the same finals system as the AFL and NRL (four weeks). Add in a bye week, and the competition would run for 14 weeks.

Of course, expecting Super Rugby to be finished before June may be a bit too much of a reduction in content and revenue. But if The Rugby Championship was then played over July and August, it would free up the Test players in each country to be available for their respective national domestic competitions in September and October, thus driving up revenue for these.

I remember hearing about some discussions at a high level of moving the June Internationals to July in the hope of better aligning the Northern Hemisphere season with the Southern Hemisphere season. I’m not sure if this will ever happen, but it certainly isn’t out of the question.

And if it did happen then it could still work, with the format as follows:

Each team would play everyone in their own conference once (five weeks). After this the top three teams in a particular conference would play the bottom three teams from the other two conferences. At the same time, the bottom three teams from a particular conference would play the top three teams from the other two conferences (six weeks).

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The top eight teams on the overall table would them move through for the finals using the same finals system as the AFL and NRL (four weeks). Add in a bye week, and the competition would run for 16 weeks.

By finishing Super Rugby before the June/July inbounds, it gives Super Rugby a clear window without disruption. The competition can keep its momentum instead of the current stop-start situation.

While there would be less conference derbies under both proposed formats, the conference derby games would also become a lot more meaningful because they would determine who you have to play from the other two conferences at the next stage. Players and fans would be a little more excited to win their conference derbies to get an easier run to the finals. This should attract a few more spectators to the games.

And besides, with the introduction of the NRC, Australian fans might be just as satisfied as some of their South Africa and New Zealand counterparts seem to be with teams from their conference only playing each other once.

If your team is in the top two/three teams in your conference, the interest from a fan’s perspective is that you have a real shot at making the final eight and will want to track your team’s progress as they play teams from the other two conferences.

If your team is in the bottom two/three in your conference, the interest from a fan’s perspective is that you still have a chance of making the final eight and you will be playing the best teams from the other two conferences!

While there would be less content than there is currently, and potentially less revenue, the hope is that the NRC would pick up some of this, especially if the Test stars became available for some of it.

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It would also make the rugby calendar more defined and less messy in the Southern Hemisphere. Super Rugby would start on the last weekend in February or the first weekend in March every year. The June/July inbound Tests would then follow after the completion of Super Rugby.

The Rugby Championship would then start on the first weekend in July (or August) every year, and finish at the end of August (or September). This would leave the Test players available for part of the NRC and the equivalent national domestic competitions in New Zealand and SA.

The NRC would also start on the first weekend of July (or August) every year and finish before the outbound tour in November.

A simpler and more interesting Super Rugby format. An international season which flows from the inbounds into The Rugby Championship. And a stronger national domestic competition for each country.

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