Australia deserves five Super Rugby teams

At the beginning of the 2016 Super Rugby season the Brumbies monstered the Hurricanes 52-10, and the consensus in Australia was that the ACT side, at least, would dominate the Australasian conference.

No Australian side has recorded a trans-Tasman victory since that win.

Last weekend, in a shock movie called The Revenge of the Hurricanes, the New Zealand teams won all four of their games.

The Force were defeated (as expected) 32-20 by the Highlanders at Dunedin. And the Brumbies (not expected) were massacred 48-23 by the Chiefs at Canberra. Brett McKay, who was on the sidelines helping in the radio commentary, was so impressed or shocked that he has predicted the Chiefs will not lose another match this season.

This roller-coaster ride from the exhilaration of the Brumbies’ victory over the Hurricanes to the despair over their loss to the Chiefs has been matched by some anguished soul-searching from supporters and commentators about what is wrong with Australian rugby.

There seems to be a consensus on at least one factor: Australia cannot support five Super Rugby teams.

Shrewd rugby commentators like Paul Cully in The Sydney Morning Herald and Matt Burke (the fabulous Rugby World Cup-winning fullback) in The Sun-Herald are convinced that this is an essential problem. Many diehards commenting on The Roar hold a similar view.

The argument to support this contention is that there are not enough Super Rugby-standard players in the Australian system. The franchises, as a consequence, are thin on talent. This, in turn, creates a franchise mediocrity that spills over into poor results and weak Wallabies sides.

Cully has produced a model of sorts that he claims vindicates his position. It shows the final positions on the Super Rugby table of all the teams since 2011 – the year the Rebels were introduced. A team coming first in this model gets one point. The lower the overall points, the better for the team and its conference.

Since 2011, the New Zealand Conference leads with only 163 points from its five teams, South Africa is second with 206 points, and Australia is next at 227.

When you examine this table more closely though it is misleading.

The point of the Super Rugby tournament is to win it. Since 2011, Australian teams have won two Super Rugby titles: the Reds in 2011 and the Waratahs in 2014.

New Zealand teams have won three titles: the Chiefs in 2012 and 2013, and the Highlanders in 2015.

No South African team has won a Super Rugby title when there has been five Australian teams.

But when there were only four Australian sides – with the Force coming into Super Rugby in 2005 to join the Reds, Waratahs and Brumbies – the Bulls won titles in 2007, 2009 and 2010.

You could argue from this that the increase in Australian teams from four to five has materially improved the real results any conference desires – namely, to win the tournament.

In nine tournaments with three Australian Super Rugby teams, the Brumbies won two (2011, 2004). In five tournaments with five Australian Super Rugby teams, the Reds and Waratahs have a tournament each.

This is a strong argument for a five-team Australian conference. The criticism that Australia has too many Super Rugby teams is a complete nonsense.

The ratio of Australian teams winning the tournament is much better with five teams than with three or four teams.

Cully selected his Team of the Week in Monday’s SMH. Admittedly the Reds had a bye, but the Waratahs and the Brumbies were playing. In his side, there were three Brumbies (Scott Sio, Scott Fardy and Joe Tomane). There was not one Waratahs player, but there were eight Rebels and four Force players.

With five Super Rugby teams, more players are given a chance to play professional rugby and, possibly, go on to play for the Wallabies. Would some or even many of Cully’s selections have even been playing with four or three Australian Super Rugby teams?

This presumes, though, that the franchises are searching through Sydney and Brisbane club rugby for players who aspire to a professional rugby career and have the ability to achieve this.

Right now the franchises do not honour this commitment to local talent. Why do the Reds have two Japanese internationals in their squad? Why do the Brumbies have one of the Pumas halfbacks as their starter? The Rebels and the Force have squads that are stacked with players ineligible to play for the Wallabies.

Yet when teams like the Waratahs have to go to their fourth and fifth hookers to Sydney club rugby, these players perform well.

Talking about the Waratahs, why would they buy Zac Guilford when they have a potential star (if he gets playing time!) in Andrew Kellaway? Kellaway scored as many tries in the World Rugby Under-20s tournament as Julian Savea. On Sunday, he played his first Super Rugby match. Shame.

Even the sainted Michael Cheika can be accused of not fostering young talent. One of the only Waratahs to stand out this season is Jed Holloway. During his time as the Waratahs coach, Cheika never gave Holloway a decent run of matches to show his talent.

Of the Australian teams in 2016, three teams’ head coaches should not be where they are: Daryl Gibson with the Waratahs, Matt O’Connor and Nick Stiles with the Reds, and Michael Foley with the Force.

The two coaches who are doing a good job are Stephen Larkham with the Brumbies (despite the result against the Chiefs) and Tony McGahan with the Rebels.

What I liked about the Rebels’ play against the Waratahs is that they seemed to know what needed to be done in each specific situation. Sometimes the quality of the response wasn’t the best, but you could see the method being used, and it was appropriate.

At halftime in the Waratahs-Rebels match, the television cameras showed McGahan at a whiteboard, rather like a basketball coach, going through plays he wanted his team to use in the second 40 minutes of play.

The point, though, about Gibson, O’Connor and Stiles, and Foley is that they are not up to Super Rugby standard as head coaches.

The heart of the problem with the Force and Reds lies with the appointment of Richard Graham to the Force. Remarkable as it might seem, Graham was appointed to the plum job as head coach of the Reds with a 28 per cent winning record (or, to put it another way, a 72 per cent losing record!).

While the Force are still struggling with the repercussions of the Graham era, the Reds have been virtually destroyed as a viable franchise under his regime.

The Reds’ management have announced that they are not going to look for another coach until they find a new CEO. The Highlanders have already started their search. As the franchise pointed out in a media release, the market for coaches and players only has a couple of months or so to run.

This means by the time Queensland get around to looking for a new coach, the choice will be limited to a contest between Stiles and O’Connor, hardly a reassuring outcome.

I am amazed that the ARU has nothing to say or do about the coaching debacles with the Waratahs, Reds and Force.

There was a diversity statement issued by the ARU last weekend, which is good. But where is the equal concern, if not more concern, about the quality of the coaching at these three franchises?

You have the feeling that the ARU, its board, its chairman and its CEO are fiddling while Rome burns.

Here’s some advice to help them solve a lot of the problems facing Australian rugby.

Forget about the ‘too many teams’ debate and revive a policy that the ARU agreed to under John O’Neill – adopt the New Zealand Rugby Union model of a central management of players, coaches, trainers and doctors.

This model was accepted initially, but then torpedoed by dissident forces connected with the Force and Reds.

With Michael Hawker as chairman and Bill Pulver as CEO, the ARU ignored the evidence from New Zealand that the central management model was the way to go.

I haven’t had much time for the ARU in recent years, but I can’t believe that if they had the power to stop the appointment of Richard Graham for the Reds they wouldn’t use that power.

Also with the New Zealand central management model, each team nominates its 26 or so players from within the franchise, then other franchises then get the right to poach players not on the nominated list. Used properly, this system prevents warehousing groups of players in certain positions, a system that operates in Australia, unfortunately.

In essence, the New Zealand central management model allocates talent across the franchises and provides a gold standard to the appointment of the Super Rugby coaches.

There is no more important reform the ARU can effect than to implement a central management system that has created the environment leading to Super Rugby tournament wins, nurtured coaches like Dave Rennie of the Chiefs, and an All Blacks side that has won the last two Rugby World Cups.

Memo to the ARU: concentrate on the big game. Bring in the New Zealand central management model ASAP. If you can’t beat them, copy their methods!