The ARU - Tell 'em they're dreaming!

How about: "What is it with you CEO's and Cash?"

Denis Denuto the Battler's Prince

The idea and the thought of losing my team the Western Force makes me sick. If we lose Rugby in WA I will run my back on the ARU and Super Rugby. The sport captured my attention in 1991 during the RWC. Since then I've been hooked watching wallaby games and hoping Perth would have a team so I could watch the sport live more regularly at a top level. I am an inaugural member of the Force and have missed only 3 games due to injury and a family commitment. The fact is for West Aussies everything is expensive so geographically having our own team has been fantastic. There is a saturation of the sport over East with four clubs that sit on the East coast. I don't want them to disappear, but fair go why should we be denied the sport in the west. I would be insulted if the ARU decided to appease us by sending Wallaby games to Perth or even worse super rugby exhibition games of one of the other 4 francises. I am basically saying after the blood, sweat and tears our club has been through to cut us would virtually make Rugby dead in WA. Betrayal is something that sits very uneasily with Western Australians and the Eastern States continues to punch WA in the guts. ARU - don't take our team- let them survive!

This whole situation screams The Castle to me. So many quotable quotes that resonate on so many levels.

If there's one thing dad loved more than serenity, it's a two-stroke motor at full throttle! Dad? I dug another hole. It's filling with water. memo to EARU When Force win [to opposing court counsel after winning the case] Suffer in your jocks!

Read the financial reports. We posted a loss in 2015. So $10M of that was breaking even. So after the profit it's where did the extra $20M go. I may be incorrect but I think community rugby and state grants were increased by $5M. So now it's $15M. I think the Rebels got some of their funding to 2020 upfront, meaning they get less later. So now it's $14M. There were more tests than 2015, so nore running costs associated. So there's a few more million. Then there's also the fact that Super Rugby franchises were collectively funded by close to $10M in total. So that's basically where it all went.

You know what I love about Super Rugby? 'The serenity'.

Brilliant read. I could think of a few ways to incorporate jousting sticks at the ARU Board meeting...

We can't go it alone because 3 matches into the season everyone would switch off the channel (and Australian derbys 9 times out of 10 are usually a contest of 'who can be worse'). If only we could have cut the Sunwolves, Jaguars and conference system while they had the chance. From where we are right now make no mistake an Aussie side HAS to be cut. People have got to come back to reality and realise the Force have been a joke since day one. The only purpose they serve is offering the Springboks a semi-home ground advantage whenever the Wallabies play them in Perth. If the ARU board members drop the ball on this obligation then they should not stop at resigning but drown each other in a lake

An excellent question.

Onya Martin... good read on the back of the 20yr anniversary of the Castle. And yeah, there are definitely some ironies here regards the state of SR. My line from this classic film that presently resonates... 'Dad reckons fishing is 10% brains and 95% muscle, the rest is just good luck.' Seems to me this is where SANZAAR has put us all... players, teams, supporters, all and sundry! Further, I'd like to take this opportunity to recognise the late great John Clarke... and I'm sure those of 'Working Dog' fame would allow this.

I agree with you Browny and TWAS but what I don't get is the ECARU got $26M in 2014 then an extra $34M in 2016, yet we make a profit of only $3.6M. How did we survive 2014 with just $26M or where has the $60M gone? We can't go back and we can't have Super Rugby without SA. As for any money being earmarked for grassroots rugby that will be swallowed up by legal fees.

gold! "Dennis Denuto: “I cleaned that tray 3 f….. times! F3… F3… What the f….. is that!” Dennis could have been talking about understanding the way the conference and finals system presently operates in Super rugby."

Farook: "A man, he come to my house and say: stop with the court business. if not stop, he have friend who come and beat me. And I say you have friend, I have friend, my friend come to your house, put bomb under your car and blow you to f'...ing sky." Daryl Kerrigan: "And what did he do?" Farook: " He get scared and he leave." Daryl Kerrigan: "I bet he did." In other words, The ARU have gone home, their thug tactics have not worked.

My thoughts exactly. The 2014 broadcast money for the ARU was $26M (2015 was a weird year, world cup and all) and 2016 was a whopping $60M. Take into consideration that the extra $34M the ARU received in 2016, pretty much all coming out of the UK and Europe, was just enough to keep our heads above water with a $3.7M profit or whatever it was. Do you think we're going to get anywhere near that for a solely local product? I don't think I'm too far off the mark if I took a stab and suggested that a lot of that extra broadcast money is coming in to watch the Kiwi's rather than the Australian teams. If we can't afford to run 5 teams with $60M, let alone $26M, I'm not sure how we'd go with canning the majority of the broadcast money and trying to split it 5 ways. "Going it alone' would involve something close to wiping the slate clean of professional rugby in Australia and attempting to rebuild from a pre-'96 position... just without the top tier players who would all leave overseas and rugby sitting in a much lower position of visibility, accessibility and marketable product from a national standpoint. On a side note, the image of Pulver sitting there exclaiming "Dad, I dug another hole! It's filling with water!" is incredible.