Australian rugby needs New Zealand to survive

Absolutely Chris, right on the money. Australia has created its own mess, so it can sort it out. First, clean out the ARU management. They've been bleeding the regions and standing over them since professionalism began 21 years ago. Second, try to acquire some halfway decent regional coaching staff. Third, stop trying to shrink the national player base by dropping the Force or the Rebels. The number of local supporters of the Force is huge and to lose most of them by wacking the Force is counterproductive. Same as with the Rebels. Fourth, get some decent selectors for the national team and provide a credible program to bring on some of the younger talent. Finally, stop babying some of the (older) Wallabies and treating them as heroes until they deserve the label, and stop keeping them too long.

Typical corp media reply, ignore issues and content, your criteria is not facts (not Fox Mary Ann facts) but 'us and them' senario, don't agree with our corp agenda we unfairly insult and attack you, We've got the distribution and power to demolish you, so there. Fortunately some reports indicate many young people around the world (don't know about NZ) want news presented with integrity, MurFox/CorpM doesn't know what integrity means.

Fionn! Don't go down that road again mate! It's untrue and you know it so why bring that flogged out nonsense up again as its a useless and unnecessary topic that has been thrashed to death so many times on this Forum and a host of others over and over again ending with the same result! ~ bad road to be going down all over again as you'll get buried with this topic as usual! You're also wrong again with your comment re NZ and Australia being Immigrant Countries, ~ New Zealand certainly is, but weren't Australia's lot transported from "up there"?!! Finally, New Zealand does not poach players as they have a surplus of their very own - plus!, - the only foreign players who may play there in New Zealand do so on their own volition! 99% of our Island Brothers and Sister's we're New Zealand born or, perhaps may have been born in the Islands to New Zealand parents! ~ Rugby recruitment Scouts do not hang around the Maternity Hospitals hoping for a signature, they don't have to as they're born in Godzone better known as New Zealand

"They need Australia to be competitive to reinforce their superior status in union" - seriously,do you believe what you are writing? What makes you think it is all about Aus? You didn't even become competitive until the late 1970's,and then only because of increased contact with NZ rugby.Prior to that you were a non-entity. Our major rivals were SA and the UK.And,for now,it looks like it will be the northern teams will pose the greatest threat to NZ.You want that to change,then get better.

It would be more effective hiring out coaches to them. However, the players would be obliged to actually listen (and pay attention while doing so) to what the coaches are trying to teach them or be dropped to the NRC or club rugby until they wise up. Better to field a raw side willing to learn, than one that already thinks they know it all. Player power and locker room rebellions to be dealt with the same way until the culture changes.

Just like it has worked in Australia? The NPC now acts as a feeder and conditioning tier between the clubs (at the bottom) and Super Rugby. It gives those players a more intense level of play than club rugby can provide, helps identify those players capable of the step up to Super Rugby, exposes the skill sets of SR players to provincial and club players and maintains the condition/match fitness of players who just missed out on All Black selection, but may be required in the event of an injury. Why the Hell wouldn't we defend it? Plus,although it will almost certainly never regain the importance it once held, the NPC keeps the traditions of NZ rugby alive in the provinces.

The quality of the players is one of several factors that can make a team successful. If less teams lead to more quality players and therefore a more competitive team, the Pumas with their almost international side should be dominating the competition. However they lost against a bottom dweller like the Force at home. Access to more Kiwi players in the short may help to build a little bit of depth when a team is struggling with injuries (e.g. Rebels and Force), however when Australian sides have their best players on the field , the games were pretty close and these teams are competitive. The bigger gap for me is in quality and experience of the coaching staff. New Zealand took coaching to a new level, while South Africa and Australia failed to retain the top coaches that could have mentored junior coaches (Mallet, Jones, Erasmus, White, Meyer and Venter). Is it a coincident that the Lions, the only team with an experience coach, are the only team that is on par with the top Kiwi sides. Although Larkham was mentored by White, both South African and Australia is throwing their young coaches to the wolves. For example Wessels learned an important lesson on Saturday: a young side do not have the maturity to cope with a drastic change in their game plan. Ireland, Wales and Argentina benefited from the wisdom that experienced coaches can bring. Administrators should rather support the coaches and provide them with the environment and time to develop with their teams as it will take time to get at the level the Lions is and Kiwi sides are. A star team will always beat a team with stars.

Deano, mainly because the NZ teams could pay them when the Australian teams couldnt.

There is too little upside and too much risk for anything like this to be seriously considered by NZR. What is happening in New Zealand is working. The production line continues to pump out international quality players, there are enough players to fight for positions and the quality of product is helping keep salaries reasonably competitive. None of this requires quality opposition from Australia, in fact it is built specifically on strong internal competition. This speaks to the provincial level as well. Why reduce the number of home based teams to introduce Australian teams when all that will do is provide less opportunity for New Zealand players? New Zealander's also have a soft spot for the Mitre 10 even if it's much less important than in the past. We still see full houses for Ranfurly Shield games after all. Honestly Australia probably needs a ground up rebuild or to partner with a country who will get some genuine concrete benefit out of this kind of arrangement. If you want to keep it in the SANZAAR family why not instead look to partner with South Africa? They are losing players to Northern Hemisphere competitions where they don't have access to them and fans are losing access to those players. Maybe if Australia opened up it's rules to allow more South African players it would bolster the Aussie teams. =It would allow for knowledge sharing between two very different rugby nations. The players could earn some Aussie dollars while also getting a trip home during the season and the national team will have the players available during all the southern hemisphere test windows.

moaman - NZ's are the second largest immigrant group in australia, australians the 4th in NZ. Kiwi's are 2.7% of aust's population Aussies 1.6% of nz population

Turnbull was actually looking at reinvigorating the agreement a year or two ago, but then he became PM and has become beholden to the far right / nationals corner of the coalition so he can't really relax any kind of immigration laws.

Actually it’s more to do with Australia’s increasing politicising of immigration policy and the race by each major party to be seen to be tougher on people coming into the country. 100% the truth. We currently have the highest per capita immigration program of any OECD country, yet we won't be more generous to our Kiwi brethren because they are more obvious. Moaman, you're right in a sense. But the fact is that Australia has a much higher population of people who can choose to emigrate. New Zealand has a much smaller population and still many more decide to emigrate. As I've said countless times, however, I want closer ties and easier immigration and citizenship between our countries. I think we're better and stronger closer together.

Fionn; One thing that always bothers me when I hear people quoting that "650,000" figure and comparing it to "60,000" is it never seems to dawn on people about the relative sizes of the two pools. Put '60,000' Aussies {anywhere?} into a swimming pool that holds 4.5M and it's something like triple the number of Pasifika people that live in the entire South Island! It's roughly 50% more than the entire 'Tongan' population of NZ! Another thing people often overlook is that since around 2013 there has been a net gain of migrants to NZ and that increasing numbers are returning to these shores and/or spending less time abroad. Migration from NZ to Oz peaked in 2010.

I gave up on Radio Sport ages ago.Struggle to read and don't watch any of the NZ media except Radio NZ National who are still damned good.

Samoa and japan ranked 10 and 11.

Hi Fionn in the Top 10 teams of 2015 world cup 12 Kiwi born players not playing for the AB's not including Samoa who were ranked 10th at the time. But if you add Samoa and Japan ranked 10 and 11 at the time that number jumps to 32 so in the top 12 teams of world rugby there were 32 kiwi's playing for other sides. Considering NZ has has used less than 40 Pacific Island players born outside NZ in our entire history of playing rugby. The facts don't equal the opinion in this case. Are the Pacific Islands the most poached rugby players in the world? imo definitely but those who choose to take Aotearoa away from that equation are taking away the most poached Pacific Island country in the whole equation. So anyone who says the AB's poach players conveniently leave out that NZ has the most poached rugby players in World Rugby and their country is probably benefitting from that.

No, Australia is simply stricter on citizenship than New Zealand. Perhaps that has something to do with the higher number of aforementioned Kiwis in Aus. Actually it's more to do with Australia's increasing politicising of immigration policy and the race by each major party to be seen to be tougher on people coming into the country. The effect on Kiwis seems largely to be due to the arrangement between our countries being forgotten about or overlooked rather than the result of any kind of targetting of Kiwis.

The poaching argument is a fallacy that people like yourself use to try and gain an upper hand What do you mean 'people like yourself', I freely admit that Australians poach pacific islanders too. But that history is interesting to note. I stand corrected on the poaching theory in re. to New Zealand. Thank you for those statistics.

if you knew nothing about the ANZAC “legend”, in Aussie over ANZAC week, you wouldn’t even know New Zealand were involved! What does this even mean? I'd imagine that I've studied Gallipoli and the ANZAC legend more closely than you. While the pay is good we all pay full taxes here with no ability to vote or gain citizenship as easily as Aussies do in NZ. Perhaps that has to do with 650,000 Kiwis wanting to live in Aus and only 65,000 Aussies wanting to live in New Zealand? We pay our way here with no recompense No, Australia is simply stricter on citizenship than New Zealand. Perhaps that has something to do with the higher number of aforementioned Kiwis in Aus. However, I agree, I wish we were more generous for Kiwis moving to Aus and made it easier for New Zealanders to gain citizenship in Australia.

Yes. After reading all the comments, the only realistic idea is some sort of combined NPC competition. I can see real benefits for both Australia and New Zealand in this.