Imagine an ARU-controlled elite Australian rugby team in Europe

@The Neuteal View from Sweden North - South travel not the problem. East -West travel is the issue

London Grammar doing ok.

This is not original thought or thinking outside the box at all . Simply an Australian construction on what has been in the media for weeks - the mooted plans by the Cheetahs to play in Europe if removed from Superrugby .

Nothing. The European Cup has just reached the point where qualification for it is much more closely tied to merit and performance (rather than national 'quotas') - so an automatic 'in' would be a total non-starter.

I'm all for thinking out side of the box but this idea has so many flaws in it it's as useful an idea as saying that the ARU should steal a hair sample from Mrs Barrett, Mrs Ioane and Mrs Savea, replace the ARU's cellar with a genetics lab and breed the next generation of Wallabies in massive test tubes! The ARU's issues are not that they don't think creatively. It's that they don't think strategically. The issues over the past few weeks, months and years at various levels of the game here can be attributed to the governing body not being able to come up with a clear strategic plan, not being able to communicate that plan and not being able to implement it. I know that's much more boring there we go. The current ARU leadership need to go. Plain and simple. For whatever reason they have shown that they cannot handle the responsibility that they have been given. Move aside and bring in a team of rugby experts, talented sports administrators and experienced business professionals to get us back on the right path.

No. It only affects new player contracts, not any other part of their budgets. And if their currency dropped they'd get more for new players in their own terms not less because they are getting a share of central revenue no matter which currency it's in. It's a global player market so splitting global money is the most effective way to ensure competitiveness. The principle of different teams getting different amounts in the interest of better competitiveness has already been established by the recent deal to reduce teams while retaining each nation's share of central revenue. It is normal in professional sports for richer teams to subsidise poorer ones in the interest of keeping the competition competitive. Not a conversation any more difficult than those already underway.

Could be an interesting discussion, telling NZ that because they have 5 successful teams they are having their share of the revenues cut. And cut again, if the NZ$ has weakened. Or telling SA that because of the relative purchasing power of a US$, Australia will be taking $2.5 for each dollar they take. Doable is one thing, acceptable is another...

Because the money depends on position on the ladder, teams would keep getting a bigger share of TV money until they reached parity in the competition, or a lesser share until they dropped to parity. It can adapt to the rand. It can adapt to most things. I haven't outlined a lot of details, but it is certainly possible to control the money and player expenditure to reach parity. To illustrate this, in the extreme a successful team could be cut off from all new player contracts until it dropped in the comp. An unsuccessful one could be given all new player expenditure until it rose. That would be too extreme, but it illustrates the potential for equalisation. Something more gradual would work, and with some tweaking of formulas work well.

But how would you adapt the salary cap to the difference between the Rand and dollar? Would you give a low SA team the same money as an equivalent low Australian team (highly inflationary within SA), or only the same spending power (much harder to attract players home)? It can work if you are all functioning within the same economy, but so much harder again when you are looking at different economies, purchasing power and player pools. You apparently see that with the EPL now too...I'm told much of the struggles with the national team stem from getting more for the promotion/relegation money shopping overseas than you do at home.

AREN'T messed around financial I meant to say.

Traditional salary caps and drafts are difficult and less effective in SR, but other means of equalisation could work. For example SANZAAR could control average new player salaries of each team giving teams lower in the comp more ability to attract better players and higher teams less until teams were performing equally. A cross between a salary cap and draft. To make it transparent, you'd use a formula - e.g. sliding scale between top an bottom where lowest team can pay twice the highest average new salary. Central TV money would be used to pay the players so that teams are messed around financially. This would adapt to the different currencies involved. It would adapt teams ability to still be competitive even with different travel loads. It would adapt to most (all?) Of the problems of SR..

I'm travelling, so only have my phone. But on the basis the EPL is the obvious example, I thought this (http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/how-long-newly-promoted-teams-stay-4036482.amp) made some interesting points...44% of promoted teams drop back the following year, two thirds by four years. What goes unsaid is that at the time it was written there were seven teams that had never been relegated, and three of those had won 19 of the 22 premierships. So while there were a cast of dozens moving up and down, the reality was that there was little really likely to come of it but a huge amount of disruption. Quite often very destructively so (http://www.foxsports.com.au/football/premier-league/a-look-at-where-former-premier-league-clubs-are-now-in-englands-lower-divisions/news-story/6bd91549addfda1b04a1441d62c4dff6). Interesting that some of the clubs have twigged to this, realising that the only real winners are players and their agents so are perhaps less willing to play the game. And others have twigged that they've twigged (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4349452/amp/Premier-League-parachute-payments-review.html). Might be interesting to see where it goes in the future. You see similar in Champions League arrangements. I can’t remember the actual numbers offhand, but my recollection of looking at the Heineken Cup/ERCC was that of the six spots per year available to each of the English and French teams, the disproportionate majority were taken by the same 6-8 teams each year. Which means the same 6-8 teams were topping the underlying competition each year, with the same distorting effect and similar loss of competitiveness. Similar too the Currie Cup, with the SR aligned teams playing finals each year to the exclusion of everyone else.

Actually, if comps with promotion/relegation show anything, it is that they are great for maintaining a status quo. Far from the second division teams improving Care to show some stats that proves your point mate? I am very interested.

I'm calling today "happy day", where almost anything goes. Andrew has made a creative call. Here's my "it'll never ever really happen" Trans-Tasman 16. New Zealand (8): Auckland, Waikato, Wellington, Canterbury, Otago, Tasman, Hawke's Bay & Bay of Plenty. Australia (5): NSW, Queensland, ACT, Victoria & Western Australia. Pacific Islands (3): Fiji, Samoa & Tonga. It'll be reverse NRL, with Kiwi teams winning almost annually.

London Welsh went bankrupt this year. Not a good sign for the London nations teams.

But that is hard enough in one country, impossible across multiple countries with different economies. Within a single country, even if the teams still got the same monies and support from the National body (as if), the sponsors would still discriminate strongly.

Yes, unfortunately it seems like ARU are budgeting the savings from cutting a team, so I doubt it will happen, but to me it seems an idea well worth pursuing.

You're on to it Andy. However they could bring in salary caps for teams and a draft system.

You're on to it Andy. However they could bring in salary caps fot teams and a draft system.

Ack, 3rd paragraph. When I typed "set up in a largish town", I meant BUY the local club. So to start off our idea, our kindly mega-rich rugby enthusiast needs to shell out about $100M bucks. Maybe more, can Nicolas Bishop or someone tell me how much does a sizable rugger club in the UK cost to buy? Maybe we could crowd fund Andrew's idea on the Roar. Sheek can be the club CEO, TOPO the president of all things to do with the forwards, Nick Turnbull as talent scout/Player Acquirement Office and TWAS the club statistician. I offer myself to serve as Magic Mushroom Acquirement Officer. :)