Super Rugby is back. Try to stay calm

As if you haven’t been marking the days on your calendars, this weekend sees the return of Super Rugby to our shores (I know, it’s exciting. Try to stay calm, everybody).

The June Tests were supposed to provide Australian rugby fans with some respite from the train wreck that has been Super Rugby this season. But after a worrisome international window, thankfully Super Rugby is back to distract us from the Wallabies.

Still no decision
More than eighty days and counting since the ARU announced they’d be cutting a Super Rugby team “within 48-72 hours”, we’re still no closer to finding out which franchise will eventually get the chop. The longer it takes, the more blood spatter there’s going to be when the axe finally falls.

Those who appear to be at most risk, the Force and the Rebels, have used the stay of execution to re-sign a bunch of players for next season.

Fly-half Jono Lance, winger Chase Peni and second-rower Richie Arnold all put pen to paper in the west this week, taking the Force’s tally of players contracted beyond 2017 to nineteen.

The Rebels returned serve, re-signing halfback Nick Stirzaker and hooker James Hanson, as chief executive Baden Stephenson proclaimed that “80 per cent” of their 2017 squad had been retained for next season.

As an outsider looking in, all this looks a bit like both teams are just re-signing anyone holding a pen. Perhaps it’s an attempt to make it harder for the ARU to cut them – by increasing the amount of work required to sort out all these contracts when/if it happens.

But isn’t filling up five franchise rosters with mediocre talent the exact practice that got us to the point we’re at now? We’ve stretched player talent too thin across the board and the overall standard has dropped as a result.

Former Wallaby Dean Mumm, head of the Rugby Union Players’ Association, suggested last week that we should be able to keep all five franchises by simply reducing costs. Alright then, Dean. But where exactly are those reductions coming from?

(AAP Image/NZPA, David Rowland)

Are the Rebels’ players willing to travel to domestic matches via bus? Are the Force players content with crashing at hostels on international trips? Unlikely. The reality is that those cuts would come from where the money is needed most – at participation and development level.

It’s always easiest to cut the small guys, because they make the least noise.

I get where Mumm is coming from. In his role he needs to (at least be seen to) protect the players’ best interests. But what Mumm and RUPA need to understand is that they’re potentially damaging the future of the game in this country in order to protect a small number of professional players.

To play devil’s advocate on behalf of the players, I understand that they have families to feed and mortgages to pay. It’s understandable that they won’t want to go quietly. But ultimately, nobody has a divine right to a professional rugby contract.

When you see how poor the standard of rugby has been from the Australian sides this season, one can’t help but feel that if you’re not good enough to crack one of the four remaining teams, perhaps you didn’t deserve a nice professional rugby contract to begin with.

Even if the RUPA and ARU found a way to make it work, and were able to save all five teams, where would it leave us?

Well, right where we are now. Isn’t that exactly the problem?

The team that sits atop the Australian conference, the Brumbies, embarrassingly have more losses than wins to their name.

Rugby in this country can’t afford another season where the showpiece product served up to the paying public (and influential younger demographic) is as painfully bland as it has been in 2017.

Finally some top quality rugby on show at Allianz Stadium
The Waratahs will be showing the third All Blacks versus British and Irish Lions Test on the stadium screens ahead of their match against the Jaguares on Saturday evening.

Fearing a poor turnout for the Jaguares game, Tahs management has come out on the front foot in an attempt to coax punters out of the bars and through the turnstiles.

Credit to them for the proactive move, and it’ll give the long-suffering Waratahs fans a chance to finally see some good quality rugby played at Allianz Stadium – albeit via a giant television.

(AP Photo/Mark Baker)

Lealiifano return postponed
Brumbies coach Stephen Larkham has opted not to include Christian Lealiifano on the bench for Friday night’s game against the Queensland Reds. Lealiifano had been considered a good chance to make his return to Super Rugby this weekend, but hamstring soreness has ruled him out of the clash at Suncorp Stadium.

Lealiifano’s comeback to rugby incredibly comes just 11 months after being diagnosed with leukaemia.

The playmaker turned out for Tuggeranong in the Canberra fourth grade competition on Saturday morning, fulfilling a goal he’d set himself after his initial cancer diagnosis – to get back on the field and play a game alongside his brother Lix.

The 19-time Wallaby is one of the senior leaders within the Brumbies’ playing group and his return will provide an enormous morale boost ahead of the Super Rugby finals.