Melbourne to get rugby boost by hosting six major Wallabies Tests

A state union umbrella that has more liabilities than assets.

Nothing stopped the WA government from making a similar offer. I think the ARU answering machine stopped it actually - Forrest and the WA sports minister both said they never had their calls answered or returned.

When mum won't give you the attention you crave so you post inflammatory nonsense to get it

Suck it up Farce supporters - you're gonski!!

What an outstanding job he did there.

Yep it;s not the Rebs fault the ARU is useless. Still, going to be very hard to work up any enthusiasm - I think NRC is the future

It certainly is if you're trying to make a case for relative support and interest. It's actually better to put 17,000 into a 21,000 seat stadium than it is to put 17, 500 in 30,000 seater. But you can continue your one-eyed arguments if you like.

Never forget that the Storm were originally manned mostly from ex Western Reds players.

I will still have a soft spot for Wessels and his Mercenaries. In my books the rebels haven't done anything to the Western Force other than compete for their livelyhood, and I wish then no Ill Will and hope they Smash the Tahs and many other teams next season. Now that they are under a State rugby umbrella and not gouging ARU coffers to pay off TGI Fridays debts, I think they deserve the benefit of my doubt. The ARU, on the other hand, can burn to the ground with everyone in it, Clarke included.

Got anything current? Your numbers feel a bit stale and irrelevant, and I am pretty sure pre-date the stadium upgrade, part of the now worthless $100 mil government investment into Australian Rugby which increased the Capacity of the stadium. Got anything statistically relevent? The only true metric is a recent AB's or perhaps SA game. That said, the tests aren't a great metric when assessing the viability of an SR side. In Melbourne, there are a lot of Wallaby Fans that aren't Rebels Fans. The same can be said for most states.

I am starting to move to the Rebs side of the argument. As a pure economics exercise, the ARU cannot look at the past, Senator Reynolds will do that for them. Sure, they got bilked by a dodgy deal with Imperium, Past incompetence doesn't change the future balance sheet. From what is emerging now, the Victorian government is the Rebel's Twiggy. They pushed a wheelbarrow full of cash up to the door of EvilCorp headquarters and said: "We would like to keep our team please, here is a government backed, blank cheque, spend it however you like, oh, yeah, and give us Perth's internationals while you are at it, they won't be needing them" I disagree with your postulation that the Force were never going to succeed. The brutal reality is that both were/are doomed to economic losses. The Rebels, now infused with Brigadier General Wessels' mercenaries, have a real chance of winning the conference and beating a number of NZ and SA teams. This will bring Bums back to seats and Eyes back to screens. They might just break even. It is a weak argument as the same would have applied with a westerly migration. The Victorian government (not unlike road safety WA ) have effectively become the Rebels sponsor, underwriting losses and giving EvilCorp a pretty big kickback for heir homage. Time will tell if EvilCorp needs to compensate the Western Australian government after reneging on their previous agreement, although I suspect that they will say Rugby WA carries the liability on this one, as the ARU own the IP but not the liability.

How else can keyboard warriors like us extol our ill-informed opinions to the world?

It's insane really and it was a consortium that was inclusive of a number of people rather than one individual was trading at a loss in NZ.

Than you have the 150k they have been ordered by a court to pay out Connolly over a verbal contract.

"The Winney Consortium bid to buy the Rebels from the ARU was to pay $100 for the Super Rugby participation licence and the club’s intellectual property. It proposed that the Consortium would then recapitalise the club with $6 million in new equity, to take effect from the handover date. The Consortium advised that all matters up to 31 December 2014 would remain as the responsibility of the ARU and that all matters related to the post 31 December 2014 period would be the responsibly of the buyer. The buyers would absorb the anticipated 2015 losses" In a nut shell - the ARU chose to sell the Rebels to Cox for $1 and then pay Cox about $6 m to help him run the club instead of accepting Winney's bid to sell him the Rebels for $100 and have Winney pump about $6 m into the club with no hand outs to Winney over the usual SR grants given to all clubs. That's a $12 m differential to the ARU

Wow. So they paid out Stiles without having the money to do so and hire his successor? If true, amazing.

Clarke was also on the Rebels board until 1 May 2015

So over the past few weeks the so called close to insolvent ARU has spent money on: - A re-branding despite their willingness to cut off a third of the country - Sending two 'development' players on tour to hold tackle bags - Relocating to a location that is across the road from the Waratahs home ground Now they are talking about bidding for hosting the Womens RWC

Who is this we?

So this whole thing was an elaborate plot to secure Rob Clarke some alleged consultancy work after leaving his job at the ARU? Still not sure what Pulver, Clyne, etc get out of this...