Why the Waratahs and the Reds should be axed from Super Rugby

8? Or is it a trick question?

“Australia is where the lion shares of Foxtel subscriptions will come from.” This is surely a Bushism, like, “most of our imports come from overseas.”

How many of those are the 8 board members including the chairman who are paid very little?

The only thing GRR is good for is showing RA what a bit of cash can do. Shut that crap down, get twiggy onboard with the force to make super rugby a trans Tasman and PI comp (bye bye SA) and help make the wallabies great again. Money talks and twiggy has a lot of it. RA needs to be on their knees with him and working with him and his force... not against him running separate comps. But that will require someone in RA to admit they made a huge mistake in cutting the force.

While more kiwis playing super rugby is good for the kiwis... less Aussies playing super rugby is not good for Australian rugby. RA would have to loosen up the ability for teams to play foreign players otherwise they will only have 2 kiwis per side which does not suit your argument. Now if RA says teams can have more foreign players,Teams will stack their squads with more and more foreign players and The wallabies will be dust.

sure, but if i understand you correctly, if they are good enough with the current teams, they go to a team which will be in the competition this year and the next and so on, not in and out. so unless they are swapping (due to relegation and promotion, which i understand you are advocating), there can be there one year and out the next. or will it just be those club teams under different names with the same personnel? what fan wants to see that?

This article is too introspective. Fact is most clubs in rugby are losers, there is usually only one winner per competition. The clubs are nonetheless supported so long as the club is competitive. So to drop Waratahs and other teams etc from a competition is not helpful given its long history of support. We tout democracy but we all know that a strong leader is required to get things moving, so to me it is vital that to move forward the RA must have a CEO that Rugby patrons can have confidence in doing the job. Raelene ,for whatever reason, fair or unfair, did not . retain that confidence. Whether the RA is truly representaive and answerable to state unions is not at this time a helpful debate. The critical thing is to build a Wallabies team that is competitive, that is popular and as a result generates high tv earnings, and which draws young persons to the game.

i'm missing something with this? say from brisbane (or sydney) we have teams A and B. they are playing in this new comp. so the top sides from brizzy with the top players. meanwhile back in the local comp, does A and B put up their '2nds'? or is the local comp played at a different time, presumably before the main competition so we know who gets promoted and who gets relegated? given that these days the super rugby kicks off in february, you'd have to start in december. that might clash with the wallabies european tour. and if you do it after the normal season, same problem. so it does seem some overlap between this new comp you want and the local comp would be inevitable (or with the international program). even if you can find a period to squeeze it in, you are going to have players on the field almost 12 months of the year? plus you want to squeeze in state of origin as well. one game or league's three? so say that there is overlap, so we don't have them playing 12 months, teams A and B are not going to have their best teams or even most of their best players available in the local comp. it would mean an almost inevitable relegation and promotion of teams every year. so fans either swap teams (and good luck getting uni fans to support brothers and vice versa, as an example, and i am sure the same would apply in sydney) or they have a team in one year and out the next. to me, unless i am missing something, hard to imagine a better way to kill interest.

this is exactly right. the tribalism that is so important to rugby. sure, i might watch say france play ireland and enjoy the skills, but i'm not invested in it. for 45 years, i have been completely invested in the reds, especially when they play the enemy, nsw. i have stood at ballymore and have 30 year seats at suncorp, to watch the reds. dump them, and i won't be back. i might happen to watch a few games of whatever mess gets inserted in its place if i happen to be near a tv at the right time and have nothing else on, but if it clashed with say the broncos or the lions (both of which i will occasionally attend but certainly not a fraction of the times i go to the reds) then i'd watch them. probably would not even check the scores of the rugby. like or not, and what the author doesn't seem to understand, rugby is tribal. for me, if you wanted to put the final nail in rugby's coffin, we now have the blueprint.

There are already GRR team in both Samoa and Fiji. GRR teams are: Western Force Manuma Samoa Fijian Lautai Malaysian Valke South China Tigers (Hong Kong) China Lions (Shanghai)

I read RA has 16 "executives".

NSW can't even field two competitive teams in the NRC. Their Shute Shield teams are no better than their counterparts in the various premier grade competitions around the nation. The days of Sydney being "the heartland" are long gone.

Won’t happen, the NZ provinces who lost teams would be up in arms. Kiwis look after other Kiwis, that is why they have been so successful over the years. The appropriate action for Australia to take is to build our own depth, instead of expecting to dip into somebody else’s when we can’t front with competitive teams.

Bit harsh there Oblonsky, Last time I checked, Rugby League had 48 nations that made it to the World Rankings list plus Rugby League was invented in that small bit of northern England. Add to that the 3 North American teams plus Red Star Belgrade that are either in or about to join the UK system. No where as near as big internationally as the Union code but a "domestic Australian sport" is pushing it a bit.