Rob Penney says it's tough to match Super AU with Kiwis

Yes mate. The game you love is a hard sell. Especially here in the West. Make you appreciate how much work the Force community actually put in. Not me by the way but I can see just how much hard work they applied. It does seem that like appointing a good coach to the Wallabies, a decent marketing team even on a small budget could start to make a big difference to Rugby in Australia. It probably needs to start by really driving the 7s game to slow ween people (non fans) onto the more complicated 15s.

Mitcho, I realise Rugby union has a lot of ground to make up, it is now either go for it, or capitulate.

I appreciate your positivity Corne but especially since the growth of TV revenue to fund professional sport there is a heck of a marketing war in Australia between all sports. and with professionalism it is has become very hard to be a top player in more than one sport. The Rugby Union marketing and development system has been awful. The AFL has been exceptional. There was a period where the AFL cleared out the old boys network, found some professional administrators, hurt the football public by "relocating teams" - South Melbourne were sent to Sydney to become the Swans and Fitzroy were sent to Brisbane to become the bears - so a cutting not a relocation as such. A lot of good AFL players now originally come from Tasmania, NSW and Qld. It's gonna take Union more than a couple of years and I reckon they can only fund it via private donations (including corporate) and volunteers. I don't see the ARU having enough cash for it. When there was a Western Force super rugby team a heck of alot of work was done by volunteers and development programs funded by them. One of the reasons the cut hurt so much.

Truth is JD K, at super rugby's inception NZ started with 5 teams - using the NRL threat as an excuse - which had a huge disparity in quality. All of those teams with the exception of the Crusades were routinely beaten here in Oz. So NZ have benefited from that exposure and now have 5 teams where the disparity in quality has been reduced. No reason why Australia cannot benefit in the same way going forward either. The one proviso would be Australia fixing its domestic administration to ensure appropriate support for 5 teams. Due to a range of factors but primarily population size, playing hardball will not be to NZ's benefit in the long term. As an aside, Hansen's comments relating the RWC 2003: it must be remembered NZ's intransigence meant they were not able to meet World Rugby's requirement on existing advertising signage. Lets hope NZ intransigence does cause a loss (albeit in the longer term) to NZ again.

How long has the the Nz teams been around for ? How many years ? It’s only a matter of time the success the Aussie juniors have been having over the last few years Will start to show through against the kiwis . The kiwis have been the world best for a long time now . For kiwi standards they have been slipping at junior Level for a little while . It won’t be long before that happens at senior level.

The point is the odds of you being interested in AFL is about the same as most aussies caring about rugby union Corne. Both countries have very different sporting cultures, which is the point I'm making...and the point you seem to be completely unaware of.

I don’t assume anything, neither arrogantly either. Your point of view seems set in stone, so are mine.

Ha! You have proved my point Corne: "I am not concerned about the AFL" you say... 90% of Australians don't care about rugby union and around 50% don't know anything about it. You could say they're "not concerned" about it. :silly: Saying "the world" doesn't make one like a sport. You can't sell a sport by solely saying it has some supposed international prominence you arrogantly assume they should care about. Rugby Union is essentially confined to two states & one territory out of the eight in total as a semi-culturally significant sport. But the problem Corne is it lost the war with rugby league in 1907 when they stubbornly refused to ditch amateurism, and became confined to being a niche upper class private school sport, where rugby league was the popular rugby code for the working class masses in NSW & Qld. THIS is the situation in Australia Corne. You trying to sell rugby union to Australians is like me trying to sell you AFL! :silly:

I am not concerned about AFL, I am a South African that knows little about the other sporting codes in OZ, I do love rugby though and find it increasingly difficult to understand how a nation with the economy Australia has cannot figure out how to make rugby union a success from bottom up. Rugby Union is one of the more popular sporting codes in the world, time for ARU to make Australians know about it.

Not "defeatist", realistic. Do you want an AFL team in SA? Do you think it would be successful?

Micko, I don’t doubt there is much work to do, but a defeatist attitude is not going to solve it.

No offence Corne, but you obviously don't know much about Australia. There are four professional football codes played in Australia: which is a federation of six states each with their own preferred football codes. Where do you think rugby union rates in popularity in Australia? How many aussies do you assume know or care about the Wallabies and Super Rugby???! There isn't the playing depth here to keep expanding and assume these teams will be competitive against NZ & SA, countries where the sport has huge popularity and cultural significance.

They tried, they failed, they ran out of money. The sporting population might be big, but most of it has been captured by other codes and planting a pro team which keeps on losing isn't going to change that. They also don't have enough good money left to throw more at this.

JD, that was in the past, a population of 25 million can certainly build five teams if the structures are there, time for Australia to take rugby union development seriously, the top down approach hasn’t been working for more than a decade now, pretty sure thise in power has come to realise that. forget the past, the time has come to do it right,

Corne, they had five teams for years and became a sad joke because they don't have enough quality players. When they had three teams they were right up there. So they don't need five teams.

Dean, it was New Zealand six, Australia two. Obviously in Australia you hear a lot more about the two.

That is a point I have made several times. As you say, NZ can support 5 teams because they were set up with 5 teams, and their structures developed accordingly to support 5 teams...any more would have been wasteful, any less would be insufficient. It was arguably the latter for quite a long time, but because they had the teams the system could develop to support them. Similarly for Australia, three teams may be the sweet spot simply because they started with 3 teams, established their system around 3 teams, and have steadfastly refused to do anything meaningful to change that equation. They've merely added teams, creating exactly the situation where their systems are less than sufficient without anything like adequately change. So as much as Australia might need more teams going forward, that lack in support isn't going to change unless they also change their development systems. And it is a lesson Australian rugby should also take to heart if they do ever decide to get serious about the NRC. What you start with develops its own inertia, and while shrinking is easy, growing is very difficult. Leave areas out at the start, chances are they will be left out forever. Just as two or three SR teams may now find out.

Toole why DHP? He is the slowest back in world Rugby. There are better Wingers and there are better Fullbacks even in Oz. He can bring on the Jaffa’s at half time if he’s not to slow..

Peter K , Why the big surprise? He’s got the smarts, because he is a League player and he has all the skills ingrained in Rugby makeup. “Simple’s”.

Australia needs minimum 4 sides, I would also include the Force to make it five sides. If the RA can maintain or achieve some consistency then those five teams would become very valuable for OZ. The one issue I have with NzRU is the fact that they have always had five teams, their structures have been set up to feed five super rugby teams for decades now. If they are involved in a trans tasman with OZ and Japan or Super Rugby including SA, their five teams are essentially funded by a “global” viewing audience, why take that away from Oz? Even if it takes a couple of years from here to become or have five competitive teams.