A solution to the latest trans-Tasman rugby pickle

Good old opposite Goose. . Please continue to misinterpret me, I hope these comments bring you joy.

I think that’s a bit unfair to the PI community Jeznez. Just because they all look the same to you doesn’t mean they don’t have their own seperate cultural identities. I’m sure if you told a Fijian he should play with a Tongan and a Samoan just because in your eyes they look the same, they wouldn’t be terribly impressed. Why not include seperate teams from each PI nation in Super Rugby?

The problem is England poach players, like they did with Joffra Archer. I hope they're genuine with that offer to help, and not just trying to poach talent.

Yes NZ seem to forget that being the best means being tested and not just wiping out the sport in other countries. A recent UK cricket article was suggesting supporting the WI cricket development by offering 20 visas to young WI cricketers to come over to England and play league cricket to learn about English conditions. This was suggested to help improve WI cricket as if they continue to lose ground the opportunities reduce. A strong sport is one with a wide range of strong teams. Just look at NFL. Most of the teams are fairly equal and different teams get to the play offs each year, keeping interest going.

Your example of too many foreigners in leagues can be counterargued that the Spanish, Italian and French leagues got it right, with this model. In Spain they had an influx of foreigners and then the club's began to realise it was cheaper to get them young and see how many they could keep. If rugby introduced overseas players, teams would be stronger people would become interested in playing and then the club's could pick up these youngsters and they become the talent later on.

You're hilarious Jacko! :laughing: Australia letting NZ franchises join our comps is completely different to the rugby union setup. And interesting to note is that NZ were part of blackmailing Australia to let them have a pro soccer franchise. And who is this top AFL player from NZ?

First of all, I'm not against foreign players per se. Just too many. Second, I am not sure any amount of foreign players would help to improve Australian rugby. It only could improve the comp short term (and could be bad if there are too many foreigners). There are teams in soccer that have lots of best/good foreign players and they are winning the comps but at the world cup those countries don't do particularly well. This shows that their domestic players don't get much better. Mind you I mean top tier teams. It may help some teams like japan probably. Also is it really the case that increasing performance would generate interest? In past, when there was more interest, the players weren't that high performing as modern NZ players, for example.

Agree with you 100% Kevin. The problem will be that the aussies will have to go it alone as the kiwis will always be far too parochial to go through with this as this means their players can move around freely, and they'll lose their mystique over time. For me, the Force & Rebels should've had a limited amount of spots on their roster allocated to foreigners to help them be competitive from the start. This could've just been PI's & Argentinians.

Professional sport is more than a development vehicle for talent. The reason why rugby in Aus is struggling is, as everyone says, the lack of depth of talent to fill 5 teams. Going to 2 or 3 would harm the game by restricting opportunities to see top sport so the other way is to increase the talent pool with overseas talent. In the short term this restricts home players, but in the medium term they get better due to the competition and in the long term, the exposure to high level sport means more people play the game and more talent comes to rugby rather than league or AFL. Just look at the IPL, the Indian team have greatly improved their fielding and improved as a result of the top level imports. In rugby the Irish have used the imports to help develop their younger players and we gave seen the start of a pipeline of talent coming through, (their underperformance in RWC is down to peaking at wrong time). We have to remember pro sport is also entertainment and the higher the quality the more people will watch.

Struggled with that one as couldnt have Reds, and couldnt remember what the old ARC one was called. Was it Ballymore Tornadoes? Maybe Brisbane Tornadoes.

But they don't care to change it Jacko. The inherent tribalism they have means just as much if not more to them. I know that's hard for you kiwis to understand but you can have pro comps that are built on tribalism and history, not just established for the national team's convenience.

neutral I said all that above..read it and you see it...And the average finishing position at WCs for England has gone backwards since the EPL was introduced....I have proven that to you and you still want to argue Im wrong...Yep you throw insults as soon as you are wrong or have no answer....Its the one constant you have...Its Proven Im right so you go straight to insults...Big man!!!

Micko are you donating the 200mil it would take to bring in all these OS players that will make it the best comp in the world?

Ouch i guess Aus has no idea either...Afterall the NRL is not a stand alone comp as it has a kiwi team...one of the AFLs top players is from NZ...The A league...the Basket ball all have an NZ team in them so they clearly arnt stand alone comps....

Have to been to NZ recently Micko? I was in NZ in March...Just got back in time to avoid the c19 isolation rules for Qld. My Aus dollar got 96c NZ

JD, you introduce into the dialogue something I call the ‘intangibles’, the difficult to qualify, quantify and commercially justify social benefits, which is a big part of how many of us ended up here. These off- book values are worthy goals to be enabled, in all these commercial machinations.

Yeah, worked brilliantly for the Rebels in their early years... ;)

No matter what happens, one thing is certain. If the Australian rugby public does not get fully behind RA's plans, our international standing will plummet. Our grassroots, that is the volunteers and players at local club level, will keep a competition going for the young men and women, the 5 to umpty-5 year olds, who love the game. The best may even be offered overseas contracts. But our National team will be similar to Namibia in 2003, we may qualify for the WC, but we'll probably cop a hiding.

So each “weaker” team starts with a number of “imports”, say 5-6, and reduces by 1 each year until they have 1-2 marquee players per year. 4-5 year developmental plan for the teams that need it.

With you Jezza. Have been saying similar for the last 2 weeks.