Super Rugby had its flaws, but it did serve to highlight certain truths: South Africa has not stopped producing work-class rugby players and Australia, largely speaking, has.
The deeper issue is that coach development stagnated in the early 2000s, and the rugby community of Australia has found no effective way to first understand and then remediate the problem.
This would, however, seem to be the least of the concerns if recent statements attributed to Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan are to be believed. McLennan is reported in the NZ media saying: “Obviously the Kiwis have to buy into it and it’s not invented by them, so they might be reticent”.
The topic is much less important than the gigantic chip resting on his shoulders.
The current standoff between Rugby Australia and the New Zealand Rugby Union rests on the idea that equal participation will drive standards up in Australia.
What on earth have we discovered over the last 15 years beyond the uncomfortable truth that Australia cannot support four let alone five Super Rugby teams?
Far from taking a position of cultural superiority, the NZRU’s stance on the make-up of Super Rugby in 2021 is an acknowledgement of simple truths.
(Photo by Teaukura Moetaua/Getty Images)
The crowds in Super Rugby Aotearoa are the highest is many years and in combination with vastly superior TV audiences, this allows for no other conclusion than fans will pay for nothing less than high-intensity, high-skill slugfests.
As things stand, Super Rugby 2021 will not involve trans-Tasman competition. While this may present challenges for Aotearoa, it is the very definition of biting your nose to spite your face for RA to believe they are better off with five professional franchises playing each other.
It has amused and amazed in equal measure how the parallels between different trans-Tasman competitions have not been learnt.
Rugby, by virtue of its depth in Aotearoa, is the only sport that can command an uneven participation base in NZ’s favour.
NZ provides a single franchise in each of the Australian football, baseball, basketball and rugby league competitions ostensibly because the performance outcomes dictate that this should be so.
It is not impossible to believe that Aotearoa could have more NRL teams or another NBL team, but not before success suggests there is the sporting infrastructure to support it.
Opportunity, by itself, is not enough. Pressure is also necessary, as it drives standards.
But perhaps the greatest single ingredient is self awareness. Without a sense of one’s strengths and one’s vulnerabilities, we are highly unlikely to develop the culture to support the systems and resources needed to elevate the entire community.
There are some who believe the low water mark in NZ rugby was the period between 1998 and 2003.
I propose that Australian rugby has been watching its own tide ebb since that time, and the principal reason it continues to do so is a fatal lack of self awareness.
It is time for Australian rugby to mature and acknowledge its truths.
Tunza
Guest
I agree. My predictions for next years or 2022 super teams. Crusaders Blues Warriors Mako Chiefs Counties Hurricanes Higlanders Drua
OzNix
Roar Rookie
Add Twiggy's Western Force to the five existing SuperRugby Aotearoa franchises and you've got the perfect trans-Tasman competition. Allow Tiggy to utilise Australian, New Zealand and International players to ensure Force are strong enough to compete with the five kiwi sides. The rest of the Australian squads simply aren't up to SuperRugby Aotearoa standard and their administrators are still living in the amateur era when NSW and QLD called all the shots.... The Western front is where the battle will be won :)
Peter Connolly
Guest
RA comment, "we want to have all 5 Aussie teams in the comp with NZ in 2021.They only want three which is not good enough. So, let's see if NZ wants to play in our comp."Sheer arrogance. Invite the Chiefs over for a game against each Aussie team. They'll probably win all five matches and then make that statement again. Why would any NZ Franchise (or any top teams in any code), want to play in a comp where over 50% of the games are with inferior competition? Lastly, it is not NZRU's job to help coach and raise Australian standards. It's RA's job. Otherwise they'll perpetuate the term "Wannabies" for a few more years. Secondly, where are the coaching development squads? Over the last 15 years there has been the repetitive theme, "we want an Australian coach" for the National team. Seriously, how well has that worked out? In an unbiased world, you'd hire the best that is available and learn from them. Regardless of citizenship.
Roaratme
Guest
Since the Force are from Australia and would need to be included in the 4. Forrest has the money to keep NZRU happy to include the Force, RA are only being stubborn because it would mean letting go of the money drain that is the Rebels. Unless a merger happens or they offer to host the PI team in VIC.
Coker
Roar Rookie
I'm always a bit suspicious about NZR, but let's be honest here — the only 'sly digs' haven't been coming from them.
Dean
Roar Rookie
Only one shoulder and a single massive chip in this “article”. Asking for a friend, are you PFS’s alter ego? Let’s be honest here, yes New Zealand (that is the internationally recognized name of the nation you are talking about) has been exceptional over the last decade. Taft said, despite the self licking ice cream approach, it does not have a monopoly on success. South Africa and England (oh, and the p p nation of Australia has also committed the atrocity of defeating New Zealand in Rugby (oops, so have those dastardly Irish) during Nouveau Zealandes decade of self proclaimed “superiority”. Please Sir, spare us. Our sport does not benefit from such derision. Isolate at your peril.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Because as I’ve pointed out to you a million times. Every team in that sport has players all over the world and flies them in for international duty. Most of our opponents will have greater access to and control over their players. We should go well against the all blacks when they’ve been in camp for a fortnight before the first test and our blokes fly in on Monday for our test after playing on the Saturday.
Steve 50
Roar Rookie
The majority disagree with you, yet you’ve ignored that. And saying that to a boss face is different to a press conference. No one has cried about this except you Jacko
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Define “booming”?
Steve 50
Roar Rookie
Wrong . Nbl is inferior to NBA twas , and the NBL is booming
Steve 50
Roar Rookie
So what TWAS, of course they recruit them and Australia becomes a lower standard farm league like South American club soccer is farm league to stronger Europe clubs . This doesn’t weaken there national teams
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
And Fox were one of the broadcasters that agreed to less teams and games for the same revenue. RA made the call because they felt they needed to do that to survive. In 2017 there were no alternatives. We were locked into the SANZAAR agreement or forced to go it alone, so had to make finances work within that. In 2020 there is the opportunity due to covid disrupting everything to actually set something new up from scratch free of those same constraints. A much better opportunity to set things up so 5 teams can survive financially. So there’s more reason to go with 5. Back in 2017 even if you ignore that Forrest’s offer came with strings and left RA no better off, they still had to then sell the 5 teams back to the partners and broadcasters who 4 teams had just been sold to.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
If 5 teams is good for Foxtel, it’s good for any other broadcaster. Which is who RA need to appeal to in order to extract value from tv rights.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
The problem is you reduce your level below test rugby and fan interest wanes further. A lot of those fans start watching AFL and NRL and then never tune back in when test season comes around.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Exactly right. If you were talking about number of wins old mate may have a point. But you are talking about the rate of wins, which is in the context of more games.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Aus are also most disadvantaged as they have less of a home advantage against NZ.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
No. You said it was below 50% in our best year. Talking about overall is absolutely pointless. Doing that considers 2017 results equal to 2019 and 2020. Which are more likely to be relevant to what’s likely in 2021? Overall data needs to be considered in the context of trends, and what has driven the data. The fact is the drop doesn’t at all align with the introduction of a 5th team. The drop was 5 years later.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
No. In our best year it was actually above 50%.
Rob9
Roar Guru
Sure, SA has a significant and passionate rugby community (even greater than NZ’s when looking at numbers alone). But in terms of width of penetration across the whole country, rugby still plays 2nd fiddle to soccer and doesn’t have as deep an impression on the national psyche that rugby has in NZ. Yes, rugby is the national sport in Wales but they’re surrounded by the hotbed of European soccer which soaks in plenty of attention. Wales has had 2 teams in the EPL over the last 3 seasons and it was a reminder that while rugby is the national sport (thanks in part to the fact that they achieve some success against big brother next door), soccer isn’t too far behind in the national attention. Of course NZ has other sports that draw in attention but really, daylight is 2nd after rugby. The success of SR Aotearoa on the fan engagement front is a good (and welcome) reminder of this fact. In terms of the width and depth of the footprint the game leaves on the national culture, I think the only nations that compare to NZ are the 3 PI’s.
BleedRedandBlack
Roar Rookie
Here are the NZ vs Australia Super Rugby results 2011-2020. It goes year, NZ wins, OZ wins and Draws in regular season, then playoffs, then Champion. Makes for really interesting reading. 2011. 10 09 01 plus 01 to 02 in playoff victories. Reds 2012. 13 07 00 plus 00 to 00 in playoff victories. Chiefs 2013 07 13 00 plus 01 to 01 in playoff victories. Chiefs 2014. 11 09 00 plus 01 to 01 in playoff victories. Waratahs 2015. 12 07 00 plus 02 to 00 in playoff victories. Highlanders Tot. 53 45 01. 5 to 4 in playoff victories. 3 Championships to 2 2016. 21 03 01 plus 01 to 00 in playoff victories. Hurricanes 2017. 24 00 00 plus 01 to 00 in playoff victories. Crusaders 2018. 13 03 00 plus 00 to 01 in playoff victories. Crusaders 2019. 11 05 00 plus 00 to 00 in playoff victories. Crusaders 2020. 05 02 00 Tot. 74 13 01 2 to 1 in playoff victories. 4 Championships to 0 First, it shows that Australian rugby performance is not necessarily related to their number of teams. Australia Super Rugby had 5 teams 2011-2015, and had a win % of 46 to 54 on a twenty game schedule, and a 40% win rate in championships, with new champions in both cases. So a very high win rate, diversification of success, with Reds and Waratahs finally coming through instead of more Brumbies victories, and this despite the fact that they had two relatively new teams. Wallabies win the Rugby Championship in 2015 and are finalists in World Cup. So high performance and development goals achieved. All looking good for Super Rugby TT if SA go north. Then Aussie Rugby disintegrated. Disaster in 2016 was followed by an utter fiasco in 2017. Nobody in Australia seems to want to account for those two years, let alone take responsibility for them. It can’t reasonably be blamed on the number of teams Australia had, or the expansion in the number of games against NZ. So why? Loss of players after RWC 2015? Loss of coaches? Poor development? It has improved since then, but only after the Western Force were cut, which suggests that while expansion didn’t cause the performance problem contraction was the only effective short term solution, and that if the Force hadn’t been cut the AR would have been looking at a single digit winning % against NZ teams throughout 2018-2019. Whatever the answer, the catastrophic failure 2016-2017 fatally undermined the idea of a Super Rugby partnership with AR for NZR. This is why they claimed SR as their own and sought to limit OZ involvement to 2-4 teams. If you do the math you can see why. Assuming a 5 plus 5 comp, with each team playing 16 games, as in the last 10 years, and a full H&A round robin within OZ and NZ, then there will be still 8 games against teams from the opposite conference, which means the number of times OZ teams face NZ teams will go from 16 per year at the moment up to 40. For all the brave talk about a golden generation coming through, and new development pathways and new coaches, OZ teams won’t survive that sort of bludgeoning. Given the appalling state of Australian Rugby, putting up 5 teams in Super Rugby TT would destroy far more than it created. Thing being, the radical difference in standard between OZ and NZ is about to become even more obvious. First there is going to be the inter-island game, which will the best test match you will see all year. And the NPC is about to start up, with full strength teams from Canterbury, Tasman, Wellington and Auckland. They might in fact have their All Blacks all year. Then, after the lesser teams get smoked, real questions are going to be asked why NZR let the NPC expand to 14 teams, and maybe the way forward for NZ is 8 to 10 provincial teams…