Is the relationship between Rugby Australia and New Zealand Rugby Union broken?

I doubt it Riccardo. The only remotely viable option would be the BBL, but there doesn't seem to be even much support in NZ for the T20 format, what with the few times I've seen the Super Smash comp there seems to be lucky to be around a thousand or so attending games!

CA doesn’t have a mutual comp with NZC The bone I picked Mick. As the Black Caps occasionally present decent competition and are a cheaper option into the bargain, shouldn't that be rectified? Reckon both organisations stand to benefit...

Reckon it's gotta be something more acidic, Kent...

Even funnier Olly...

Funny Moa...

Sorry OB, I'm not missing anything (in that regard at least). Tier 2 Rugby in Australia is either going to continue to take a semi-pro approach, or, Go professional (ala French) There should be no confusion about which approach will yield better on-field results. And it looks like the community results are superior also. Australia has one example - force. And I believe there is plenty of support for more...In both $ and eyeballs

Couldn't actually say. Don't get me wrong, can't see alignment with Japan as an option because I can’t see them being interested. But however they've done it, SA and the NH have probably shown it can be made to work.

Are the SA teams playing at home in January?

I suppose in fairness you could have said the same about Europe and the SA summer, but they seem to have managed it...

Playing rugby in the Aussie heat is not on.

Why? Move Japan forward a few weeks, aust back a few weeks and done. Night games. Anything is possible.

The Japanese are playing rugby in January. You can't align the Aust calendar with that.

According to all the kiwis here nothing will work and all teams should be made up of locals.

I live in aust and there is no reason you couldn't align seasons with Japan. I reckon best we go different ways as it seems NZ just want to keep doing the same thing.

That's fine for you to think since that's obviously how you personally feel, even though I don't think you're fully grasping the entirety of what I'm referring to. Between what other nations can the citizens of one country enjoy the welfare benefits of another whilst living and working in that country whilst remaining a citizen of their homeland? If that's not the very definition of conjoined, I don't know what is.

Glad you and some others liked the post. And I feel very humbled and flattered. My only interest in these particular discussions is to try to diffuse tensions and remove the emotion and "politics" as these things only hinder the discourse. There are indeed a lot of very constructive and insightful contributions from people on this and other threads and it would be nice to think that some of those might get through to those in charge somehow. I can understand yours and others' concerns vis a vis Kearns potentially getting the top job but let me attempt to allay them. Remember that he is also a lawyer, as many of those who have stood tall in our game often are, and while as a commentator he is horrendously biased, I don't think he actually holds any genuine animosity towards New Zealand nor do I think that as a professional he would allow such petty whims to overrule his business nous, whatever that might be. Also, it might be a nice breath of fresh air to have him away from the commentary box for a while. I also doubt that the shareholders of RA would back his candidacy for CEO if he was likely to financially compromise Australian rugby in such an enormous and long-lasting way. SRAU was a temporary experiment forced by unprecedented circumstances so any "positive" result from that cannot be used as the basis for any kind of functional assessment of Australian rugby currently or its future prospects. Otherwise, you're just stabbing in the dark and hoping for the best. Not a strategy that I would think would be too availing among the seemingly fickle shareholders. John Donne famously said, "No man is an island." This is true for all people, whether they are an individual standing alone or as part of an organisation. We rely on our interactions with each other to achieve the outcomes that we want and for sports, this is absolutely fundamental. While I did say that neither RA nor NZR has an obligation to the other, which in a strictly business sense is true, neither of them is a hegemony unto itself in the world of rugby union and this means that they have to negotiate and compromise their own individual goals with the interests of their local professional and amateur unions as well as those of World Rugby and all their international partners. While it may be fine commercially for a franchise to sink or swim on its own, no union wants to see any of their brother (or sister) unions collapse as it could have an impact on their own stability, especially in the case of Australia and New Zealand who have been intertwined for such a long time. The fact that there's so much cross-over between us from the lowest levels of rugby and this only substantially diminishes at the professional level is testament to how important we are fundamentally for each other. Anyone who can't see this as a fact shouldn't be anywhere near the game let alone having any power over it. I think part of what has destabilised the relationship so spectacularly is having SARU "walk away" from Super Rugby. Sure, they had to make the right corporate decisions for themselves and they are already enjoying some of the benefits of travelling north. In the binary relationship that is left behind between Australian and New Zealand, the egos of the managers can take centre stage as the interests can be directly opposing. Whereas In the prior triumvirate relationship, decisions could only be reached through consensus between all parties meaning that the egos of the managers and competing interests were forced to the side in order to achieve an outcome through negotiation. To borrow from politics and history, just this once, look at how delicately geopolitics has to be managed between the 3 superpowers: China, Russia and the US. A global sport is unfortunately also geopolitics to some degree, though the bloodshed is usually metaphorical. I don't see how RA could so callously abandon these principles, despite the intense rhetoric from HM. After all, a CEO is not a dictator. They have to negotiate with the board and the shareholders to get their vision realised and when that vision has so far failed to generate much traction or go-forward, you're unlikely to gain much support by doubling down on a heretofore unsuccessful strategy. And antagonising your rugby partners on top of that is equally as unlikely to be productive or positive. That's why I mentioned the public relations angle because that's the only way I can see such strategy making any sense. But as I finished saying regarding Larkham's recent comments in respect of the Auckland "conference", it appears at least that whatever is currently in the works for Australia rugby has finally drawn together all of the required stakeholders including our New Zealand partners and it has put the decision making in the hands of those best suited to create a forward pathway for the game: the coaches and rugby directors, instead of leaving it in the hands of the bean counters. As we head towards RWC 2023 and beyond, I expect that we will learn more about this process and there will be both decisions made and announcements of those decisions that we can finally put our faith and trust in. And, more importantly, we can all get back to enjoying the game we love.