- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Opinion
The future of rugby union in Australia and New Zealand brings up lots of different emotions for people. Sadness, anger, worry, optimism, scepticism, and even a twinge of regret.
What rugby in both Australia and New Zealand is going to look like in two, five or 10 years has to be vastly different to what it looks like now, otherwise I doubt it will be alive.
Rugby has so many issues facing it that it isn’t a simple task to come up with a solution. There is the lure of big money from France, UK and Japan.
There are more opportunities for young athletes through NRL and AFL. The rule changes. The lowering of the tackle height to be between the knee and the bottom of the shorts.
Razor Robertson recently opened a can of worms when he said New Zealand should look at the selection policy in terms of overseas players. Shock horror, how could he blaspheme like that?
Below is my broad-brush attempts of trying to layout the issues and how the new world should look. I don’t pretend I’ve got all the answers, but willing to stick my neck out anyway.
Up until now Super Rugby has been used as a training ground for the national team. I believe this has come at the expense of growing Super Rugby into a truly elite competition.
Given the national teams play somewhere between about eight and 10 games at home and another four or five on their spring tour, I really question whether these games should be the focus or if the focus should be on the 100s of games of tier one or tier two rugby that are played during the year.
Like it or not Super Rugby is not an elite competition. Time after time we see players, especially Australians, go overseas for a year or two and come back a much better player.
In Australia we can barely put together a 30-man squad that makes the Wallabies competitive. We could if there were no injuries, but hey it’s a contact sport.
I don’t know whether it’s facilities, coaching, or the number of games people are playing, but it seems that whatever Super Rugby is doing now, especially in Australia, is not doing its job in terms of player development.
Will Skelton of Australia. (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)
Super Rugby goes for 15 rounds plus the finals.
The Gallagher premiership goes for 24 rounds plus the finals.
The Top 14 goes for 24 rounds plus the finals.
The URC goes for 18 rounds plus the finals.
Oh, and then many of the overseas teams compete in the Champions cup.
The Japan League One is the outlier, with only 16 games plus the finals.
Most teams were made up in 1996 when Super Rugby first started. Sure they were made up from existing structures, but they were still made up teams.
A kid from Narrabri doesn’t really have anything in common with the Waratahs who spend most of their time in Coogee. They need to go back to grassroots and revive the tribalism.
1. Both New Zealand and Australia should have stand-alone 12 team competitions that play a full home and away series. In NZ this could just be an expansion on the current NPC, and in Australia it could be a new competition called the National Rugby Championship.
2. The top five New Zealand and Australian teams from the NRC/NPC should play in a cross Tasman Super Rugby competition.
3. The top six teams from this competition should then play against the top two or three from Japan in a Champions Cup type league.
These competitions could be managed by a new entity called Anzac Rugby incorporated which would have a board made up from representatives from the 20-24 clubs, a commercial director – and importantly very little input from RA or NZRU (I know this will be the stumbling block!)
RA and NZRU could then focus on what they should do best. Use the money they make from the wildly successful national teams to develop pathways into these competitions, train coaches, lobby for more sporting infrastructure, and run academies and centres of excellence.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.