Shrinking Super Rugby isn't the solution to Australian rugby's problems, expanding the game below it is

Ive named the players and shown you the results. If you choose to ignore them then thats on you.

Ad Tastic - Please support your comments with facts. Please name the player resources that the Force have drained and set out the actual cost RA has in incurred at the hands of the Force, since 2017.

The drain on player resources is plain for all to see. That leads to a lack of success which leads to a lack of interest, leading to an even steeper decline in playing resources which has destroyed not just Qld but the Wallabies, and Australian Rugby as well. The Force haven't grown the game, they've shrunk it. Not withstanding the handful of Saffers, Kiwis and Poms in Perth willing to subject themselves to the dross the Force has produced on the pitch since their existence. But they cant even field a team without begging guys to come out of retirement. And of course, none of this has been free, they've cost RA millions in the process. They can't dump that pointless outfit into the dustbin of history fast enough IMHO.

.... 16 years ago.

Try again, Mate - the Force was constituted in 2007, that is 16 years ago. As a rough average a professional rugby player has a career of about 10 years and so since 2007 we are into a second maybe even third generation of new players. How can the creation of the Force in 2007 still account for the non-recovery of the Reds who won Super Rugby in 2011. The success of the Reds and then the Tahs, against full line ups of Saffas and Kiwis, cannot be ascribed to a flash in the pan. The Reds, sadly in my book, appear to wobble from year to year but that can have noting to do with the Force over the past dozen years: Ergo, The Reds issues must be a systemic problem within their own camp.

What rest? Be specific, by all means. David Pocock wasn't any part of the Reds, he was a schoolboy. And one who would have had to compete with the Reds captain for game time had he joined. He was a Wallaby before Croft retired...I'm sure he would have been able to see that. No argument Sharpe was top notch, but Mitchell wasn't any part of setting up the Force. He came later, like Giteau. And even Sharpe was being given an captaincy opportunity he was never going to get while Croft was around. If he had waited, wonder if his captaincy would have achieved what Horwill's did? This is what I've tended to find; if you actually pull at the tired old trope, it always basically just comes back to just Sharpe and Pocock. One a genuine loss for sure, but just one man and not necessarily the one they needed. The other they never actually had in the first place, just arrogantly assumed would wait around for as long as it took. But something to repeat without any actual thought, so it has become one of those things that 'everyone knows'.

Question is, with their locking stocks full, does Horwill get given a contract or does he have to look elsewhere? Same with Genia, if Buatava had been signed up the year before. There are only so many contracts, so neither may even have got the opportunity with incumbents in place. And you are misremembering regarding Barnes...both he and Cooper joined the Reds in 2006, so the Reds may have had neither if James and Daruda had stuck around. Conversely, if they would have forced their way in anyway, then the players who were lost from those positions were no loss, were they?

Horwill and Sharpe would have been the best lock combination in Super Rugby. OK, behind Matfield and Botha. Genia pushed out Valentine all by himself and Barnes went to NSW to give Cooper his chance. Would have liked to retain Moore at hooker but at least he went to the Brumbies, and I cant really argue the Brumbies havent contributed something to Oz Rugby. Unlike the Force, they've contributed a lot.

And the rest. David Pocock, Drew Mitchell, just off the top of my head. Nathan Sharpe was the best forward in the country at the time. World Class.

I agree with the concept. I don’t know whether the appetite or funding exists for it but the appetite for Trans Tasman floggings has clearly past. That has been Rugby’s very own version of a BIG BASH and I for one am over it but I would add should your proposal see the light of day that Rugby would be unwise not to make the most of the natural North/South rivalry/divide that exists in Sydney Club Rugby. Derby’s are a key element in structuring most successful domestic competitions.

Forgot to mention, NZR should be expand to 7 NZ based teams and base expansion team either in Tauranga, Napier, New Plymouth or Palmerston North. Same goes for ARU with expand to 7 AU based teams. With NZ 7/AU 7 teams, gives you combined total of 14 men competition. ARU should base a expansion team in either NSW (Penrith or Parramatta) or QLD (Gold Coast or Townsville) with ownership with UAR, form an combined team owned by ARU (50-70% owned) & UAR (50-30% owned).

But also, regarding the ‘specious’ observation, it would be a flash-in-the-pan win if it were on the back of a bunch of players that lobbed into town in 2010 and were gone again in 2012. It wasn’t; it was built around the leadership of players who all got their opportunity in 2006. Genia, Cooper, Horwill…does 2011 happen without them in favour of Buatava, James and Sharpe?

OK, which of these players were awesome, irreplaceably head-and-shoulders over the alternatives...? - Junior Pelesasa - Nathan Sharpe - Rudi Vedelago - Scott Daruda - Tai Mcisaac - Brock James - Luke Doherty Those were the players the Force actually took out of the Reds list, and of those McIsaac and Vedelago had already been shown the door. Richard Brown and Vitori Buatava were on Reds scholarships, so count them in, but any other Q'ld player was a schoolboy or club player, not part of the Reds. Buatava sticks around, the Reds don't get Genia in 2007. Feel the Reds would have been improved if the spot had been filled?

What an amazing rant on the need for a player draft, AZ! Where do I start? Ah, yes! Here ! ... RA needs to sort its s**t out. It's bad enough NZ has to fork out money to RA for the last few seasons, and has to fork out even more in the next two seasons even while the RA chairman continues to mock and denigrate the very hand that is feeding RA (not to mention the two extra SRP sides)! It gets worse when you consider that PE firms have apparently bailed out on RA (for the time being) so RA is taking out another loan; how many do they have now? 5? 6? I shudder to think about all the interest repayments!! RA views Super Rugby as its middle tier competition and wants to see it expand to a proper season; Super Rugby in NZ is a fourth tier competition and it can be argued that that may be one tier too many. If Super Rugby was to fold tomorrow, NZ Rugby would scarcely miss a beat in terms of development thanks to the NPC. Then you want NZ Rugby to send its players to a country where everyone admits the coaching, in general, is rank! Geez! NZ players and coaches would be better off going to Japan or France; at least they'll make more coin. I've seen some of the junior Shute Shield players; they play like rugby league players!! In any case, just about every Aust SR franchise will have at least one former AB in their ranks next year. Can you say sugar hit? The more Kiwis that appear in Aussie teams, the less appealing SR will be to the NZ market; there's already issues there given the non-competitiveness of the Aussie teams! As for overseas players, the players should want to come; they are not going to come for the money. They won't get a decent deal if that is the case. Not many NH players are willing to make the trek south; Marchant played for the Blues due to the global lockdown AND the loan deal NZ has with Harlequins. NZ also signed a deal with Japan to that effect and Japanese women already played in NZ's domestic women's comp so they are ahead of you there. You also seem to forget that every foreign player in a team takes a spot that a local player should be able to fill; look at the Force. Some of their best players only lasted a season or two before they returned home. Where was local player development there? New Zealand is starting to carry too heavy a load for a country of only 5 million people (less than that of Sydney or Melbourne). Their largesse has limits. C'mon, RA. Get cracking!

It's not specious. Go look at the records. Look at the players the Force pinched at the time. It's obvious.

Simply dismissing it as a flash in the pan is pretty specious, especially when in the Reds case it was 6 seasons later. Perhaps what was actually needed was the opportunity and need to critically assess talent and make change. The fact that the Reds were sooo certain of who all their next players were, and that so few of them actually achieved anything much, suggests that 2011 would never have happened at all had they all stuck around taking up spots. Quite possibly the Reds were moribund and their record was destined to look more like the Force's had they not been shaken out of the rut. The same rut they subsequently returned to once things settled down again, and the same rut they would remain in with or without the expansion teams.

My main comment suggests 2 or 3 Australian teams only, not 5, play NZ and international club teams. But only after a domestic expanded super competition.

Consider also, that Australian teams couldn't hide from NZ and SA teams during Super 12. They didn't get to play twice as many games against the soft Aussie sides and get a mandated pass into the semis like during Super Rugby.

It's all well and good to grow the game in new provinces but if it guts the sport in the heartland then you've achieved nothing. In reality, worse than nothing.