I think NZ needs to run 14 teams and the top 4 from the previous season enter Super Rugby in a knockout group-style format like the European Rugby Championship. Australia on the other hand should move back to prioritizing local competitions in Sydney, Melbourne, Queensland, ACT and Perth.

Australia should play a similar internal, but shorter tournament between the top 8 clubs in the country from the previous season, meaning an 8-team knockout-style tournament between:

3 Sydney Teams
2 Queensland Teams
1 Melbourne Team
1 Perth Team
1 ACT Team

Such a tournament could be split into two pools with the top two in each pool playing the semi and final sometime in the earlier part of the season. In addition, there would be another 8 games to play in a Super Rugby Championship with NZ teams.

This means 16 weeks out of a possible 28 weeks is taken up for top level clubs in Australia with high stakes matches. In New Zealand the 14-team NPC can run alongside the same competition and while the top 4 NZ teams would compete in a 8 week Super tournament the rest of the time they would play a single round robin against the other NZ teams.

The beauty is that the NZ NPC is quite competitive and there are too many players for just the top 4 teams so the top 4 would potentially change year in and year out. The qualifying teams for each years tournament should strictly be taken from the local competition winners and rankings.

The hardest part is finding some other games for the non qualifying clubs in Australia and NPC teams to play. In NZ this would be upto 16 weeks and in NZ 8 weeks. There are various options here:

4 weeks – Additional in-season rest weeks
2 weeks – establish traditional non-competition matches against traditional clubs
2 weeks – two local sevens tournaments
2 weeks – two local tens tournaments
2 – weeks – in-season team tours to other regions of the country or accepting international clubs to visit.

Ultimately the non-qualifying clubs in say Brisbane could play a two-match round robin and one match each against the qualifying team. That would be a 15-match season if there were 8 teams, plus the potentially 3 weeks rest, 2 traditional matches, 1 sevens and 1 tens tournament plus 2 matches against a visiting team. That is a 21 match season of interesting games.

The BBL hit on another crucial marketing aspect which is not present in other sports – the Summer months is a sporting ‘dry season’ for content hungry broadcasters. AFL, NRL the two most expensive and watched leagues in the country have completely shut up shop and along comes cricket with an exciting short term league to fill the broadcasting void.

The NRC is now moving into this space with a league starting in August to October and possibly November. This is one of it’s key strengths – that it does not compete with the combined $2billion boradcasting might of AFL and NRL for prome time viewers or even stadium crowds.

If a single Rugby competition ran from March to September it would have to compete with AFL and NRL and this just is a mammouth undertaking. Rugby needs to be smarter and play to it’s strengths. Use the club game, Super game, International games to provide year round content to pay players more and get more fans.

Local club rugby should get people down to see their local teams and engage fans while Super teams can show stars on TV. The NRC will provide more localised access to regional stars in a State to State competition.

HardcorPrawn is correct. Most soccer national teams play roughly 10 or so International games each year. The calendar is so full of tournaments that friendlies are becoming scare and replaced by qualifying matches for regional tournaments. That is not to say that a number of these games aren’t lop-sided affairs where teams leave behind their star players of course.

As many posters have said here the long term answer lies somewhere between the Shute Shield and NRC. Things will change and become clearer in coming years. Maybe there could be a larger promotiona relegation NRC and a strong club competition leading into an extended NRC featuring more teams with semi or fully professional players.

In addition with South Africa adding another Super Team this year and if the NRC takes off in coming years there could be appetite for another Australian Super Franchise in 2020.

6 Super Franchises
12 NRC Franchises
Total = 18 teams playing from March to October with full TV exposure. Plus of course Wallabies tests and World Cups etc.

What is the issue?

I think most posters agree with you Mo however we are also realising that the Wallabies and Super Rugby are successful in their own right.

There a couple other problems with running a 22-game internal league:

The Wallabies play 15 games per season including in June and August – September + November tours. You are potentially looking at losing top players for 10 out of 22 games or half of your season seriously devaluing your competition. This is the specific reason that Super Rugby finishes before The Rugby Chapionship Stars and takes a break for June Tours. The rest of the rugby world is not going to reschedule for one country because the competitions are set and The Rugbyu Championship and other test series could conceviably continue without Australia which would seriously hurt Australia and those top 40 players would all end up heading overseas since Wallabies contracts would then be worht next to nothing.

If you did run larger squads that can absorb the losses of test players and continue the competition during that time there are serious questions about the integrity of such a competition where half the games have test stars and half don’t. Test stars will be given extra rests during club games too so Australia clubs would recruit foreign players to plug test windows in the same way as they do in France during the 6 Nations. Now you have lost the local flavor of your league and you have massive wage bills for International players plus the integrity is gone because the roster keeps changing and is much stronger one week to the next depending on if test stars are in.

The system we have gives the best of both worlds to fans. Besides it is supremely selfish from a fan to demand sport from a team from march to October or November. The reality of Top professional Rugby players and teams is that they can peak over a period of 10-12 weeks only. After this thier performance declines due to fatigue and they begin to suffer injuries. The long slow plod of the European Winter requires massive squads and constant rotation and multiple upsets because players go in and out of form and are rotated often for ‘more important’ mateches. Super Rugby, Test matches and NRC in the South is not the same. They are short windows of intense competition with minimal rotation. It produces exceptional team cohesion and performances.

TWS has a very good point. League fans support State of Origin and NRL. State of Origin gets the biggest Television ratings in Australia I’ve heard. And deservedly. Perfect time-slot, national game. Maximum passion and rivalry.

In NZ only the Highlanders had tight books and in South Africa there were no reports of teams in a tight situation until the Kings.

Remember that broadcast revenues are not the only revenues that Super Rugby makes. There is commercial and sponsorship revenues which add to the broadcast rights collected by the ARU then distributed to clubs.

To be honest neither you nor I know what Australia got exactly for Super rugby because it was combined with Rugby Championship and test match amounts. The thing is that Australia has paid its top players higher than other SANZAR nations for years because of the threat of league and those salaries were only reduced a few years back. Super clubs probably did get what Super Rugby earned but the Wallabies ran at a loss over paying it’s players and it is well known the administration costs were millions of dollars more than they needed to be.

Note: we need to exclude the Rebels because their extra expansion costs ate up unusual one-off funding to expand into a new market. If you look at the other franchises, expecially Brumbies, Reds and Waratahs they run at small losses or profits but are largely sound. The Brumbies had some huge problems with financial mismanagement in recent years so we need to see what comes of their investigation.

That’s if you want to get into details.

SANZAR income has expanded exponentially since it first started.

I think financial and political reasons were in favor of South Africa getting another side which they have been pushing for for years. In coming years NZ and AUS might top out their respective conferences with one more team each – Australia could do with one more even if NZ doesn’t.

With no doubt the success both on and off the field of the Japanese and Argentinian expansion teams will be closely watched. The more teams that can be placed in those locations the better it actually works out for the draw.

The Jaguars will also have to maintain a larger squad than people think because of the Americas Rugby Cup and the June Tests. Between Test players and the Jaguars players there will likely be between 40 and 50 players exposed to high level training and competition. This has to be good news.

The economics of a franchise competition (which Super Rugby is) means that some teams make more than others locally because they come from larger population areas. However all teams are necessary to maintain the competition and the real money comes not from the local population buying hot dogs or t-shirts but from TV rights which the Melbourne Rebels, Sunwolves, Force, Highlanders and other “financially unstable teams” contribute too.

The Melbourne Rebels may not be flush with cash but they sit in a strategically important viewing market of 4 million Australians and the Force of 2 million. When you consider the 120million potential eyes that could watch the Sunwolves and the 40 million people living in Argentina. You start to realise that these teams could perpetually run at a loss and Super Rugby would still increase in value in terms of broadcasting year on year.

Also details of the broadcasting deal are not fully open. I understand Super Rugby is being broadcast in upto 15 or 20 more countries than last time and this all contributes to revenues. UK would have had a huge influence but may not have been the only influence even though it makes good headlines.

15 games will not necessafily cause that much fatigue. They are also professionals so they know how to prepare and recouperate from matches. There are 2 byes in 17 games plus one month off for non test players. It is not as hectic as it sounds. Most teams go on just two overseas tours where they have 2 or 3 match tours.

Yes you just have to look at how many players have had long careers in Super Rugby at the top level to see it isn’t that bad. At most for most teams it’s about 10 weekends on the road. That means not full weeks because a 3 game trip can usually be completed in just over 2 weeks. There are other trips of course. There is a long offseason which players in Europe don’t have . Japan must be the best deal all around with less travel and long off season and good pay.

I have predicted for a while now that eventually in SANZAR first team players will play less and less of a role in NRC/NPC/Currie Cup because the travel and intensity of Super Rugby means they need a rest if they played most of those 15 games. The players who will go on to back up from August to November should be those players who got limited game time.

I would like to see the Pacific Island Nations get more funding from World Rugby that has ‘strings attached’. For example, they could get a couple million more dollars over the next four year cycle each with the funds specifically tagged to pay high a high level International coach on a long term contract, and to fund specific development programs in their local regions.

World Rugby must target contenders for a Quarter or Semi in 2019 and give them every chance accordingly. Romania, Italy, Kenya, Namibia, Georgia, and Pacific nations such as pacific Islands and other emerging nations should get specific earmarked funds for coaching and development that could get them to the next rounds in the cup.

I’m not talking handouts. I’m talking giving them the specific means to offer a package and if need be ‘poach’ a quality coach within the next year so they can start building towards the next world Cup. Their players are probably mostly professional anyway but they lack facilities and time to train and in most cases world class coaches. Let’s make the 2019 Cup a real spectacle where 20 or 24 teams can win.

I’m a Kiwi and I also agree that coach of the year is a three way tie between him, Hansen and Eddie Jones. I am not qualified to choose between them. He coached Waratahs well again but resurrecting the Wallabies to a World Cup final was quite amazing.

Successful World Cup by almost every measure.

I think this ruling could come by itself in another 6 months time if mauls continue to blight the professional game.

Also I think that World Rugby identified that the Breakdown was the most complicated part of the game so the main referee might exclusively referee breakdowns and the other referee deal with various other distractions to take the pressure off the main referee. The second referee will probably sit on the offside line with the defensive team like a league referee and also rule on dangerous tackles and various other aspects. They can look at the other side of the scrum and even the other side of the breakdown.

When play moves quickly to one side of the field the other referee can give a call on the breakdown and the referees could switch roles for a moment in a fluid switch so they don’t have to cross over each other.

There are more possibilities than just an offside line referee.

Correct. If a defensive player is over the ball he has rights as long as he has come from an onside position. The breakdown is only formed once another player from the ball-carrying team comes.

As for if the defensive line applies to both teams…a good question. I would first guess no. Unless counter rucking was successful. One the other hand what difference does it make to an attacking team if their players must also stand back 1m from the ruck?

It will prevent guard dogs from blocking but the opposition will be 2m away anyway. If there are runners they generally stand 1m back anyways. Not sure of the issue.

I agree that it will be interesting to see how teams and coaches adapt to no gate. Angles of arriving at breakdowns may change subtly. We already see some cheap shots at the breakdown but you are correct there may be more from side angles. How this is policed will be the question. Players need to enter and engage with an open grip and attempt to join a ruck. Reckless hits on rucks need to be penalised.

Yes the new rules define that a breakdown is formed “when just one attacking player was over the ball on the ground.” You could interpret that as the team in posession I would think.

This means an offside line is formed when a supporting player from the ball carrying team arrives over the ball.

The Post has omitted some key details which were included in an article on Stuff.co.nz as copied below:

“Once a breakdown is formed, no player from either side will be able to make a play for the ball with their hands, but in the absence of a “gate” would be able to enter the breakdown from any angle as long as they have come from an onside position.”

The important point to note is that players will NOT be allowed to make a play for the ball with their hands. Breakdowns will be a contest for possession over the ball and only the halfback will be able to take the ball as I understand it.

Sorry Waisake Naholo

I’m sorry but you need to justify why you left out the best winger in the Super 15 Nemani Nandolo. I would have him in instead of Piutau