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Answer seems simple to me – have all the top 30 Wallabies players signed with only the Reds, Waratahs or Brumbies. So 10 Wallabies per team each building combinations with eachother and alongside the younger talent the clubs are developing. Let Twiggy and the Force sign whatever overseas talent they want to be competitive with their local talent, and let them have any eastern youngsters unwanted by the other teams. Then lastly the Rebels – they should spend a few years as the competition whipping boys and just focus on developing youngsters and have the aim to be competitive within 5 years..kind of similar to the strategy the GWS Giants when they started in 2012
Consolidate to survive: Five teams must become four if Super Rugby is to survive
My vote would be to use Global Rapid Rugby as the third tier (backed by Twiggy and any other interested businessmen). It brings something interesting and a little different.. a pink ball, a countdown clock and some tweaked rules which aren’t so dissimilar that our players won’t still get decent development. It should focus on fun given the general public are unlikely to recognise most of the players. In terms of the teams, I’d have all five Super Rugby AU teams involved minus their Wallabies, and keep the Samoan, Fijian and maybe Malaysian & Hong Kong teams that Twiggy had in there previously. Run it off the smell of an oily rag.
An unrelated question – what happened to State of Union/Origin? I thought the broadcast agreement announced last year said there was going to be a NSW v QLD rugby union match.. games like this could potentially be good for player development/closing the gap with NZ?
Super Rugby AU: The third tier
This is great, I really like your idea and is something I have supported/been calling for.
I really like the Cup, Shield, Plate format – alternative to that maybe 4 pools would work (like the Heineken Cup/World Cup), where if two Aussie or NZ sides are sharing a pool then the game doubles as their Domestic Aotearoa/AU game? I think knock out rugby adds excitement and uncertainty that the current Super Rugby TT round robin lacks.
Another point is when you look at the top Japanese club squads, they have 7 or 8 quality foreigners but can only have 2 or so on the field at once in the Top League. This works well for their domestic comp, but for this Champions Cup we should ask that they remove/increase the limit and field the strongest side they can from their 40 odd squad size. Would add alot of interest to see the likes of Keiran Read and Michael Hooper both playing against their old teams. Just need to ensure the Japs aren’t incentivised to target our best players even more!
I’d also echo what others have asked and ask whether there is any opportunity for SA involvement, but understand this is likely impractical due to the European season. Maybe we could also reserve a could of spots in the Plate comp for two MLR sides from USA and look to explore the potential $ of a Pacific rim Champions Cup.
Also worth noting is that if you were to have the Pacific Champions Cup final around June or so, this more or less aligns with Europe’s final. Is there any reason why a week/fortnight later you couldn’t have the two meet for a World Club winner’s game? I’m sure there were calls to move the June test window which is the obvious blockade.
Involving Japan requires transforming the Trans-Tasman into a champions league
I agree.. To add a couple of ideas, what about if we ran Super Rugby TT alongside Super Rugby AU like the Heineken Cup does in Europe? For TT split the teams into four/five pools and maybe start it on ANZAC weekend, with games every 3 weeks or so (flicking back between Super AU and TT). Throw in the top 2 or 3 Japanese club teams, with a view to adding 2 from MLR in a few years time maybe. That way Super Rugby AU remains our baby to grow/expand as we like, with the TT the cherry on top in terms of broadcast offering. Each AU team would have 10 ‘domestic’ Super AU games (as we’d include Fiji in ours) and 4 or so TT pool games depending on how you work that. Having TT as a pool format rather than round robin makes it a bit more interesting I think.
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Alternatively we could just keep the current format from this year, but instead of sending our 5 teams to play against NZ, we could potentially send 3 actual representative sides (Queensland, NSW and AU barbarians) which you’d hope would be a step up in quality and competitive with NZ.. just an idea..
Why Australian rugby should go it alone
I think it would be the wrong move to grow our domestic league by 50% overnight. I honestly think the best way to revive Australian rugby is to have the Wallabies consistently winning against every team (All Blacks included). Eddy Jones said as much when he commented recently on the AU Rugby & the Wallabies. I do like the idea of ultimately having a decent number of club teams (10-14), but it will take time (several years) to get there. Expanding will mean we have to dilute our best players across even more teams and mean when they get to international rugby the step up in quality/standard is going to be even greater. Steve Hansen recently commented that the ABs would suffer if NZ expanded to a 6th team. We probably have enough quality players based in Australia to produce 3 quality teams which is essential to Wallabies success, with the other two teams to be perennial wooden spooners, …or not if boosted by 6-7 quality foreign internationals each.
Regarding SoU I like jeznez’s concept of QLD v NSW v Oz BaaBaas. For now I think QLD v NSW should only be a one off annual game though, which could be grown to a 3 game series (or incl the BaaBaas) in future if there’s a proven following or not.
Champions League and State of Origin-style fixtures headline Rugby AU's bumper broadcast offering
As a start, why not just put the State of Union on FTA? Its a new fixture, and the fact that it should have more eyeballs watching would encourage the players to buy into the theatre and spectacle. Shouldn’t cost a bucket load to get it on FTA too if its only one game or a three match series.
Champions League and State of Origin-style fixtures headline Rugby AU's bumper broadcast offering
Haha absolutely. In regards to aussie teams being bashed around every 2nd week by the kiwi teams – why does this need to be the case? If the Wallabies and best 50 odd aussie players are spread across the Brumbies, Reds and Tahs then surely these teams would be competitive if not dominant. Then use the Rebels and Force to develop our second tier players, and support them with the best international players we can attract from Fiji/Pumas/Springboks? Imagine our 4th / 5th /6th choice hookers learning from the likes of Agustin Creevy, meanwhile our established Wallabies get time to build closer combinations together and play in higher intensity games leading up to the Bledisloe.
Champions League and State of Origin-style fixtures headline Rugby AU's bumper broadcast offering
I think we have to strike a balance going forward between our number of teams and the standard of play. Surely theres a way we can keep our 5 teams without diluting the talent to the point that we’re largely uncompetitive with NZ. Why cant we have our top 50 odd players in the country in the Reds, Brumbies and Waratahs squads, building combinations/competitive culture (important for the Wallabies) and having close to test match level intensity when they play each other (which NZ claim to have when their sides meet)?
With the Force and Rebels – can they not have half their squads from the next best 40 odd aussie players and supplement them with 7 to 10 of the best players from the Springboks, Pumas and Flying Fijians? Or is there just no money to attract these internationals to help keep the Rebels/Force competitive? WA and Melb fans will obviously want to see Wallabies in their local team but I think the most important thing in the short term is to have a Wallabies side winning the bledisloe again and to have super rugby sides going toe to toe consistently with the best 3 to 4 from NZ.
Wallabies coach Rennie weighs in on trans-Tasman competition debate
I thought the exact same thing, there was also a penalty in what seemed like every 2 minutes – and we seriously pride ourselves in being the hemisphere that plays expansive exciting rugby? Wish I could say that ARG v SA was not the most boring game I’d seen in a long time but the worrying issue is that so many of the internationals this year have been pretty dire (the whole Lions tour, six nations and bledisloe 1 wasnt great). Alarm bells should be ringing with the powers that be to fix this, these matches are the epitome of our game.
'Forever putting up roadblocks': Marinos names likely new date, steps up NZR criticism, as players 'shattered'