Jethro wrote: Wed Sep 27, 2023 5:18 pm
[I was saying as soon as Rugby Australia, ARU back then, started creating additional Supe teams it wasn't going to end well. And as day follows night the usual call from a former Wallaby great, this time Tim Horan.
Australian rugby is in a constant battle with the NRL and the AFL, and the Wallabies’ failure will make it harder to attract fans and backers to the code.
Rugby Australia is also struggling financially, and Horan said that combination of factors meant that New Zealand had to come to the rescue of their “Anzac brothers” in the next four years.
Source: stuff.co.nz
This has been the constant refrain for well over a decade now, anyone remember the one off test played a couple of decades ago to pump finance into ARU coffers.
Naturally Tim Horan doesn't believe that RA should live within its means, or reduce the artificial supe teams. Next decision by Rugby Australia of course will be calls to expansion to such rugby heartlands as Adelaide, Newcastle, or Broken Hill.
Rugby Australia lost a lot of support in the regions when the original ARC franchise announcements basically kept the status quo in place rather than hearing from the grass roots.
I'm in the Newcastle region, rugby exists, but not so you would ever hear about it in the face of overwhelming NRL support.
This is the first time I've seen any Aussie post something approaching how I view the ARU after watching SANZAAR for years.
The biggest problem in SANZAAR and why Super Rugby went to shit, is the ARU refused to create a domestic comp, then decided to keep trying to inject new Aussie teams into Super Rugby to turn that into a domestic comp. This cut the CC and NPC window, which in SA forced SARU into trying to inject more teams into Super Rugby too. The Aussie teams weren't good, the Spears (our 6th side) had a positive winning ratio against Aussie sides. Then there was the ARU project that was a Japanese Super Rugby team, aka the worst side in Super Rugby, that somehow ended up in the SA conference. Then when the format was cut for the 2018 season, SA went back to 4 teams in a 15 team competition (larger than Super 14, but with less SA sides), SARU ended up in the same position it had in 2005 in the last Super 12 season, but in a larger and worse competition. Then there was a surprised Pikachu face when SA sides left Super Rugby, before a quite ugly fight between the ARU and NZRU over the future structure of Super Rugby (of course Argentina's only side was cut, because it was only SARU arguing for them).
Through all of this Aussie posters, ordinary Aussie fans, were saying they were shit because SA sides were in Super Rugby and the kickoff times were bad (a crazy argument but that's what most of them claimed). It was never kickoff times, it was always lack of Aussie interest in the sport. I'll never forget over a decade ago a respected Aussie poster asked who a South African player was who joined his Super Rugby team, the player had been playing Super Rugby for years ie the competition he watched, it was a wtf moment. It's been very different in the URC, fans from other countries are aware of who our players are, there's an acknowledgement SA sides have added something. It puts a totally different light on all those years of SANZAAR infighting and ARU cunts like O'Niell, I never want to see SARU going back to those days. It was like being in a bad relationship with a manipulative partner who always blamed you for their own failings.
Super Rugby without SA sides and the Argentine side seems like a downgrade. I can't see how it's in the NZRU's interest to have more than 2 or 3 Aussie sides, and it's very obvious the competition is now dependent on the good grace of the NZRU to run at all. Super Rugby should've always been a Heineken Cup type competition, but that could never happen because the Aussies refused to create a domestic competition. Or it should've been completely separate conferences with separate TV deals etc, each conference controlling the schedule and which teams were added (which would've allowed more expansion), the cross conference games happening at the playoffs, but the ARU wanted above everything else to play NZ sides in the regular season (and to add a Japanese side) because they know there's no interest in watching Force v Rebels x2, so that couldn't happen either.
What Super Rugby is now, is more or less what most Aussie fans demanded. Kiwis including All Blacks coaches are saying they're missing something not playing SA sides, that playing Aussie sides alone has made them weaker. There's now plans in advanced stages for full tours by the Springboks and All Blacks (including tour games), the Aussies don't seem to be included in this development. The point for the NZRU is to get NZ sides playing SA sides. This is bad news for the ARU, because if the RC is weakened competitively and financially by adding Japan and Fiji (meaning a single round of matches, which means no match in Aus every year against each of ABs/Boks/Pumas), then it will go the same way as Super Rugby, in any season most of the sides will be shit. The value both competitively and financially in southern hemisphere test rugby will flow into the Springboks v All Blacks tours, which the Wallabies won't be part of it seems.
It all comes back to the ARU putting every egg they had into the Super Rugby basket, then treating SARU as an enemy to be removed from Super Rugby, which eventually even manifested in ordinary Aussie fans on here telling me SA Soup sides were responsible for rugby being unpopular. The ARU could now end up at the bottom of the Super Rugby log for as long as NZ keeps the comp going, and in some seasons a RC home test fixture list could be Japan and Fiji. All with two men and their dog watching. If past positions are anything to go on the ARU will be loudest in demanding Japan be added to the RC as well.
Couldn't make it up. At least they cannot blame us anymore. There's some schadenfreude, but mostly just sadness. In rugby terms the Aussies aren't that far off going under entirely.
