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Confirmed - 'Exciting' Kiwi-only competition is imminent

By Online Editors
(Photo by Michael Bradley/Getty Images)

New Zealand Rugby are working on a domestic competition featuring the five Kiwi Super Rugby teams as a replacement for Super Rugby this year.

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According to Patrick McKendry in the New Zealand Herald, there is a willingness among NZ Rugby and players involved to quickly look at an alternative after Super Rugby, which also features teams from Australia, South Africa, Argentina and Japan, suspended for the next two weeks and is likely to be cancelled this year due to the travel restrictions put in place to contain the global coronavirus.

Mako and Billy Vunipola reportedly in talks with several Super Rugby clubs

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Sky TV, which has seen its share price drop rapidly over the past week or so, is also understood to be extremely keen to broadcast live rugby content and the prospect of the five Kiwi teams playing each other in full-blooded derbies, albeit possibly behind closed doors, is likely to also interest sport-starved rugby fans around the world.

With the Highlanders having returned on Tuesday from their cancelled game against the Jaguares in Buenos Aires – and facing a fortnight of self-isolation in accordance with the New Zealand government’s protocols brought over the weekend – any competition won’t start for two weeks at least.

But it is likely to be run over ten to twelve weeks and has been given the all-clear by Sanzaar chief executive Andy Marinos.

On same day New Zealand Rugby announced that all club rugby had been suspended until April 18 at the earliest, chief executive Mark Robinson, who has been in the job for four months, all but confirmed the imminent start of a Super Rugby replacement competition on Sky TV’s Breakdown programme.

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He said his organisation’s priority was ensuring public safety, “but now our attention has shifted to how we make the best of this situation”.

“We’re quite excited about what we’re starting to develop with our Super clubs and Sky obviously heavily involved… this is a process which is quite complex and detailed,” Robinson said.

“We’d like to think by the end of the week we’d be in a position to share more detail. But it’s obvious it will be around a domestic-shaped competition and we’ve got around ten to twelve weeks to provide some rugby product for our fans.”

Robinson added some Kiwi teams had opted to take the week off but he was in constant dialogue with them. “We know people are going to be interested because there are a lot of restrictions around what people can do at the moment. We’re very mindful of what our fans want at the moment. This is a fresh opportunity and we’ve got to take it and make something exciting out of it.”

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Former All Blacks full-back-turned-Sky commentator Mils Muliaina said: “How good would that be? Obviously, I’m being optimistic and there is a two-week (break), but what would that look like (in terms of) a regional competition? The challenge is for other countries. We have five good teams here, but the challenge is for Australia and South Africa.”

Robinson said at this stage the visits of Wales and Scotland for three Tests against the All Blacks in July were still going ahead. “At the moment we’re working on a basis that the Welsh tests are being planned for,” he said.

“There have been no discussions with Wales or anyone else for that matter that they won’t be going ahead but we all know we’re in a dynamic and rapidly changing environment.”

He said the players’ association were being fully involved in all discussions. Asked whether the players may be willing to take a pay cut, Robinson said: “It’s premature to go into the detail of what those discussions might look like.”

Robinson added of the importance to rugby to start again in New Zealand: “The key thing about rugby is that it can bring people together, it can inspire them, it can give them a release and provide fun and excitement.”

New Zealand Herald 

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J
Jon 6 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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j
john 8 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

34 Go to comments
A
Adrian 10 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

Thanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause

34 Go to comments
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