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Rugby Australia confirm Melbourne Rebels' participation in Super W 2024
The cash-strapped Melbourne Rebels will press ahead with a Super W team in 2024 despite the club’s future looking increasingly grim.
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Phil Waugh said the women’s contracts would be honoured in the same manner as the Rebels’ male players, but the Rugby Australia (RA) chief was unable to place a time line on any decision around the club’s existence beyond 2024.
Administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers on Thursday cut 10 staff including long-serving chief executive Baden Stephenson, while RA re-contracted men’s coach Kevin Foote and the high-performance team on four-month deals.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to go into what ’25 and beyond looks like,” Waugh said on Friday.
“Right now, it’s just around ensuring that we’ve got the appropriate arrangements to be playing at AAMI Park, to get tickets on sale, and a lot of the operational aspects of delivering a successful ’24 Super Rugby season for the Rebels.
“Then we need to accelerate the conversation on ’25 and beyond, because players need certainty, staff need certainty, high-performance staff need certainty.
“The sooner we can get to an outcome with all the different stakeholders on what the path forward looks like for ’25, the better it’s going to be for our people.
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“And, as we know, we need to look after our people.”
Insisting the Rebels would “absolutely’ see out the Super W season, Waugh said the focus on “participation and pathways will be exactly the same” even if there are no Super teams in Victoria in 2025.
“(For) young and female athletes coming through the system, the focus and pathway will be exactly the same,” he said.
“It’s a broader conversation on the future of the Rebels (for) ’25 and beyond whereby the female team and participants are very much part of that conversation.”
Waugh’s only promise to the Rebels was transparency, after the Western Force endured a brutal axing from Super Rugby in 2017 before being reinstated in 2020.
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“That’s why I don’t over-commit and over-promise to you, and give you a time line, because there’s just so many different machinations to the conversation,” Waugh told reporters on a video call.
“There’s a lot of lessons to be learnt (from the Force affair) but probably the number one lesson is to be really transparent and honest and make sure that we’re dealing with the situation sensitively, because it is a very sensitive situation.
“We just need to work through sensibly how we get to a resolution, and the sooner we can get to a resolution for all parties, including our commercial partners as well as our broadcasting partners and our neighbours across the ditch.
“It’s really important for us to be engaging with everyone and getting a sensible solution as quickly as we can.”
Comments on RugbyPass
I guess we may all agree on the fact, that the ABs and Boks are the two in contest for No 1 in rugby history (the triple-A sort of) …. the Wallabies, England and France are the next tier, with Ireland being the new kid in town (AA) …. in my view it makes little sense creating imaginary competitions (unless you have too much time to waste)
43 Go to commentsWhat a joke. Total joke and the pundits commentating, all of whom know a bit about the game, could barely disguise their contempt. Reaching for the card then pulling back when he realised a red card would carry further match suspensions is simply not his decision to make. A clear and obvious influence on the outcome of this match and indeed, the championship path.
2 Go to commentsI like the idea, in NZ the Ranfurly Shield and NPC coexist, both having their own bragging rights. The World Cup would be the pinnacle, but the competition and travels of these trophies would be interesting.
43 Go to commentsDon’t worry Sonny bill Williams leave that awkward situation about the curfew in the pass whoever it was it doesn’t matter its no big deal we back our All Blacks through the storm and the thunder until we see the Sun light again.
42 Go to commentsWho listens to this retard? He was a massive liability as a player but obviously a media sensation
42 Go to commentsI’m not surprised by such ‘virtue signalling’ by Sonny Boy. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. He’s such a pious Islamic muppet, imo.
42 Go to commentsI’ve actually never heard of the guy (then I don’t watch League as it is boring). But if he is good enough.. then good luck to him. If not, well, he can always return to league.
2 Go to commentsIt is pretty clear that by almost any measure that NZ are a more successful rugby nation than South Africa. Quite aside from the distasteful events during the last RWC final. NZ lead SA in all significant measurements.
43 Go to commentsDickson went to his pocket for a card, saw who it was, changed his mind and spoke at length to TMO. One angle clearly shows Care diving over a Saints player to kill the ball. 1st yellow, reason given for not Red was player was falling backwards. He was only falling backwards after contact with Lawes. Graham try should have stood. Mitchell did not have both hands on the ball, ball went forward from a Saints boot dragging over it. 2 intentional knock-on's. One of which had an overlap on the outside. If Quins are happy to win by intentional foul play, then it does not say much for them. Would appear to be a bad day for Karl Dickson, also for the RFU in appointing a Ref who spent 8 years as a player at one of the clubs.
2 Go to commentsLet’s not forget about Ardie Savea just yet.
6 Go to commentsThe URC and the Euro Championscup can’t run at the same time, basically dilutes both competitions.
1 Go to comments“While Sotutu should start at No.8 for the All Blacks against England, but it’s only in that arena that he can prove just how good he really is.” And that my friends is where simply hasnt shone despite multiple opportunities. Even in this performance you can see what did him in in the test arena..he almost always still runs at the opposition almost ramrod upright making him easier to stop than it should be.
6 Go to commentsShould have been 0-0 and a message from SR CEO to both teams - “don’t worry about turning up next year”.
4 Go to commentsGreat work Owen Franks. A great of this team, scoring his first try for the Crusaders since 2010.He was beaming, justifiably. A fine win, he and the rest did the job up front.
1 Go to commentsDanny Care. Lang in die tand.
1 Go to commentsBig empty stadium does nothing for atmosphere but munster are playing well with solid performance
1 Go to commentsYes, Fiji can win the World Cup! With that belief plus their christian faith🙏 and hard work it is achievable. Great article. Ian Duncan Fiji resident 1981-84
2 Go to commentsInteresting comments about Touch. England’s hosting the Touch World Cup this year and the numbers have exploded since their last World Cup in 2019, something like 70% more teams and 40 nations taking part. And England Touch have made a big thing about how many universities are in their BUCS University Touch Championship as well as Sport England membership. Can only see this growing even more domestically as more people become aware of it
10 Go to comments“Cortez Ratima is light years ahead of anyone on current form, while TJ Perenara has also skyrocketed into contention following the unfortunate injury to the talented Cam Roigard.” At last some sanity. Hitherto so many pundits have been wittering on about Finlay Christie to the point one wondered if they were observing a FC in a parallel universe where the FC they saw wasnt just the mediocre Shayne Philpott project of Fosters hapless AB reign in the real world. Ratima, Perenara and Fakatava are the ONLY logical 9s for Razor now Roigard is crocked.
4 Go to commentsThis game was just as painful as the Hurricanes game. It was real fork-in-the-eye stuff.
4 Go to comments