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Sorry Australia, there's simply no justification for all five Super Rugby teams joining a trans-Tasman competition without significant changes

By Tom Vinicombe
Jack Maddocks, Michael Hooper and Marika Koroibete. (Photos by Getty Images)

Reports suggest that Australia want all five of their Super Rugby AU sides to take part in a mooted trans-Tasman competition but unless rule changes even out the competition, New Zealand have little to gain from bending to Australia’s wishes.

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Prior to Super Rugby’s suspension, the Brumbies had fought well to earn themselves second spot on the overall ladder. The Reds, Rebels and Waratahs, meanwhile, had earned just four wins between them against teams from outside the Australian conference. Just one of those wins came against a New Zealand side – to go with the Brumbies’ win over the Chiefs.

Since 2015, Australian teams have won just 3 matches from 49 attempts on New Zealand soil.

It’s abundantly clear from the above that Australia’s four Super Rugby sides are simply not up to the same standard as the Kiwi teams. That’s due to a number of factors, of course, but any real rivalry between the two nations has gone out the window in recent years. Add in the Western Force, who will likely end up bottom of the Super Rugby AU log, and the thought of all five of Australia’s sides joining a trans-Tasman competition with New Zealand is simply laughable.

Video Spacer

Ross Karl is joined by Super Rugby players from across Aotearoa/New Zealand as they discuss the current comp and all the goings-on around it.

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Ross Karl is joined by Super Rugby players from across Aotearoa/New Zealand as they discuss the current comp and all the goings-on around it.

As Kiwi scribe Dylan Cleaver accurately said not too long ago, following two weeks of intense Super Rugby Aotearoa derbies, “Nobody watching this past fortnight said: ‘It would be great if the Waratahs were up next.’”

While it’s hard to know for sure what’s fact and what’s speculation, Newshub have reported that New Zealand Rugby are weighing up two possible options for a future international club competition.

The first option – which Australia are in favour of – would see the five NZ sides and the five Australian sides battle it out in a 10-team competition.

The second option would see Australia field just two teams, alongside the five Kiwi teams and one Pacific Island franchise.

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That second option, supposedly favoured by half the NZR board (although chief executive Mark Robinson has denied that the board has even seen the options presented to them yet), would be a huge kick in the teeth to Rugby Australia.

The Sydney Morning Herald has suggested that Australia would prefer to go it alone than enter into an arrangement with their neighbours that limits them to just two teams. If nothing changes, however, then it’s hard to justify Australia having any greater presence.

As it stands, the NZ sides are much stronger than their rivals and, bar the odd upset, there’s little for Kiwi fans to get excited about when their teams play against the Reds or Rebels.

Super Rugby Aotearoa is a premium product due to the parity across the playing field. The Chiefs, who belted the Waratahs 51-14 in New South Wales earlier this year, are on the bottom of the table but have lost their four matches to date by just 1, 12, 5 and 7 points. Those kinds of margins would be few and far between if Australia were taking part in the competition.

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That’s not to say that a trans-Tasman tournament with five Australian teams isn’t possible – but not if their only competition would be the current five New Zealand sides.

Perhaps if NZR were willing to select All Blacks as long as they were playing in the new competition, regardless of what nation they were based in, then we could see some top talent head to Australia to help prop up the teams.

While it would be an insult to all the players, coaches and support staff in the Blues camp to suggest that Beauden Barrett’s presence has taken them from pretenders to contenders, there’s no question that a player of Barrett’s standing will help elevate a team’s performance. Imagine what the mana of someone like Ardie Savea or David Havili could bring to the Western Force if they were able to lure the All Blacks to Australia.

Of course, that would only be possible with a massive injection of funds into the clubs from private investors. Even without flush funds, some younger, less experienced Kiwis could help prop up Australian squads instead of holding tackle pads at training in New Zealand.

That would at least strengthen the Australian sides and while players of Savea’s calibre are obviously not immediately replaceable, the New Zealand conveyor belt of talent will continue to churn out young players that can eventually fill the void, as it has always done in the past.

The alternative option would be to thin New Zealand’s talent by introducing more Kiwi teams. Five Australian teams certainly can’t compete with five Kiwi ones – but perhaps the competition would be more even if NZ spread their players amongst six, seven or eight sides instead of just five.

Rugby Australia will trumpet a new golden era for the nation because of the promise that their age-grade sides have shown in recent times but New Zealanders won’t be willing to put up with three or four more years of mediocre (at best) competition.

While just two Australian teams participating in a new competition seems like a low blow, it’s what the nation currently deserves. Unless something else major changes, it’s almost impossible to imagine a scenario where all five sides join NZ’s five teams in a 10-team competition.

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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 9 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.

36 Go to comments
A
Adrian 11 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

36 Go to comments
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