Time to crack the emergency glass on the All Blacks-Kangaroos hybrid test once sport returns
With both Southern Hemisphere rugby codes in a tailspin engulfed in a global crisis, there is one untested solution that would provide a significant payday once action is able to resume.
The idea of an All Blacks/Kangaroos cross-code hybrid test has been floated in the past, but has never got off the ground. Some estimates in 2017 suggested the Test would fetch $50 million.
With both calendars jam-packed, it was a stretch to get both parties to work together to get it scheduled.
However, as Warren Gatland recently suggested, now is a chance to re-look at things. Everything that was off the table before could now potentially be back on it.
At the beginning of the sport, rugby league split off as a faction from rugby union over a financial dispute.
Now with both codes in Australasia needing cash, could money be the thing that brings them back together?
Controversy sells. Hostility sells. Emotion sells. There are few backstories filled with more hostility and division as the two rugby codes going back over 100 years.
The players from the rugby clubs in the North of England wanted to be paid, and that was against the RFU rules. The clubs rebelled and created an all-new inclusive code in rugby league.
Rugby league was made for every man and quickly spread across the globe in defiance of rugby union administrators, who predicted with regularity it would die.
Union players who defected to the code were banned for life from returning.
The two codes have gone in separate directions for more than 100 years, ignoring each other, divided as ever. But union eventually followed the path that created league in the first place, turning professional and becoming a commercial venture.
There exists a subset of fans that cross over, but that is the minority.
This is exactly why it would provide the theatre to draw in fans from both sides, with divided loyalties already set. Bringing two sets of mutually exclusive fans together. A boxing promoter couldn’t dream of a better situation to hype up.
99% of the players are unlikely to have to ever play alongside their opponents, allowing them to be free to express themselves without retribution, with administrators on either side happy to lob grenades on the other code.
Part of the growing malaise in professional rugby is its sterilized nature with few prepared to sell interest in the game with unmeasured honesty or bold arrogance.
Unfortunately, that vanilla approach doesn’t create interest. Perhaps only Eddie Jones knows this in the modern game.
This kind of clash would allow for a return to unbridled tribalism, backed by a larger story than either code.
Even pre-crisis, both isolated codes were, and are, under attack from youth indifference, globalization of far more powerful US sports, and the rise of e-sports and gaming.
Rugby league and rugby union aren’t competing solely with each other, rather the wider entertainment market, whether they realise that or not.
They should be finding ways to unite and collaborate to strengthen each other as the existential threats grow.
Leveraging each other through a hybrid test would work to grow each other’s audience and provide a cash injection. League fans may appreciate the power of Ardie Savea and the skills of Beauden Barrett, leading them to watch more union, and vice versa.
The All Blacks struggle to find consistent Trans-Tasman competition from the Wallabies after 15 years of Bledisloe domination.
The rivalry only exists in memory and historic relevance as the contest has become the most lopsided of any in World Rugby.
For Australian rugby league fans, the domestic state fixture State of Origin is widely held as the pinnacle of their game, illustrating how little regard international rugby league holds.
Pitting the All Blacks versus the Kangaroos would put two of the best rugby sides on this side of the world against each other.
The worst-case scenario is a one-off payday that flops but puts cash in the bank to help recoup the losses from this season.
The best-case scenario is uncovering an annual series that spins top dollar for years and becomes the premier event of Australasian sport.
Is that not worth a try?
Comments on RugbyPass
To me TJ is clearly the best 9 in the competition right now but he's also a proven player off the bench, there's few playmaking players who can come off the bench as calm and settled as he is, Beauden can, TJ can and I doubt any of the scrumhalves in contention can, if they want to experiment with new 9s I want him on the bench ready to step in if they crumble under the pressure. The Boks put their best front row on the bench, I'd like to see us take a similar approach, the Hurricanes have been doing similar things with players like Kirifi.
30 Go to commentsROG has better chance to win a WC if he starts training and make himself eligible as a player. He won’t make the Ireland squad but I reckon he may get close with Namibia (needs to improve his Afrikaans) or Portugal. Both sides had 1000:1 odds to win the RWC in 2023 which is an improvement on ROG’s odds of winning a RWC as a coach. Unlike Top 14 teams, national teams can’t go shopping and buy the best players - you work with the available talent pool and turn them into world beaters.
2 Go to commentsthat backline nope that backline is terrible why would you have sevu Reece when he’s not even top 5 wingers in the comp why have Blackadder when there’s better players no Scott barret isn’t an automatic the guy is more of a liability than anything why have him there when you have samipeni who’s far far better
30 Go to commentsAh, good to find you Nick. Agree with everything about Cale. So much to like about his game
49 Go to commentsNot too bad. Questions at 6, lock and HB for me. The ABs will be a lot stronger once Jordan and Roigard return. Also, work needs to be made to secure Frizzell back for next season and maybe also Mo’unga; they’re just wasting time playing in japan
30 Go to commentsOn the title, i wonder for many of those people it is a case something like a belief in working smarter, not harder?
1 Go to commentsForget Sotutu. One of those whose top level is Super Rugby. Id take a punt on Wallace Sititi Finau ahead of Glass body Blackadder.
30 Go to commentsI’m a pensioner so I've been around a bit. My opinion of SBW is he is an elite athlete and a great New Zealander and roll model. He has been to the top and knows what he's talking about. To all the negative comments regarding SBW the typical New Zealand way, cut that tall poppy down.
17 Go to commentsI'm not listening to a guy moralise over others when this is the guy who walked out mid season on Canterbury RLFC when he had a contract with them, what a hypocrite. Those praising him are a joke.
17 Go to commentsI’d put Finau at 6 instead of Blackadder but that’s the only change I’d make. Can’t wait to see who Razor picks.
30 Go to commentsTamati Williams, Codie Taylor, and Same Cane? Not sure about Hoskins Sotutu at test level. Wasn’t that impressive last season. Need a balance between experience and talent/youth.
30 Go to commentsInteresting insight. Fantastic athlete, and a genuine human being.
17 Go to commentsThey played at night in Suva last weekend and it’s an afternoon game forecast for 19 degrees in Canberra this weekend. Heat change is a non issue.
1 Go to commentsWishing Rosie a speedy recovery
1 Go to commentsObscene that SA haven’t been knocking
1 Go to commentsChances of Blackadder being injured seem too high to give him serious consideration. ABs loosie combination finally looked good with 2 committed to tackling and clearing rucks in the centre and Ardie roaming. Hoskins/Ardie together would force one of them into where they don’t excel and don’t get to use their talent, or require a change in tactics. If we continue to evolve last years systems I would take Papali’i and Finau at 6 and 7 (conceding that Blackadder will be injured) and Ardie at 8.
30 Go to commentsArdie’s preferred position 7? Where do they get these writers from? I've no idea where he's playing in Japan, but the previous two seasons he wore the 7 jersey exactly twice.
17 Go to commentsNot good to hear Ulster described as “financially troubled”. Did not think it was getting to that level. I would hope the Irish system of spreading players of talent away from Leinster would kick in now. Better to have a Leinster fringe player with Ulster or Connacht, then getting only a few games a season in Dublin. 10, for example, would seem to be a case for spreading the talent. I would not be at all adverse to a SA man coming in as head coach/DR. Ludeke is worth trying. Certainly got a long and impressive coaching career at this level…..149 games in SR, then Japan, 30 years experience. And Ulster’s ledger of successful SA coaches and players is on the positive side. Is talk of Ruan Pienaar interested in coming back as a coach…..could be a good combination with Ludeke. And Pienaar and family would have no settling in to do, one would judge. He loved life in Ulster when there, by all reports.
1 Go to commentsSome thoughts to consider here, Sam. Thanks
2 Go to commentsI think he is right, SBW is respected in RSA. The guy who never stood up is a worm. Sseems lots of NZ SBW hate, you do the crime do the time.
17 Go to comments