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Can we learn something from super rugby?

BuffaloRules

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International Union cheerleader Paul Cully saying that expansion has not worked for Australian Rugby...

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/u...about-the-fiveteam-model-20160330-gnum0e.html
Australian rugby needs to get its head out of the sand about the five-team model


Since the introduction of a fifth Australian Super Rugby team in 2011, two Australian sides have finished in the bottom three of Super Rugby in all but one year, 2013.

After this weekend has finished, there will likely be two Australian sides in the bottom four, with the Reds probably languishing beneath either the cannon-fodder Kings of South Africa or the Sunwolves of Japan.

Australia does not have the depth for a fifth team, and never has. Recent talk about moving the Western Force to a new neighbourhood is irrelevant. A team needs to go before it is relocated.

That will upset some but there is a need for plain speaking because the ARU is apparently wedded to the five-team model, a structural change that has embedded mediocrity into the Australian system. Worse still, apathy has invaded. There is barely a murmur at the latest thrashing at the hands of a Kiwi side. Australia has spread itself thin and accepted second best as the norm.

A few weeks ago in the match between the Hurricanes and Western Force (this incidentally, is no anti-Force missive; if a team were to be cut its identity would be another process entirely), the Kiwi side brought on a midfield substitute Willis Halaholo.

Within 15 minutes he had done two things very few starting midfielders among the Australian sides could do. First, he left Force No.13 Ben Tapuai standing with a big right foot step and then powered away, and then tricked fullback Dane Haylett-Petty into thinking he was about to do the same before doing a mini goosestep and burning him on the outside.

Australia is never going to have access to that pool of talent.
Here, some will mention the NRC. It's a good concept, although I'm not convinced about the current format. But we've all watched the NRC. Australia needs it to be producing in the order of 20 good Super Rugby players over the next few years to raise standards across the board, and that is not going to happen.
Others will suggest a draft. My response to that is this. Had Bernard Foley gone through with his move to the Rebels in 2014, it would have evened out the spread of talent and robbed Australian rugby of one of its recent high points, the Waratahs' Super Rugby title in 2014.

Gripes about depth are nothing new, as former colleague Rupert Guinness reminded me this week. In fact, they even pre-date the old Super 15.

"The expansion from Super 12 to Super 14, I don't think has been successful," a certain Eddie Jones told Rupert in 2009. "It might have been successful in generating more television, which is important for the participating unions and franchises, but I don't think it has created a better competition, or attracted more supporters to the game.

"And the level of the competition, I think, has really fallen off. In Australia, we used to have two reasonably strong teams and one weaker team. Now you would have to say we have one strong team and three moderate teams."
Now it is one strong team, two moderate ones and two poor ones.

Recent comments from the ARU seem to suggest that cutting one franchise is off the menu, and it is obliged to provide five teams under the terms of the latest TV deal that runs until 2020.

But its argument that a larger "footprint" and the health of the game are inexorably linked is deeply flawed.

Corporate Australia is littered with cautionary tales about how firms got burnt by expanding too ambitiously and neglecting their heartlands. It was left to others to clean up the mess.
Here, for example, is Australian Financial Review writer James Eyers assessing the legacy of executive Cameron Clyne when he left the top job in 2014, having spent much of his time dealing with a flawed expansion strategy he inherited.

"NAB's Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks in the UK have served as an albatross around the stock's neck," Eyers wrote, noting Clyne's "problems were not of his own making".
"When Clyne was appointed CEO in January 2009, NAB was already licking its wounds after its UK loans to commercial property were exposed by the financial crisis. Second, during his tenure Clyne has worked tirelessly to turn the UK banks around."
Clyne, of course, is the new chairman of the Australian Rugby Union.
And what did the NAB eventually do with those pesky banks once it had tidied them up? It got rid of them, and returned its focus to its core business.

That's a strategy worth pondering again.
 

Perth Red

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And yet the NFL has only grown stronger by significant expansion . EPL has a system where any team can go down and a new one enter. Two of the biggest sporting leagues in the world, coincidence? AFL consistently secures more Australian tv's dollars than NRL on the back of a significant national growth strategy.

At the moment existing NRL clubs know they can be as mediocre as they like, draw crap crowds, run up massive debts and there is little consequence. At the same time new areas gagging for a club are left to ponder what might be if th NRL had a more strategic growth vision.
 

BuffaloRules

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This is a thread about Expansion of Rugby in Australia that you have previously endorsed with some degree of zealotry...

Please don't compare our game ( and Union in Australia) with the two giants of World sport - EPL and NFL...

They are both significantly established in their own large population bases, limited competitors and shown around the world developing large international followings...

Chalk and cheese...
 

Perth Red

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EPL equivalent in the 80's wasn't huge, in fact it was dogged by hooliganism, crumbling stadiums and all manner of problems. It reinvented itself into the massive sports business it has become today. NFL stayed pretty static for decades but took on an aggressive expansion strategy at home and internationally and has rocketed in value and popularity. Even cricket has expanded in a different way in Australia and overseas with huge success.

NRL isn't ready for expansion, it is happy to take the easy tv dollars, screw the game in the process and bail out clubs with tiny support and comedic level administration. IF they ever get a decent leadership at the NRL then will be the time to expand. I have no confidence the current mob are any better than the gallop years and would in all Likelihood totally screw up any expansion plan. RL in the uk the same. I think the game will be forever dogged with poor administration.
 

BuffaloRules

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I am not going to engage the merits of NFL and EPL in this thread whether it's 30 years ago, today,or the next 100 years in the future as its irrelevant as to what happens here.

How about you talk around the points Cully has raised.

This is relevant in a thread trying to compare Union expansion in Aust to what the NRL should or shouldn't do...
 

Perth Red

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Ok let's.
Benefits the Force have brought to union in WA:
$10million union centre of excellence built by WA govt for Force/WARU
Tripled Jnr player numbers since Force admitted to super 15
$125million Upgrade to nib stadium partly to accomodate force
Zero media Coverage of union to decent coverage in the west Australia every day
Growth of wallabies brand with regular internationals played in Perth
Second grade Perth union team playing in a national comp
Development pathway leading to Number of WA jnrs coming through into super15
First few years ran at a profit and claim increasing crowd from current 10k to 13k would return them to profit.

Reality is the only place they have failed is on the field. After a decade of winless teams they have lost half their paying fanbase and corporate favouritism. If they had managed to build a competitive team, like storm have done, they would be sitting very comfortably.
 
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Nerd

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EPL equivalent in the 80's wasn't huge, in fact it was dogged by hooliganism, crumbling stadiums and all manner of problems. It reinvented itself into the massive sports business it has become today. NFL stayed pretty static for decades but took on an aggressive expansion strategy at home and internationally and has rocketed in value and popularity. Even cricket has expanded in a different way in Australia and overseas with huge success.

NRL isn't ready for expansion, it is happy to take the easy tv dollars, screw the game in the process and bail out clubs with tiny support and comedic level administration. IF they ever get a decent leadership at the NRL then will be the time to expand. I have no confidence the current mob are any better than the gallop years and would in all Likelihood totally screw up any expansion plan. RL in the uk the same. I think the game will be forever dogged with poor administration.

To say that the current administration are no better than the Gallop years is just laughable. Gallop was an incompetent CEO and a Newscorp stooge.
 

Perth Red

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Well Greenberg is no visionary lol. I am confident he will be nothing other than a Grant stooge and I have no confidence Grant has much idea tbh. We had such high hopes for independence and the leadership of the commission, and yet here we are.
 

BuffaloRules

Coach
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16,861
Ok let's.
Benefits the Force have brought to union in WA:
$10million union centre of excellence built by WA govt for Force/WARU
Tripled Jnr player numbers since Force admitted to super 15
$125million Upgrade to nib stadium partly to accomodate force
Zero media Coverage of union to decent coverage in the west Australia every day
Growth of wallabies brand with regular internationals played in Perth
Second grade Perth union team playing in a national comp
Development pathway leading to Number of WA jnrs coming through into super15
First few years ran at a profit and claim increasing crowd from current 10k to 13k would return them to profit.

Reality is the only place they have failed is on the field. After a decade of winless teams they have lost half their paying fanbase and corporate favouritism. If they had managed to build a competitive team, like storm have done, they would be sitting very comfortably.

I find your points about how the Force have improved Union in WA is debatable at best, and certainly I don't see any steps forward in crowds, Perth TV ratings for Super Rugby or FTA Walllabies games, or local players stepping up to the Pro ranks in any large numbers since they Force have been admitted.

Regardless, as the article says Super Rugby expansion has not been good for the sport in Australia as a whole.

Certainly in its stronghold Eastern states the game is going backwards alarmingly, mainly because they have spread their talent too thinly among 5 teams.

The Waratahs v Reds games were getting 60,000 crowds and rivalling NRL games on fox 5-6 years ago( strangely both teams have also won the competition in recent years a well!)

They are well behind the A-League now.

Maybe time will tell that picking up 10,000 extra fans in Perth and Melbourne has cost them 10 times that in NSW and QLD
 
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BuffaloRules

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Just another pointer to how well Rugby is doing in Sydney at the moment...

There is one page of Rugby news in the Telegraph Sports section today including a fifth of a page previewing the big game tonight against the Rebels.

It's on the last page of sports news before the fine print results - 16 pages in...

I repeat- this is a Sydney paper.. Not Melbourne or Perth..
 

Perth Red

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I find your points about how the Force have improved Union in WA is debatable at best, and certainly I don't see any steps forward in crowds, Perth TV ratings for Super Rugby or FTA Walllabies games, or local players stepping up to the Pro ranks in any large numbers since they Force have been admitted.

Regardless, as the article says Super Rugby expansion has not been good for the sport in Australia as a whole.

Certainly in its stronghold Eastern states the game is going backwards alarmingly, mainly because they have spread their talent too thinly among 5 teams.

The Waratahs v Reds games were getting 60,000 crowds and rivalling NRL games on fox 5-6 years ago( strangely both teams have also won the competition in recent years a well!)

They are well behind the A-League now.

Maybe time will tell that picking up 10,000 extra fans in Perth and Melbourne has cost them 10 times that in NSW and QLD

Go on then debate any of the points I have made! They are all facts so good luck.

You may be right but ARU just had an opportunity if they felt it had been a mistake to put a team in Perth and choose to support it rather than cull or relocate it so clearly they see a value in a it.
 

BuffaloRules

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Go on then debate any of the points I have made! They are all facts so good luck.

You may be right but ARU just had an opportunity if they felt it had been a mistake to put a team in Perth and choose to support it rather than cull or relocate it so clearly they see a value in a it.

I can't be assed as it's irrelevant to the point about whether expansion has been good for Union or not as a whole in this country that the article I posted from that Union sycophant has wrote.

I note you don't want to offer otherwise other than "they are sticking with it" as they are contractually obligated to do in the short term.

Let's see what develops...common sense suggests to me that things can't continue the way they been the last year or so.
 
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Perth Red

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Haha "you can't be arsed" good one.

Yes let's see, force has been good for union in WA, just as a Pirates NRL club would be good for RL in WA.
 

BuffaloRules

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Haha "you can't be arsed" good one.

Yes let's see, force has been good for union in WA, just as a Pirates NRL club would be good for RL in WA.

Your bitterness over the Pirates non inclusion is causing you bigger issues...

The article I presented is taking about the effect of expansion on Rugby on the game in Australia as a whole...

Typically you can't see beyond some minute difference it's made to rugby in WA no matter at what cost to its heartland...

Although you say that the Force's crowds have halved since their inclusion, but that's because on the field they are shit ( well... The one area they haven't been a success)

How about the Reds and Waratahs give them some better players? That will solve all the ARU problems right?
 
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Perth Red

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And there was an article in today's Australian counter arguing that particulate journos opinion and saying that this is long term investment for union and that nsw should stop whinging and gets its own house in order. (Sounds familiar!)
They are journos opinions. What matters is what the ARU think and if their expansion is paying dividends in the virgin areas they are setting up in. I have shown without question that the Force entering the comp has had massive benefits to union in WA.

An NRL team entering from Perth will have the same benefits for Rugby league in this state. You'd have to be a pretty shallow rugby league fan to not want to see the game grow in that way. Sad fact is that the supposed heartland clubs are in such a poorly managed state that the NRL doesn't feel able to invest in growth because it is having to bank roll sht run clubs that have had 50-100 years to sort themselves out.
 

BuffaloRules

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Well link the article then so I can read it...

I hope it does a better job refuting his argument than you have presented thus far
 
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The Great Dane

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Haha "you can't be arsed" good one.

Yes let's see, force has been good for union in WA, just as a Pirates NRL club would be good for RL in WA.

I'm willing to grant you that in many ways the Force has been good for RU in WA, however there have been many negatives for the ARU and RU in Australia associated with the Forces' (and to a lesser extent the Rebels') existence, and many would argue that those negatives outweigh the positives.

Also the positives to RU from the Force only exist as long as the Force exist and considering the current financial state of both the Force and the ARU it is only a matter time before the ARU are forced to move the Forces' license to greener pastures unless the Force mange to get their sh!t together (most of the rumors reckon either Parramatta or Northern Sydney will get their license).

The chances of the Force still being in Perth in 10-15 years time are slim, and if there's no more Force then most if not all the progress that RU has made in Perth is gone, just like most if not all of the progress the Reds made was wasted after they were folded.

If/when the Force bite the dust it'll be a very expensive sh!tstorm for RU, RL cannot afford another sh!tstorm in Perth so being careful about expansion isn't a bad thing, however I agree with you that the NRL is being overly careful as an excuse to keep a handful of power brokers happy instead of doing what is best for the game at this point.
 

BuffaloRules

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To be fair, the crowds for the Force have only halved...

They are going better than the Waratahs and Reds...
 

Perth Red

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No one will be happier than me if the force are moved next year but it Aint going to happen. They are one main sponsor or one successful team away from making a profit again, something most of the other clubs seem a Long way from doing.
 

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