The ARU have the money and the media hype, but they don't have the product. Nor do they have any kind of regional fanbase to seriously challenge League on the domestic level for quite a while.
Remember, sports these days are driven by one thing -- TV ratings. League has been rating through the roof the last couple of years, while Union has been the absolute pits TV-wise. Their biggest domestic-like comp is the Super 12, and that has awful ratings. Do you think a truly domestic Union comp would rate better than that? Nope, club will always rate worse than state level.
Union is not a sport for the spectators, period. They're already hailing tonight's WC final as "a game for the ages" and the best Union game they'd ever see -- are they serious? That's as good as it gets??? The scoreline was great (extra time, etc), but the actual game itself was very mediocre. Monotonous, unskilled, constant stoppages for long periods, a kick-fest...
And that was the best out of 48 games in the WC. All but maybe 4-5 of the 48 games were well below mediocre. That's not a good strike rate.
ARU poaching our elite players may be a threat, but we'll see how that plays out. It's hardly going to convince kids to take up Union, is it? If all their Wallabies were players who became known as League players, and then poached -- well, why not do as they did and play League first? You see, it actually works against them in the long run. They would be giving League exposure as a great breeding ground for players. Their poaching of Sailor, Tuquiri and Rogers hasn't hurt League, but it has made Union lose credibility by not being able to supply their own talent, and relying on League's image for their own profile.
It will certainly be an interesting couple of years -- if anything big is going to happen (e.g. a Super-League like takeover by ARU), it will happen now.
But let's be serious. When it's League season, everything is League and Union barely gets a mention (even Super 12). We're only noticing this ARU presence now because a) it's the off-season, and the Kangaroo Tour has been so under-hyped it's not known about, and b) The World Cup is on in Australia. That doesn't mean the NRL should ignore any threat (quite the opposite, they should be more proactive), but there's no need to panic.
Remember when the Bunnies were kicked out, and hundreds of thousands of people marched to get them back in? You don't think the same thing will happen if other clubs, or League entirely, faced extinction? We might lose a couple of players like Wing (which would be a shame), or Kimmorley (no great loss), or even Johns (he's on the downward slide now anyway, the slower pace of Union and not having to run at all would suit him better), but we won't lose our game -- because it's THAT GOOD.
Don't forget -- we just had one of our best ever seasons, and Jesus it was great!
