Another week, another discussion on the future of Super Rugby and whether Rugby Australia should stand alongside our Kiwi neighbours and commit to the urgent rival of Super Rugby – or blow it up and go it alone.
With news this week of the impending revival of traditional international rugby tours between New Zealand and South Africa, signalling an intent by NZ Rugby to explore alternative solutions to their own financial woes – there might come a time when that decision is no longer ours to make.
Michael Cheika on the Roar Rugby Podcast this week made an impassioned plea for Rugby Australia to not give up on the domestic game and suggested that in the face of Super Rugby’s declining popularity, striking out on our own could be the key to reigniting interest in rugby across our sports-crazed nation.
There are several great arguments for an Australian-only competition that I can get behind.
As Matt Toomua believes, seeing an Aussie team stand atop the podium every year might help restore our lost “winners’ mentality”.
Plus, we’d no longer have to face obscure away fixtures in strange, faraway places like Dunedin or Suva. It’s easy to see the appeal.
But the moment the practicalities of an Australia-only professional competition are interrogated, massive holes begin to appear.
So often is the COVID-era 2021 Super Rugby Australia Grand Final – that saw 40,000 plus fans pack into Suncorp to see the Reds steal victory in the final moments – pointed to as evidence of our untapped desire for a national competition.
To those people, I also ask how their sourdough starters are going after all this time.
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Is that really the future we want?
If Super Rugby is struggling for relevance in our crowded sporting landscape, how does a five-team, two-games-per-week competition solve that in the long run?
I’m not convinced, and I doubt TV networks or streaming services will be either.
To all those who feel having eight of 12 teams qualify for finals is a bit on the nose and rewarding of mediocrity – just wait until it’s three of five.
Many industries and businesses look at their own performances during COVID with a big asterisk – I feel Rugby Australia would be wise to do the same.
For this new format to succeed, we’d need at least 10 teams (ideally 12) which means diluting the current shallow pool of available players and funds by at least half.
Convincing fans and broadcasters that this competition represents the pinnacle of domestic rugby would be a very tall order.
Jack Bowen of the Waratahs. (Photo by Pete Dovgan/Speed Media/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Then what about the teams? The Reds and Waratahs have over 100 years of history.
Do we abandon that heritage and start fresh? Or do we keep them and expect the new franchises to catch up?
Neither option screams immediate success.
So what about a National Club Competition? A tournament involving the top four teams from the Hospital Cup, Shute Shield, and other premier rugby competitions around the country playing off for the title of our domestic champion.
This is in essence what both the NRL and AFL have found massive success in – and anyone who attended recent grand finals at Leichhardt Oval or Ballymore can tell you that, while the professional game might be struggling – grassroots rugby is alive and well.
Sadly – those same people tend to aggrandise the level of support these competitions have, relative to what would be needed to sustain these clubs at a professional level.
Throw in ticketing and membership, media and marketing, the additional administrative requirements, work and resources necessary to run a professional club that at the very least doesn’t haemorrhage money – let alone turn a profit – and suddenly real questions of sustainability begin to arise.
We only need to look at our friends in England and Wales to see what happens when clubs bite off more than they can chew.
We haven’t even addressed what happens to the clubs not included or the competitions they leave behind. Do they continue to run as watered-down feeder competitions or even cease to exist at all?
For a National Club Competition to succeed, it would need to start small and grow slowly.
But that approach would likely lead to a return to amateurism and the collapse of professional rugby in Australia as we know it.
If COVID is anything to go by it’s going to be extraordinarily hard to ask players to take another pay cut, and a mass exodus of talent isn’t exactly the best way to launch a new competition.
I accept that Super Rugby isn’t perfect. How it’s marketed isn’t perfect. How it’s broadcast isn’t perfect.
But if these are our alternatives – it’s the best option we’ve got.
