‘Forget SA and join us Aussies’
Australia’s players are today sending a clear message to New Zealand – it’s time to properly consider an elite provincial rugby competition without South Africa, writes Australia’s players’ union boss Ross Xenos.
When the PRO12 finally announces the introduction of the Cheetahs and the Kings into its new, expanded tournament it will simply be confirming one of the worst kept secrets in world rugby.
My immediate reaction is to credit SARU for the timely and transparent way in which they have turned an inordinate challenge into a strategic opportunity to establish ‘proof of concept’ for the future of South African rugby.
Unfortunately, my assessment of the process entered into in Australiais far less positive.
There’s little to be gained by rehashing the story, the anxiety, the uncertainty that all professional players, coaches and fans have had to endure in Melbourne and Perth this year. But if there is an obvious conclusion to draw from the rudderless review of the team’s playing in Super Rugby it is that there is not a clear future vision for the competition that is being worked towards.
So in the absence of that well articulated road map for the competition, of what Super Rugby looks like post 2020, Australia’s professional players have clearly put their proposal forward; an Australasian competition.
If the trends in global sports consumption and commercialisation tell us anything, it’s that fans want elite competitions that have integrity, meaning and consequence, and can be readily and easily consumed. Even those who designed the current 18-team model would now be wondering why they thought it a good idea.
By stark contrast, a competition with teams from New Zealand, Australia, Japan and the Pacific Islands ticks all the boxes. And the national broadcasters have been clear in supporting the concept: 12 teams, 16 games, 21 weeks – sensational.
It’s this competition that is just one of the reasons why the players regard the ARU’s strategy to reduce to four teams as being fundamentally flawed.
And South Africa? They are testing the waters up north to see if Europe will have the lot of them in perpetuity.
The Rugby Championship will still exist. The Springboks and the All Blacks will still get their twice annual contest. But the travel and the time zones should no longer jeopardise the week to week competition.
The conference system should no longer reward you based on which country you are from, rather finals places should be awarded to the best teams.
It’s true that the population in South Africa is large and that their broadcaster tips in a generous amount (an amount which, actually, on a cost per viewer basis is the smallest of the three foundation broadcasters).
Speaking of populations, what about ours? Who don’t get to see their teams when they’ve travelled halfway across the globe to play in the middle of the night.
The inordinate travel cost of South Africa’s participation would be halved and the opportunity for increasing match day revenues would be doubled by giving the fans – the passionate people who we often forget fund the game – a competition they can connect with. Build it and they will come.
And I can hear your last rebuttal: that us Aussies are good but you want other opposition, too. On that front, time is the wisest counsel of all.
The dark clouds over Australian rugby will part with continued commitment, dedication and creativity on and off the field; a field that you have dominated for far too long with your national and provincial teams arguably as good as they ever have been.
Like so many other parts of our history, our nations are adjoined. It’s at the core of our intense rivalry. But it’s not just the two of us that makes this work, it’s expanding into Asia and the Pacific Islands as well. It’s about giving back for all that the Islands have done for rugby in our countries and looking forward for what Japan (and perhaps China) can do for our futures.
When Super Rugby started in 1996, uniting the southern hemisphere rugby powers made sense. More than 20 years later that sense is less common. It’s possible that the painful Sanzaar review that has marred this season might have proposed similar things were it a more pure design opportunity.
Lest it has only been an unprecedented and excruciating process to engineer a slightly more palatable solution.
And if you don’t like the idea and an Australasian competition isn’t for you? That South Africa means more to you than your Tasman neighbours? Then, were it only the players’ view that mattered, enjoy flying over us as we build a domestic competition to rival England or France.