Another slap in face for NZ Rugby

The Aussies will be loving this. South Africa have effectively cut their ties with Super Rugby, thrown their lot in with the north and given the grandstanding New Zealand union a flea in its ear while they’re at it.

This all plays out while new Rugby Australia chairman Hamish Mcclennan describes the transTasman relationship as being at its ‘‘lowest ebb’’ and continues to throw shade on New Zealand’s version of the contentious Rugby Championship timeline for 2020. It is not difficult to make the assumption that NZR has not so much lost the whip hand in terms of mapping its future in the professional game, but finds itself wedged between a rock and a hard place.

With South Africa clearly gravitating towards a sensible geographic and commercial realignment with the north and the Aussies with their noses out of joint over NZR’S bully-boy approach to the road ahead in Super Rugby, Kiwi powerbrokers risk being stuck in a negotiating room on their lonesome.

The All Blacksmay indeed be the biggest brand in the sport, but they still need the support of others to maintain this privileged status.

It’s hard to score this latest South African move as anything but a resounding moral victory for Australian rugby.

For years, the Australians have been desperate to sever ties with South Africa (and Argentina, for that matter) in Super Rugby because the dreaded out-of-timezone away matches are effectively a black hole in their saturated sports market.

They’ve never been able to understand the substantial extra cost involved in playing a series of matches against teams that have no compelling public profile in the middle of the night when no-one in Australia has any interest. Punters would sooner feast on the NRL and AFL at a time when the pubs, and eyelids, are open.

Now, not only have the Aussies got their wish, but New Zealand have been dubbed the ‘‘bad guys’’ for instigating the process to cut the South Africans loose.

It should have come as no surprise to anyone to hear that the South African Rugby Union has decided to realign its existing Super Rugby franchises with an expanded Pro14 in the north.

It was effectively left with little choice once New Zealand made it clear they were all-in on a transTasman Super Rugby competition.

What was interesting was to hear SARU chief executive Jurie Roux declare so unequivocally that it was a response, not just to Covid, but to the ‘‘unilateral’’ decision by New Zealand Rugby to go down the trans-tasman pathway.

New Zealand’s decision made it impossible to deliver the 14-team Sanzaar competition previously agreed and for which five-year broadcast deals had been signed, declared the SARU boss.

In an ideal world, from a New Zealand perspective, South Africa would have found a way to generate their own franchise competition at an aligned timeframe and then been involved in some sort of playoff format with the trans-tasman league.

This is what you call having your cake and eating it too. New Zealand only wanted to cut the South Africans partially loose. They were still seen as valuable participants in an expanded post-season that would have delivered high-end, bigmoney finals games without the necessity to drag players all round the globe for regular season matches.

There are two main upshots from South Africa’s decision, presuming, of course, that the Pro14 competition is happy to head down the route of further South African expansion.

The first is this leaves New Zealand fully committed to transTasman Super Rugby. That means they had better start regarding the Australians as full partners, and not subservient additions who should count themselves lucky to feed on a few crumbs from the table. Hopefully chairman Brent Impey gets that memo.

The second is that the Rugby Championship now stands on shaky ground. The South Africans have committed, for now, to continuing to be part of the southern hemisphere test showcase.

Of course they would. They have no other offers in front of them in terms of regular international rugby outside the established interhemisphere windows.

But that could all change. And quickly. An alliance with the north at a franchise level could soon morph into something strategic in the test arena. It’s a logical next step.

And even if it doesn’t – there is an understandable reluctance from the Six Nations to tinker with a competition that works so well – it’s hard not to see that a wedge has been jammed between New Zealand Rugby and our greatest rivals.

The new rugby world is coming. Be careful what you wish for.