Bledisloe Cup dates switch looms, with ARU keen to reschedule Wallabies v All Blacks
Iain Payten
The Daily Telegraph
September 25, 2014 5:32PM
BLEDISLOE Cup matches could be pushed back into the Rugby Championship schedule to prevent further New Zealand dominance sapping interest in the rest of the tournament.
Australian Rugby Union boss Bill Pulver flagged interest in re-arranging the fixture list last week and along with confirmation a deal with the NSW government isn’t an impediment, SANZAR said it was open to reviewing the schedule for 2016.
Pulver said last week he “inherited” an arrangement that sees the Wallabies play the Kiwis back-to-back in the opening fortnight of the Rugby Championship, with the first game always in Sydney as per a 10-year contract with Destination NSW.
The deal with the NZRU also locked in a third trans-Tasman Test every season but since it began in 2012, the decider has been a dead rubber with the All Blacks wrapping up the Bledisloe Cup in two games.
The subsequent switch-off factor for floating fans is high, and as seen this year in particular, crowds and TV ratings have plunged for home games against South Africa and Argentina
“I have inherited a program where we play back-to-back All Black games at the start of the season, which in the event unfortunately you lose those two games pretty well the Rugby Championship is gone, the Bledisloe is gone, and a whole lot of interest in the season,” Pulver told Rugby HQ last week.
“I would have thought it probably makes more sense to rotate those games. I think there is a case to be made for change. It’s a tough start to the season, automatically, to go back-to-back with the New Zealanders. You really want to keep interest in the contest right through, so I think a different spread might make sense.”
Former ARU boss John O’Neill struck a deal with NSW government that locked in the opening Bledisloe Cup game in Sydney in mid-August until 2012, intending to build up a “known date” event like the Melbourne Cup. It puts approximately $2m a year in the ARU coffers and O’Neill argued if the Wallabies could win home games, every second year they’d have a home decider as well.
It was believed this deal would prevent the Wallabies playing the touring Boks and the Pumas first, but the ARU on Thursday revealed that the contract with Destination NSW was not date-specific.
“Our deal with Destination NSW is for the first match in the Bledisloe Cup series,” a spokesperson said.
“This means that if the SANZAR draw allocated the Wallabies to play matches in The Rugby Championship against South Africa or Argentina before the first Bledisloe Cup Test, that would be possible.”
No change would come next season — when the World Cup will see a shorter TRC tournament in July/August — but SANZAR boss Greg Peters said they are open to changing the schedule from 2016, when the new broadcast deal is rolled out.
“Prior to the inaugural (four nation) tournament in 2011, agreement was reached between the four national unions on a consistent format to provide certainty in relation to tourism and major events,” Peters said.
“With the Rugby World Cup occurring in 2015, The Rugby Championship will be truncated … all scheduling options can be explored when the format reverts to normal from 2016.”
While unspoken, the additional benefit of playing New Zealand twice in August is not pitting the ARU’s biggest event on the calendar with AFL or NRL finals.
But based on this year’s schedule, a switch that would see home games against the Boks and Pumas in August could see the first Bledisloe Cup game in the first weekend of September; in week one of the AFL finals and before the NRL playoffs.
The price to pay would be the Wallabies then playing three away games in a row, but if two early victories helped Australia gather momentum and beat the Kiwis in Sydney, a potential Rugby Championship title — and a possible Bledisloe Cup win, or deciding match at least — could keep interest levels high.
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