Australian Third Tier Concept #127

It has been touched on elsewhere, without any real investigation as has always been assumed it "wouldn't work".
Probably true, but instead of getting on with some work I decided to see how it may look to combine a given number of Australian teams into the ITM Cup.
I settled on six Australian sides for two reasons, it rounds the competition out with twenty even sides and it allows one team for each existing Australian SR location and one overflow side for the East Coast.
Concept allows for an easing in of the Australian teams in the first year, followed by two teams relegating and promoting in future years.

NZ North Island
NZ South Island
Australia

Premiership

Auckland
Bay of Plenty
Brisbane
Canberra
Canterbury
Southland
Sydney
Taranaki
Waikato
Wellington

Championship

Counties Manukau
Gold Coast
Hawke's Bay
Manawatu
Melbourne
North Harbour
Northland
Otago
Perth
Tasman

Well I thought it was a good idea... :(

Sounds like a great idea to me!
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Great concept and would add a lot of spice, however something would have to give with the 3 itm games in 10 days being very hectic.

Loosing the June test window would freeup time for a Trans-tasman Cup.
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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Burgs

Well I thought it was a good idea... :(

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The crowd went mild :D

brotherly love

It's a very good idea. I'm sure the ARU and NZRU have top men working on the project as we speak.

Good idea.
Won't happen though. Travel costs too high, broadcast revenue probably too low.

Might be fun, but I seriously doubt NZ would want to help Australia in this way at all. If they did, they wouldn't have vetoed the "Pacific Super 8's" idea, nor would they have pushed back the FOURTH Super 12 team back in the early 2000's. It would only come to pass if the SANZAR (SANZAAR?) agreement fell through altogether, and they needed the money to keep hold of their All Blacks or some sort of rep competition.

Still, would be something interesting to see if it ever did happen :)

No chance. NZRFU would not be interested.

Travel costs make it a big no. Great idea though.