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From the West Australian
www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=13
Give ARC a chance: ex-World Cup coach
7th August 2007, 11:45 WST
The message from former World Cup coach John Boe to the Australian Rugby Championship knockers is simple - just give it a chance.
The knives are already out for the ARC before the inaugural season even kicks off with Sydney critics claiming the eight-team national competition is "dead in the water" and a "financial nightmare".
A Sydney newspaper reported that one team is expected to suffer at least a $1.7 million loss in their first year and only two sides - Perth and Canberra - have the potential to break even.
The eight-round ARC - developed to fill the gap between club rugby and the Super 14 - kicks off this weekend and features teams from Western Australia, Victoria, the ACT, NSW and Queensland.
Samoa's 2003 World Cup coach Boe - who holds the reins for one of Queensland's two teams, the East Coast Aces - admitted there would be ARC teething problems.
But he believed the national competition - in which club players will rub shoulders with the Wallabies and Super 14 ranks - would become as important as New Zealand's NPC.
And he should know - the 1981 All Blacks tourist played 137 games for Waikato and took the province to the 1998 NPC final as a coach.
"Give the players a chance, give the teams a chance, and give the whole competition an opportunity," Boe said at the launch of Queensland's ARC teams the Aces and Ballymore Tornadoes.
"I know when the NPC first started in New Zealand it took a while to catch on, like any competition, but it is amazingly important to the All Blacks.
"It's easy to be negative. What I would like people to do is get behind the teams because I am certain in my mind that this is a great step forward for Australian rugby."
A Sydney newspaper also reported that high ranking Sydney and Brisbane officials were in the process of formulating an alternate club competition to take over from the ARC, costing a third of the current national competition.
"If they are suggesting those sort of rebel things, I can't see that as being good for the game," Boe said.
"That's talking about splitting us. That's the last thing we want, we want to be united.
"I know the importance of it (ARC) because I have been part of a similar situation in New Zealand and the South Africans would say the same about their Currie Cup.
"So it's enormously important that we make a success of it.
"It's up to us as coaches and players to make it an attractive package, and get the supporters along."
ARU chief executive John O'Neill issued a statement last week that a review of the ARC would be held following their first season.
But Boe didn't want anyone to pre-judge the ARC.
"There will be (teething problems) definitely. It's like any new competition - we will make mistakes," he said.
"(But) It's just up to us to forge on ahead and not let those mistakes become distractions.
"The NPC in New Zealand gives so many opportunities to players to put their hand up and stake national honours which they normally wouldn't have if they were just playing club rugby.
"I am sure there's going to be players here who will all of a sudden emerge out of nowhere."
The Aces open their ARC campaign against Ballymore at the Gold Coast's Carrara Stadium on Sunday.
The bit I find instresting is that nobody seems to be into this comp apart from rugby tragic like us - but nobody is openly slagging it off either - not even Growden - but from my understanding we are in for some quite good rugby not just because of the new laws but because the teams are full of young players (and not so young !) who have nothing to loose and everything to gain from playing well - I'm hopelessly confused why isn't the rugby community over east behind this - they can't be that worried about getting trounced by the Spirit