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Me too, but I'm not sure RUPA will agree with everything I said.
After all the work to build a pathway to Super Rugby in the West, that work is on;y now, after 12 years, beginning to see fruit. We have yet to see that fruit to mature into a strong and vibrant Wallaby factory like the "heartland:" states. It's even worse for the Rebels, who are still in the same boat that the Force were 6 years ago.
To have introduced a fourth, then a fifth team, with little or no support, and then reverse that decision before the experiment has had time to produce a result is wasteful and irrational. Not to mention unfair to employees, customers and business partners of whichever franchise is destroyed.
The issue that keeps Australian rugby performing below the standard of New Zealand rugby will not be solved by administrators throwing up the storm shutters and cutting costs. It will be solved by the administrators working to ensure that talent is no longer warehoused in the heartland (The Waratahs routinely field teams with Wallabies on the bench, the Rebels only have 2) and players are given the opportunity to play more rugby in a truly unified approach, much like the New Zealand Unions.