Australian rugby is incapable of creating its own national comp

[mudskipper]

which isnt really a whole lot in essence...

Me personally, I like the concept of a national competition....

but, it was created in such a bad way, i mean the teams in Perth, Melbourne and Canberra might have worked because the lesser level of club rugby there.

But in Brisbane and Sydney, the ARC was a artificial level of rugby was inserted in between two levels of traditional rugby. It was a slap in the face towards clubs who have worked quite hard to improve themselves, only to be consigned to drop down a tier. Now i know some of the Sydney clubs played a large part in the downfall of the ARC, but if the ARC was created properly then they wouldnt have needed that.

Yes i was dissapointed to lose it, but Gary Flowers created it in a way that made it extremely difficult to be succesful financially. Having the ARU losing $5million/year just for the sake of giving players a 2month exposure to semi-professional rugby does not make sense to me.

I hear you...and agree that flowers pushed it upon the rugby public. Canberra was taken up by the largest local club the Vikings who could afford to fund it without a problem but others struggled.

I went to the first game played at north Sydney oval and Sydney supporters were not sure if they were fleet or Rays but everyone enjoyed the game...

The Sydney clubs can't even get on the bus together let agree to something more challenging...We'll have to wait and see what happens. This year with no Australia A there will be more tier 1 players available for local club matches.

[TOCC]

I enjoyed the rugby which was on display during the ARC, but i felt no allegiance, and i think this is where it fell over in Brisbane and Sydney.

I mean i support Sunnybank and Souths in Brisbane, yet both those clubs had to supply there players to the Gold Coast side. So, who i am i supposed to support, my clubs players playing on the Gold Coast, or the Brisbane side which was made up of club players from teams i didnt like..

I think where it all went wrong, was when Gary Flowers decided that he was going to go above the clubs and run it on his own, if he actually spoke to them and listened to there proposals and preffered ideas, then we could have actually seen it work a lot better.

On top of that, even if you loosely base it around exsisting clubs, you also inherit a already estabilished suppoter group(similar to Perth and Canberra). This works both in terms of fans but also in terms of sponsors.

I could rant on about this all day, but its been done, the ARC was one dam exspensive waste of money in the end, it was never going to suceed in that format.

[BDAVEY]

I would like to see a super 14 b teams thats fringe members playing curtain raisers before each super 14 game get bums on seats earlier and expose the young talent

[GIGS20]

And thereafter drift quietly back into the fringes?

Just who was "discovered" by the ARC?

The mighty K-Bomb

[Burgs]

Regardless of how the old or a new comp was/is formated, there are always going to be initial "allegiance issues" for those in composite team catchments.
More is the reason it should not have been judged solely on one year in a RWC year and been allowed to find it's feet on the Australian sporting landscape over at least another season.

[jargan83]

I thought it may have been a little rushed, surely the ARU would have realised that in a RWC year (and the two comps overalapped didnt they) that they were going to take one on the chin financially by starting it the same year?

Was it deliberately set up to fail by those at ARU headquarters?

they could then use the "oh well we tried, but it didnt work" excuse

[mudskipper]

I thought it may have been a little rushed, surely the ARU would have realised that in a RWC year (and the two comps overalapped didnt they) that they were going to take one on the chin financially by starting it the same year?

Was it deliberately set up to fail by those at ARU headquarters?

they could then use the "oh well we tried, but it didnt work" excuse

I think they were looking at the 2010 media SANZAR media contracts for 2011...perhaps a little early... ARU CEO Flowers is a lawyer by trade ( and a tool by night) and as lawyers believe all are under them and have a problem respecting people, He thought he’d pushed the ARC down the necks of rugby Australian ruby public we would all swallow it with a thank you... well it didn't happen and he lost his job.... not so clever lawyer 101….

[beige]

Flawed logic then if that's the case, as there would have been no reason for News Corp to buy up the rights to the ARC anyway - a competition with no established brand value that turned out to be poorly supported anyway.

It could be why John O'Neill decided to push the Super 14 expansion idea instead. It would achieve a lot of the same goals but, if News Corp wanted to buy the rights for the expanded Super 14, they would have to pay for those extra games too - which they wouldn't have to with a separate competition.

It would be similar to the V8 Supercars incorporating the Bathurst 1000 in to their championship in 1999.

[AndyS]

Doesn't solve the issue with the gulf between club and S14 though - you only have to look at the change in Force player photos to see how long the transition takes.

[Fullback]

They shouldn't have scraped the ARC after only 1 season, how in the hell can you gage everything and not even give it a chance to grow. All so it was that missing stepping stone for club players to go from 1st Grade to Super 14 (Especially for WA players). Bad decision by the ARU. Period.

[waratahjesus]

They shouldn't have scraped the ARC after only 1 season, how in the hell can you gage everything and not even give it a chance to grow. All so it was that missing stepping stone for club players to go from 1st Grade to Super 14 (Especially for WA players). Bad decision by the ARU. Period.

its not a bad decision, the bad decision was to go ahead with the comp in the first place, it was poorly planned and executed and was doomed to fail from the start!

scrapping it was smart, if they had kept it going in the current enviroment the staff cuts and pulling out of comps would have been far far worse than it has been!

the simple thing is, with four codes to compete with, a national club comp is never going to work. it is going to need to attract crowds and sponsorship far beyond what is available, if the super rugby expands the idea that has already been mentioned of having a b team for each state and even a colts team would be a much better way to go about it.

[AndyS]

If you are talking about B teams and curtain raisers, you've just doubled travel costs, locked out television and sold not one extra ticket - it has to be a cast iron loser. And what would it be, two rounds of home and away? Who would watch it if the first team was taking on a Kiwi or Saffer team?

If you actually mean a state model, you'll end up with the Melbourne ARC outcome repeated in Adelaide - can't see how that helps either..?

[RuckNMaul]

bring back the ARS for a start, expand from there

[Stone Cold]

Just who was "discovered" by the ARC?

Jackson Mullane was discovered...by Gladiators

[TOCC]

its all very well and good to say we should have this competition, or they shouldnt have scrapped the ARC and bring back the ARS etc etc..

but it all comes down to money, the comp lost $millions in its first year without any sign of improvement, actually the crowds went down as the season progressed.

The ARU is cash strapped, hence why they sold a Bledisloe to Hong Kong, hence why they are looking at giving the Wallabies a paycut, hence why Australia A and the ARS were scrapped.

Where do some of you expect this money to come from? if the ARU run at $million losses they will in only a few years run into debt, at which time the ARU will then have to start servicing loans which will mean even less money for the game.

Comeon, i mean be realistic about it all.

It wasnt a mistake scrapping the ARC, it was a mistake starting a competition with such serious flaws and such a high cost. Gary Flowers and his managment team at the time were the ones who fucked up, JON is the one who is cleaning up his mess.