No place for frills, fireworks in new party-pooper 14 and a franchise in trouble.

[travelling_gerry]

No place for frills, fireworks in new party-pooper 14

Greg Growden | March 2, 2009


ONE of our best snouts was perched among the members at the Sydney Football Stadium on Friday night, agog at what he was watching.

He messaged: "Have the Waratahs even cut their gas costs? Those firework flames behind the try line are a quarter the size of previous years."

Indeed they were. These are clearly tough times. The fireworks, which used to spit out showers of sparks and vast tongues of flame when the Waratahs did something interesting, now resemble hand-held sparklers. The billowing smoke used to turn the ground into Sydney's version of the Yorkshire moors. Now it is as if someone had just stamped out a cigarette.

Welcome to 2009's no-frills Super 14. The global financial crisis has seen teams forced to take buses rather than planes to games, officials sharing rooms on away trips, Moet replaced by cooking sherry in the dressing rooms, and the introduction of a ridiculous refereeing merit system, which suspiciously looks like another sneaky way to lower costs.

At a time when local crowds are down and even successful sides such as the Waratahs are recording sizeable financial losses, a tournament in need of resuscitation hasn't been able to provide the required fireworks in the opening three rounds. Many games have been flat, while some have descended into monotony as we watch referees award free-kick after free-kick and reset scrum after scrum.

If you really want to watch something invigorating, get hold of a tape of the Force-Brumbies match from Saturday night and observe what happens between 34 minutes, 48 seconds and 36:08.

Eighty seconds of absolutely nothing, as referee and forwards thrust their chests and mumble and groan about the importance of setting just one scrum right. And as you reach for the No-Doze pills, you suddenly realise why, a few minutes earlier, referee Matt Goddard complained to the players that this would be "The last time we play silly buggers."

Silly buggers indeed!

Maybe that's why the organisers are attempting to put a cattle prodder right up the Super 14's rear.

The SANZAR heavyweights will travel to Dubai today to discuss the future of the tournament, with a concerted push to revitalise Super football through a change in format. Australia will again argue for a Super 15 competition and an expanded tournament running from March to August in 2011.

The proposal involves five teams in each of the Australian, New Zealand and South African "conferences." If the Australian delegates get their way at the Wednesday meeting, there will be a substantial increase in home games, a new home-and-away series involving Queensland and NSW and a six-team final series.

There is even a push for the new Australian team to be located in Japan, because it could lure new broadcasters. And the question of broadcasting is bound to trigger some argy bargy in the United Arab Emirates. While Australia and New Zealand are certain to face opposition from South Africa over expansion, there could easily be support for loosening SANZAR's links with News Ltd - which holds the southern hemisphere broadcasting rights.

SANZAR are wondering whether it would be smarter to instead negotiate directly with the pay TV networks in the three countries, rather than handing the rights over to News, who then do the deals. There is common sense in removing the middleman, and that issue is bound to be high on the agenda in Dubai.

Nonetheless, the argument to dramatically increase the number of Super 14 games and stretch the tournament to 22 weeks falls a bit flat when the current product leaves so much to be desired. At the moment, the tournament - dominated by too many interruptions and intrusive refereeing - is about as explosive as a wet penny banger.


http://www.rugbyheaven.com.au/news/n...842248419.html

[GIGS20]

The proposal involves five teams in each of the Australian, New Zealand and South African "conferences." If the Australian delegates get their way at the Wednesday meeting, there will be a substantial increase in home games, a new home-and-away series involving Queensland and NSW and a six-team final series.

I thought there'd be more than two teams in the home and away portion of the tournament?

[waratahjesus]

I thought there'd be more than two teams in the home and away portion of the tournament?

i think they have taken that bit out of context gigs, nsw and queensland have talked about staging a return match in the wallabies gap during international season. deans backed it and wants to release the wallabies for it. i dont think its part of the model for the expansion, that would be home and away amoungst all the teams!

[gustafsl]

No place for frills, fireworks in new party-pooper 14

Greg Growden | March 2, 2009

At a time when local crowds are down and even successful sides such as the Waratahs are recording sizeable financial losses,

http://www.rugbyheaven.com.au/news/n...842248419.html

Well that's no big surprise. I went to the Tahs game on Friday night and it was a *&#*ing disaster.

First off a city of 6 million and a stadium only 2km's from the CBD, with a team that has won 9 straight games at home, could only produce a crowd of 19,000. FFS, Port Power get more than that and they are the 2nd preferred team in a city of 1million with a stadium everyone hates that is a good 30 mins drive out of the city and has no parking. How the hell the ARU can even contemplate a 2nd Sydney team is beyond me.

We get there over an hour before the game and the parking attendants have no idea what is going on. Seriously, you would think it was the first event in a brand new stadium. Same on the way out, Adelaide Oval clears out with 30,000 people quicker. Took over an hour from the end of the game to get out, and we were in the first row of cars.

There is basically no pre-game entertainment, no half time entertainment and the players are off the field within 10 minutes of the game ending. I don't expect that they stay out there for long, but would it have killed them for the players to go around and sign a few autographs for the kids? Apparently it was Waugh's 100th game but do you think they did anything special??? Nope. But hey, maybe if you want some sort of extras you could get a package deal. Nope, not in NSW. At the Brumbies game we were able to get a package with a ticket, some food and free beer/wine/soft drinks etc...for 90 mins before the game.

And to top it all off, our tickets for the Tahs game were double booked in some members seat. So we had to go back outside the stadium to the Ticketek window so they could sort it out.

Sure makes us all want to go back to NSW for a game....not.

No wonder the are struggling financially.