Australian team likely to get nod in expanded Super 15

[TOCC]

Introducing a 5th Australian franchise will mean that no Australian team will win the Super 15 tournament within our generation.....playing resources are already stretched over the current 4 teams.....where are we suddenly going to get additional players of a good-enough standard to compete with the existing NZ & SA franchises?

Madness!!!

relax the foreign player rule, either allow the new side to pick 10 foreign players or allow the exisisting sides to pick 3 or 4.

Yes it will be counterproductive in a player depth sense for the first few years, but in the long term a 5th side will only open up more opportunities. Rugby Union still loses dozens of good quality schoolboy players to the NRL every year, so its obvious that there is the junior depth to support more teams its just that there arent enough pathways for them to follow.

People originally said Australia didnt have enough depth to support 4 teams, in one sense they are 100% correct, Australia didnt have the depth of S14 ready and experienced players. But I still think we had the talent for a 4th team, as is starting to show now, all aussie sides are bringing through some great young quality players, and all Aussie side are now quite competetive.


Even if you completely disregard the player depth issue and just focus on the economics of the 5th team, its fantastic, it provides exposure in Australias 2nd largest city and Australias 2nd largest state.

IMO if a 5th team is created, they should do the following:
-provide funding for the first 5 years of a expanded junior academy
-allow 10 foreign players in the side(reduced by 2 every year)
-provide funding to allow a junior melbourne side to play in the Sydney comp or QLD comp

Yeah the other Australian sides will still be hit hard in the recruitment stakes, but it only works out to about 5 players from every province, which is the natural turnover of most clubs anyway.

[mudskipper]

OZ S14 teams can have 2 OS players now, they just haven't had the opportunity to use it effectively, one young developing player and an international veteran... More NRL players with rugby backgrounds will cross over.... If the cash rewards are reasonable there could be more Pacific islanders but this would require an ARU rule change...

A fifth team will erode the better rugby academies....for a time… The problem with eroding the proven academies is players may not develop to their full potential…. Anyway it needs to be done… Bring o on I say King Carlos as Melbourne flyhalf…

[mudskipper]

Don't forget Japan for Super 15 - RUPA
March 06, 2009

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegrap...006067,00.html

AUSTRLIA'S players union has urged rugby chiefs not to dismiss Japan as a serious candidate for inclusion in a 2011 Super 15.

While Melbourne are undeniable front-runners and Gold Coast have promised a huge fight to be the fifth team in the Australian conference of the expanded competition, the Rugby Union Players Association says Japan can't be ignored.

Australian Rugby Union supremo John O'Neill this week indicated governing body SANZAR believed Japan was a more likely prospect for a Super 16 or Super 20 in 2015, and wasn't ready now.

But RUPA boss Tony Dempsey said tournament organisers needed to be more conscious of the commercial benefits of opening the door to the Land of the Rising Sun.

"Our underlying philosophy is if we're going to expand, we have to expand to areas that are going to give the competition commercial return as well," Dempsey told AAP.

"We have to look beyond what looks altruistic and what looks attractive to the average rugby follower and be commercial about this as well because we are living in a very competitive sporting market.

"Japan is the second biggest economy in the world and they love their rugby up there.

"We don't want to dismiss them too early in the process, they should be considered."

Also making the move attractive to Australian players, Dempsey admitted, would be the need by a Japanese team to be bolstered by foreign players to be competitive.

With the depth in playing stocks also in question, Australia is no certainty of housing the fifth team and South Africa stubbornly want a side from the Eastern Cape to be admitted.

O'Neill signalled the start of a bidding war when he asked for immediate expressions of interest and "competitive tension" for the 15th licence after a SANZAR board meeting in Dubai on Thursday.

He talked up Melbourne, Gold Coast, western Sydney, Gosford and Newcastle as all having cases for inclusion in a Melbourne Cup-like field but admitted only "one or two" were genuine contenders.

Rugby Gold Coast chief executive Tim Rowlands conceded the Victorian Rugby Union, which narrowly lost out to Perth in 2004 when the competition expanded to the Super 14, were clear favourites.

Rowlands admitted time was already running out for the Coast, who would play out of Skilled Park, with the decision to be made on the successful bid team before the end of 2009.

"Melbourne have done all their groundwork, all their infrastructure is in place and we're only starting from scratch," he said.

"But if you ask the players where they would rather play, I'm sure they would definitely say Gold Coast over Melbourne."

Rugby Gold Coast, which reaches down to Northern NSW, welcomed O'Neill's plans of a "hybrid team" including a host of Pacific Islanders, rising and expat Australians and the "odd league player" to ensure the existing four teams wouldn't be undermined.

"There's a very strong Polynesian population on the coast," Rowlands said.

While O'Neill wouldn't exclude a player draft to spread the talent evenly through Australian sides, Dempsey said the new team could achieve competitiveness through other means.

He believed salary concessions and extra ARU assistance, plus an increase in foreign player signings from two to "several more" would do much to aid a fledgling team.

Former Samoa and Pacific Islands Alliance Test coach John Boe said a simple and just solution should see the winner of the annual Pacific Tri-Nations - between Fiji, Samoa and Tonga - qualify for the next year's Super 15.

[shasta]

Personally I'd much prefer the Saffas to stay. The Bulls, Sharks and Stormers add real value to the comp and I like watching them play. But it's time to call their bluff. Maybe even to the point of revamping the SANZAR constitution. Unanimous agreement clauses can be a real impediment to progress. Just like political interference.

[pieter blackie]

June Tests blocking Super15

New Zealand Rugby Union boss Steve Tew says that aside from the problem of who should get the 15th Super Rugby team if the Super 14 is expanded in 2011 the June test window is another problem for SANZAR.

Australia and South Africa have been involved in taking public snipes at each other in the media while New Zealand have stayed out of the cat fight to some degree.

Tew has reaffirmed that his organisation and Australia are looking at a Plan B that would leave South Africa in their own pool and they would then only join the tournament when the top teams have qualified.