18 December 2007

ARU cans ARC

| Joe Canberran
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To me this is painfully short sighted.

The ABC is reporting here that the Australian Rugby Union is claiming that continuing to fund the Australian Rugby Championship, after a $4.7 million loss this year would be “fiscally irresponsible”.

Now I agree they shouldn’t throw good money after bad but there is a real need to develop and display rugby talent in this country outside the Super14 comp. Sure the ARC wasn’t pulling Super14 or even NRL crowds but it wasn’t far of what some of the A League games got which isn’t too bad for the first year of a comp. I personally enjoyed some of hte ARC games I saw at Manuka more than some ofhte Super14 games last season.

Short sighted ARU, short sighted. I hope they come up with a viable mid-level comp soon

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Life looking good from the couch there Barney? I’m as blue collar as anyone. I love league, cricket and RUGBY. Grow a brain….and once you’ve figured out how to do that, show the ARU how to grow one. Dumb all round.

Rugby Union really reminds me of Carthage.

Good. The less boring Rugby-Union the better. Bunch of “Prima Donna’s”.

This is yet another nail in the coffin of Australian Rugby. Union is dying a very slow death.

Yeah, but soccer only gets good crowds because differing ethnic groups see it as a good excuse to have a ‘go’ at one other! 🙂

“The A league had a couple of years of dismal crowds, and are only now, starting to get reasonable crowds.”

I don’t want to turn this into a ‘my code’s better than yours’ contest, but I don’t think dismal is the right word for the A-League at all.

First season was average of 11,000 (not including finals), second season was 13,000 (not including finals), this season is close to 14,000. I wouldn’t consider any of them dismal.

Also A-League is regularly the highest rating program on Foxtel — the ARU actually had to pay the ABC to broadcast the ARC because no-one else wanted it.

hairy nosed wombat9:03 pm 18 Dec 07

God almighty, just how short sighted is the ARU. The A league had a couple of years of dismal crowds, and are only now, starting to get reasonable crowds. Obliviously you will not get large crowds in the first year.

Of course having said that the 742 people who attended the East Coast Aces v Vikings, the 1,010 (East Coast Aces v Central Coast Rays) and the 15 other games with crowds of less then 2,500, says that the ARU has to do a lot more marketing to make the league (sorry, union) more viable. But the A league has managed to do better in 2007 than in 2006.

I think the ARU need to go and have a look at how to run a real provincial competition like the NPC in NZ.

Yeah…’cause they’ve been REALLY good! Ha! Overpaid leaguies…..should send them back to the second rate comp (NRL) so they can stand out again.

Why does the ARU need to cultivate talent: can’t they just keep paying heaps of money for ARL has-beens?

Given the relatively expensive tickets, I’m kinda suprised they got the crowd they did, plus they had it on TV.

But it’s not about making money guys – it’s about building talent. $4.7 mill to give about 300 B class players (no offence guys) experience above what they get in club rugby – I reckon that’s a great deal. How many mill do we spend training the Wallabies??

this is very sad news….& is indeed very short sighted & bad for rugby in general in Australia. Should help guarantee us as “also rans” in major comps for years to come. Well done ARU…& particularly Sydney clubs who kept the presure on to get rid of this great idea.

“Sure the ARC wasn’t pulling Super14 or even NRL crowds but it wasn’t far of what some of the A League games got which isn’t too bad for the first year of a comp”

I don’t think the ARC’s average of 2,740 can really be considered ‘far of what some of the a-league games got’.

A-League crowds average 13,874 for this year to date, which compares favourably to the NRL average of 15,750.

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