Behold the future of Super Rugby

I understand the thinking, but well if South Africa don’t want to travel over to here, then just sever the ties. What gets me is when South African sides play in Australia at say 7:30pm, its on a TV in South Africa at more palatable 9:30am. The reverse means we get 2 and 4 am games. We could probably add a few teams from Japan, the pacific and maybe Argentina and go back to a super 12 or 14 easily enough.

I got the same email. The only things I can think of that would be advantageous for Canberra Super Rugby fans with this proposed model are:

(1) more televised games in watchable time slots, with the additional benefit of better sponsorship bargaining;
(2) no need to play those pesky South African sides in regular rounds;
(3) the ability to play sub-par Japanese sides as part of our home and away fixtures so we improve our odds; and
(4) better chances of avoiding 30,000 kms of travel in the last three weeks of the season should we make it into the finals series.

Actually – on those four points it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. At any rate, SURU have been muttering about pissing off from Super Rugby to join the 6N for years because of time zone issues with travel and television sponsorship. And it seems a tad weird that this survey came from the Brumbies and not the ARU – who send me surveys like this every so often as well.

And the television rights aren’t up for negotiation until the end of next season anyway, so who knows where this will all end up.

Roundhead89 said :

Perhaps the Rugby bosses should stop their delusions of grandeur and address problems closer to home such as declining crowds and our laughable Wallabies team.

True that. Grassroots is almost dead in Australian rugby. Perhaps throwing a few Super Rugby derby fixtures on to free-to-air would be a good start? There were no questions about that in the survey.

Oh dear, it sounds an awful like the “vision” John Ribot and Rupert had for the failed Super League in the 1990s. You remember, we were promised a State of Origin every week and that kids in Beijing would soon be putting posters of Allan Langer on their walls. Perhaps the Rugby bosses should stop their delusions of grandeur and address problems closer to home such as declining crowds and our laughable Wallabies team.