Super Rugby Trans Tasman
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@machpants I agree with this:
Reds coach Brad Thorn, who won a title as a player with the Crusaders in 2008, said the result was proof a purely domestic format was not the answer.
"I've said all year we need to play the New Zealanders if you want to get better," he said.
"Tonight you get a punch in the face, but you sit in the locker room afterwards and think, 'that's it, that's where we want to be'.
"We need to play these guys, we want to play them and we want to win.
"But there's a team that's far superior tonight, and you've got to wear that ... welcome to world-class, now you've got to get in the ring with them."You only get better if you play against better teams. Someone has been posting here that they prefer Australian teams only to play against each other because it's more fun to watch if their teams win games, but that would mean that the standard of Australian rugby won't improve.
For the same reason, I regret that we don't have some of the South African teams in the comp anymore. No matter how bad the time difference and travel distance were, they offered the kind of opposition that challenged NZ teams in different ways from how NZ teams can challenge each other. I also think that - at the moment - Japanese Top League teams can't offer the same kind of challenges.
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The Australian teams are much worse than us. The draw does favour our teams though. The Hurricanes for instance are getting to rest some players with three easy games before taking on the Reds and the Brumbies. The Reds and Brumbies stand a chance of winning games, especially at home against our weaker sides. I think it will get tougher for them as the competition goes on.
If you had a format where you play teams for your own country twice and all the Aussie teams once, it would at least appear more even. The New Zealand teams would be more tired from playing each other.
Realistically, the best format would be 5 NZ teams, 4 Aus teams and 1 Pacific or Japanese team. That would provide the most even and balanced competition possible.
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@stargazer said in Super Rugby Trans Ta$man:
@machpants I agree with this:
Reds coach Brad Thorn, who won a title as a player with the Crusaders in 2008, said the result was proof a purely domestic format was not the answer.
"I've said all year we need to play the New Zealanders if you want to get better," he said.
"Tonight you get a punch in the face, but you sit in the locker room afterwards and think, 'that's it, that's where we want to be'.
"We need to play these guys, we want to play them and we want to win.
"But there's a team that's far superior tonight, and you've got to wear that ... welcome to world-class, now you've got to get in the ring with them."You only get better if you play against better teams. Someone has been posting here that they prefer Australian teams only to play against each other because it's more fun to watch if their teams win games, but that would mean that the standard of Australian rugby won't improve.
For the same reason, I regret that we don't have some of the South African teams in the comp anymore. No matter how bad the time difference and travel distance were, they offered the kind of opposition that challenged NZ teams in different ways from how NZ teams can challenge each other. I also think that - at the moment - Japanese Top League teams can't offer the same kind of challenges.
Boy do I agree with that about SA teams! So much!
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@kirwan said in Force v Highlanders:
@nta said in Force v Highlanders:
@frye it's already on life support in a lot of ways.
We've shipped dozens of professional players overseas already. But sure, let's shrink the opportunities here further. That'll fix it. Hunnerdpahcent.
It actually would, as part of a Comp with NZ and Pacific nations. Three strong teams that actually can compete, success would help bring fans and sponsors.
Much better for the national team too.
Narrow the pathway even further for players, coaches, support staff, back room operations, community engagement, officials, supporters, and broadcasters?
Brilliant.
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@nta said in Force v Highlanders:
@kirwan said in Force v Highlanders:
@nta said in Force v Highlanders:
@frye it's already on life support in a lot of ways.
We've shipped dozens of professional players overseas already. But sure, let's shrink the opportunities here further. That'll fix it. Hunnerdpahcent.
It actually would, as part of a Comp with NZ and Pacific nations. Three strong teams that actually can compete, success would help bring fans and sponsors.
Much better for the national team too.
Narrow the pathway even further for players, coaches, support staff, back room operations, community engagement, officials, supporters, and broadcasters?
Brilliant.
Ok, just keep doing what you are doing. Brilliant.
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@kirwan Dead right. We're only gonna get worse as well, especially without South African sides.
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@african-monkey said in Force v Highlanders:
@kirwan Dead right. We're only gonna get worse as well, especially without South African sides.
That’s the unspoken worry I have too. And it’ll be a long gap between contact with NH sides.
All the NZ sides play pretty similar styles, it’ll be almost like the old days when you really didn’t know where you stood.
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@kirwan said in Force v Highlanders:
it’ll be almost like the old days when you really didn’t know where you stood.
which isnt entirely a bad thing, as long as we are improving, but unless the Aus teams improve that will be difficult.
The Pacific sides arent going to help.
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@african-monkey said in Force v Highlanders:
@kirwan Dead right. We're only gonna get worse as well, especially without South African sides.
And yet they don’t get to play against NZ sides which will also impact on them.
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@kirwan Why do you need to have 5 teams that are essentially playing at test level? It's supposed to be a step down. Diluting your talent makes way more sense than asking us to cut two teams, reduce opportunites and halve the national footprint.
Hell the Crusaders would probably beat the Wallabies.
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@derpus said in Force v Highlanders:
@kirwan Why do you need to have 5 teams that are essentially playing at test level? It's supposed to be a step down. Diluting your talent makes way more sense than asking us to cut two teams, reduce opportunites and halve the national footprint.
Hell the Crusaders would probably beat the Wallabies.
@nta said in Force v Highlanders:
Narrow the pathway even further for players, coaches, support staff, back room operations, community engagement, officials, supporters, and broadcasters?Surely... from @NTA 's comments particularly - you already know the current system is broken - and that you don't HAVE the competent administration, support staff, administrators, community engagement, etc.
So... yes! - narrow the pathway - until only the competent ones remain... get the system working, and then re-expand when there's room to expand, with all that old dead wood gone?
Maybe?
To cite a Swedish doctor (who got everything wrong) - "there's no simple answers to complicated problems".
I don't know - I know it seems like a backwards step to reduce head-count (ie: # teams) - but whenever I've seen an actual elite team working properly, it always started with a ruthless culling of the old shit that was attached.Edit: and yeah - I really do see the other side. With such a fucking big country... dropping the Force (for example) - looks like abandoning half the country to other sports.
And from what @NTA has talked about - a lot of the problems seem to be more that the fuck-tards in administration are the ones deepest entrenched.... even if you dropped to a single "Super Rugby level team" - it would turn out to be the Waratahs, with every single one of the Boy's-Club useless fluffybunnies still in the system, and all the good fluffybunnies gone back to the day jobs.Shit... I dunno... maybe try Communism. Or give Big Bad Brad Thorne dictator like powers, and just see what happens. Or just sit back, wait, and let Darwinism sort it all out - over the next 50 years.
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@derpus said in Force v Highlanders:
@kirwan Why do you need to have 5 teams that are essentially playing at test level? It's supposed to be a step down. Diluting your talent makes way more sense than asking us to cut two teams, reduce opportunites and halve the national footprint.
Hell the Crusaders would probably beat the Wallabies.
You don’t, you need three teams playing at Super level. Spreading you talent so thin is harming your good players.
I’d back many NPC sides to beat what I have seen so far from Australian sides.
What you have now are faux opportunities, getting thrashed isn’t helping anything.
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@kruse said in Force v Highlanders:
Surely... from @NTA 's comments particularly - you already know the current system is broken - and that you don't HAVE the competent administration, support staff, administrators, community engagement, etc.
So... yes! - narrow the pathway - until only the competent ones remain..NZ didn't reduce their teams to suddenly make the Highlanders or Chiefs competitive.
NZ didn't reduce their teams to suddenly make the ABs stop choking at RWC.
They did roughly what you are saying: evaluate the shit that works and discard what doesn't.
The issues in Australian Rugby - which are occasionally masked by the right combination of coaches and some once-in-a-generation players - are still rife.
"Go back to 3 teams when you were competitive" is about as sensible as the "just go back to club Rugby when we were competitive" rubbish that Poidevin etc trot out when they forget to take their pills
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@derpus said in Force v Highlanders:
@kruse eh you could be right. However, i think the more likely outcome of cutting a team is that the talent just goes overseas, rather than condensing.
Yeah - I've edited my posts with MY fears of the down-sides... which I think is more admin-related rather than player-dilution related.
Players... every country in the world, other than France/England - is going to lose a percentage of players to... France/England.
Having 3 teams at a certain level, instead of 5... might mean that your 4th best halfback (for example) has more reason to start looking at overseas money - if they're interested in that more than working their way through the system. Would you give a shit about that person leaving?So, compare that to.. having 5 teams, NZ, for example - where we're still going to lose people to the sheer money aspect (NZ more so - as Aus is throwing more money at players than NZ is) - but when it comes down to the "which is more important? The money, or the chance at getting the national jersey one day" - the folks who are going to chase the money are going to anyway, and then it comes down to having 5 halfbacks thinking they have a shot, and the 6th weighing up "money or the flag"....
(halfback, in the NZ example, maybe doesn't work so well... )
I'm also pretty fucking happy with coming up with "Money or the Flag" - apologies if that has been done before. -
@nta said in Force v Highlanders:
@kruse said in Force v Highlanders:
Surely... from @NTA 's comments particularly - you already know the current system is broken - and that you don't HAVE the competent administration, support staff, administrators, community engagement, etc.
So... yes! - narrow the pathway - until only the competent ones remain..NZ didn't reduce their teams to suddenly make the Highlanders or Chiefs competitive.
NZ didn't reduce their teams to suddenly make the ABs stop choking at RWC.
They did roughly what you are saying: evaluate the shit that works and discard what doesn't.
The issues in Australian Rugby - which are occasionally masked by the right combination of coaches and some once-in-a-generation players - are still rife.
"Go back to 3 teams when you were competitive" is about as sensible as the "just go back to club Rugby when we were competitive" rubbish that Poidevin etc trot out when they forget to take their pills
Yep... my resting opinion is always... "Just fucking work your way through it", ie: my mention of Darwinism. But then I read your comments on how the admin/old-boys system works, and think... "shit.... good luck with that".
Oh, and yeah...
on theNZ didn't ....
theme
NZ didn't have to deal with any of that...
NZ didn't start off in the same position
NZ shouldn't be a comparison point -
@kruse the better option, IMO, is to keep TT as a champions cup style format and review where we are at in 5 years with the RA constitutional reforms, TV deal and SR team performance.
If we get our shit in order and start performing a little better then consider a full-blown TT competition.
