One domestic NZ competition?
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They've always said that the step between NPC and test rugby is too big. You need a higher quality comp (played by the best players) in-between. To sift out the best players and to give them more difficult games to enhance the physicality and improve their skillset.
Also, I'd be against anything that favours bigger and richer NPC provinces, and enable them to "poach" (for lack of a better word) talent away from smaller/poorer provinces. Nothing they'd create should lead to a talent drain of small/poor provinces; we already see in school rugby what that leads to. I'd also be against anything else that widens the big/rich province v small/poor province devide. If you create something new in-between Test and NPC level, to take the place of Super Rugby, that should be a factor to be taken into account.
Also, all 14 current NPC provinces should find a home in a new comp. Merging provinces can lead to loss of tribal support, because supporters of the merged provinces no longer recognise themselves in the merged team. They don't feel represented and will stop watching.
I'm one of those rugby nerds that watches almost all SR and NPC games. Thanks to having a partner who is just as rugby mad as I am, I follow almost everything from (mostly local) school rugby to test rugby without jeopardising my relationship. I'm passionate about my province and would be against anything that drains my team of talent or lessens my province's chances to play in a meaningful competition with the best other provinces. I also think that supporters of less successful provincial teams should feel that their province has the same opportunities and is similarly protected against talented player drain.
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@stargazer said in One domestic NZ competition?:
They've always said that the step between NPC and test rugby is too big. You need a higher quality comp (played by the best players) in-between.
Correct until you got to the word "in-between"
Yes you need a higher quality competition than the NPC. Why "in-between"? Why have multiple domestic competitions in a country our size? It's a waste of resources running two domestic competitions every year. Which is what we appear to be drifting towards
A 9 team 1st division with All Blacks playing was a fantastic competition that prepared players for Test rugby. I want to move closer to that model
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@stargazer the thread name is "one domestic NZ comp" so a logical inference
i probably talk to more "casual" rugby fans than hard out ones and a common comment is the multiple club/union comps in convoluted
in regards to " I'd also be against anything else that widens the big/rich province v small/poor province devide", yeah i get it and its admirable but i think rather than hamstringing those bigger or richer unions we should really look at supporting the smaller/less wealthy, i dont know how it would work but things like drafts for new kids coming through
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@machpants said in One domestic NZ competition?:
Most casual rugby fans generally are only interested in Super Rugby and All Blacks. These are guys who played 1st XV at school, but then didn't carry on rugby and the general pop. IMO the call of the club/union is really only to the hardcore.
Agree. Also, the people that care about the NPC are generally a lot older. When they die...
It's terrible what NZR had done to the NPC over the years
Those casual/younger fans would care about the AB's and whatever the premiere rugby competition is in NZ. So my competition or @mariner4life 's competition or some other rationalised comp could easily take SR's place.
However a third tier competition with (almost) no All Blacks will continue to die
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That’s had to be due to NZR consent rating so much on super rugby and the abs for the last 25 years
We can’t be certain what would happen if they changed what they focused on
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@duluth said in One domestic NZ competition?:
@mariner4life said in Super Rugby Trans Ta$man:
My idea is probably unworkable and rubbish, but i would have 10 professional teams that are based on the 10 biggest/best unions.
I would still have provincial rugby behind it as well, including sides from the 10 unions with pro teams. But thus comp is 100% strict amateur, and is a rep comp for club (and possibly academy) players.
I wind up with something similar but from the other direction.
I completely agree on the strict amateur competition for existing unions
Unfortunately the franchises as entities won't vanish into thin air. For a start there are existing private license holders.
I would turn every current license into 2 licenses. These could be sold on etc. Basically each franchise would split in two
Blues - split at the bridge
Crusaders - Christchurch and Ta$man
Highlanders - cannot split within their current geography. Their second license would be a team based in the Hawkes Bay.The Lower NI sides are a bit tougher. There's some other ways this could be done but maybe something like this?
Chiefs - Hamilton and Tauranga
Hurricanes - Wellington and New Plymouth (I know Taranaki are technically a Chiefs area)Then there would need to be some player swapping to get the players where they would prefer to be based. It wouldn't exactly match NPC alliances, but it would essentially become that in a few years
It would be up to the sides if they want to adopt existing unions branding (North Auckland in cambridge blue? Maybe Wellington keeps the Hurricanes branding etc)
If they were to do it, this would pretty much be the way, but given that the MP license has basically been granted, I assume it would get to play in this competition, or otherwise it would only be able to play in a another competition (e.g., a Pacific Club team competition). Assuming it gets to play, either Counties don't get a team (most likely) or the other Highlanders license goes to Moana Pacific.
Another way to do your idea btw would be for the Canes license to be split between Wellington and Hawkes Bay, and then any additional licenses go to New Plymouth.
I would consider keeping the same franchise names (I'm sure I wrote a post about this before) and adding the five new teams as expansion franchises. I know everyone hates that, but that would keep the NPC as the amateur side and the professional side would be the Super teams.
The biggest issue for me is that we'd need to make sure that each of the teams received relatively similar funding so that teams can't store talent too much, otherwise having ABs sitting on the bench for the top two teams will mean that we have some very shit teams running around.
Another academy model, possibly even with a draft could be needed, and a salary cap that includes All Black salaries would probably also be necessary (this could have a max allowed against the cap to not completely penalize teams).
One idea for an alternative academy model could be that each license holder runs one academy and then there is a draft inside the franchise each year to sign players from the academy?
I dunno about how it could work but the costs of academies etc are very high, and I bet that Ta$man would go downhill fast if they were suddenly left out of the Crusaders organization and academy. With the links to Canterbury (and education) I can see the five main teams having big advantages.
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@duluth said in One domestic NZ competition?:
@machpants said in One domestic NZ competition?:
Most casual rugby fans generally are only interested in Super Rugby and All Blacks. These are guys who played 1st XV at school, but then didn't carry on rugby and the general pop. IMO the call of the club/union is really only to the hardcore.
Agree. Also, the people that care about the NPC are generally a lot older. When they die...
It's terrible what NZR had done to the NPC over the years
Those casual/younger fans would care about the AB's and whatever the premiere rugby competition was in NZ. So my competition or @mariner4life 's competition or some other rationalised comp could easily take SR's place.
However a third tier competition with (almost) no All Blacks will continue to die
i firmly believe, sadly, that the NPC in it's current guise, is dead,
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@gt12 said in One domestic NZ competition?:
The biggest issue for me is that we'd need to make sure that each of the teams received relatively similar funding so that teams can't store talent too much, otherwise having ABs sitting on the bench for the top two teams will mean that we have some very shit teams running around.
Yes. IIRC the salary cap at the moment is $4.5M for 38 contracted players. Ten teams would need more players but not necessarily 38 players per squad. The question is, would NZR have the funds to give each team (10 in total) a similar amount of money as at present? If we say the 14 PUs get about $1M each for player contracts, there wouldn't be a large shortfall if the competition below is completely amateur and that money is reallocated. The NPC salary cap might even be closer to $1.5M.
Another academy model, possibly even with a draft could be needed, and a salary cap that includes All Black salaries would probably also be necessary (this could have a max allowed against the cap to not completely penalize teams).
Something I have mentioned previously. Instead of the top-down model NZR uses currently we should adopt the NRL model where the players' franchise/club salary is their main income instead of having up to 3 different contracts (ABs, SR, province), where only a part of that total salary is related to a salary cap.
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@bovidae said in One domestic NZ competition?:
@gt12 said in One domestic NZ competition?:
The biggest issue for me is that we'd need to make sure that each of the teams received relatively similar funding so that teams can't store talent too much, otherwise having ABs sitting on the bench for the top two teams will mean that we have some very shit teams running around.
Yes. IIRC the salary cap at the moment is $4.5M for 38 contracted players. Ten teams would need more players but not necessarily 38 players per squad. The question is, would NZR have the funds to give each team (10 in total) a similar amount of money as at present? If we say the 14 PUs get about $1M each for player contracts, there wouldn't be a large shortfall if the competition below is completely amateur and that money is reallocated. The NPC salary cap might even be closer to $1.5M.
Another academy model, possibly even with a draft could be needed, and a salary cap that includes All Black salaries would probably also be necessary (this could have a max allowed against the cap to not completely penalize teams).
Something I have mentioned previously. Instead of the top-down model NZR uses currently we should adopt the NRL model where the players' franchise/club salary is their main income instead of having up to 3 different contracts (ABs, SR, province), where only a part of that total salary is related to a salary cap.
I don't know how it could be done well, but if we look at this season for example, the Blues signing Laulala while also having Ofa on the books would be the type of situation that should be avoided. I'm not sure how to do it though, as one issue is that people have other reasons for wanting to stay/move.
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You'd also have to be very careful with ABs salary caps. If a franchise/club has a very good academy, they'll recruit better talent and develop more players into All Blacks than franchises/clubs with an average academy. If you introduce a salary cap for ABs, that means that the franchise/club with the very good academy will have to lose ABs to stay within the salary cap. So they're basically developing players for other franchises/clubs. That could result in that academy investing less in player development (only develop the few they can afford to keep). That would be a bad outcome for NZR rugby and the All Blacks.
You could, maybe, limit the salary cap to franchises/clubs signing players who are already ABs, in positions where they already have good players available (non-ABs), or something like that.
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@mariner4life said in One domestic NZ competition?:
It's probably too expensive and unworkable, and TR is going to hate me again like he did when the 14 team NPC was created, but
Still, not again, I havent forgotten
Hey there are some good ideas in here, I mean I'd hate if we became a 'North Auckland' team with NH, but by the same token, if things were done properly, I think it could help club footy, which is a good thing in the long run.
As everyone knows, I love NPC, I love Northland, I love club footy, schoolboy footy...but I am in a smaller group who's love is more for thier province than the ABs.
BUt the next generation of kids growing up, unlike me who just wanted to pull on the Cambridge Blue, these kids do aspire to play for the Blues.
But you all know the real problem here right?
Being that on the surface, this all sounds like it is workable, meaning NZR will never buy it, let alone the provinces, especially those in the firing line.
All that being said, shit ideas fluffybunnies!
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I'm sorry but most of these ideas are just not feasible for a variety of reasons including commercial and broadcasting rights. Sky TV will offer far less money for this proposal for example.
Let me give one example, when is the competition actually going to be held and when is it going to finish? Is it going to finish at the same time as Super Rugby? Okay, what are the non-All Blacks going to do for the rest of the year? They are not allowed to play in the wholly amateur Mitre 10 Cup which people are proposing.
Let's say the competition finishes in August. It's going to finish during the Rugby Championship so the All Blacks will miss the play offs? Pointless. Or do we live in a fantasy world where every other country moves their calendar to suit us?
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I enjoy NPC and Super but call me a millennial as I prefer Super. You guys probably already know but I'm a die hard Chiefs fan, I have so much chiefs merch, and I'm always waiting for team announcements and any smidgen on news (that's actually what brought me here by accident). I'm 2 jerseys off having every single one. Might sounds cringe but I feel like it's a part of me. I know others that are like myself as well. I feel if Super sides are gone then people my age and around might lose interest as Super is the way they grew up watching rugby.
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@yeetyaah said in One domestic NZ competition?:
I enjoy NPC and Super but call me a millennial as I prefer Super. You guys probably already know but I'm a die hard Chiefs fan, I have so much chiefs merch, and I'm always waiting for team announcements and any smidgen on news (that's actually what brought me here by accident). I'm 2 jerseys off having every single one. Might sounds cringe but I feel like it's a part of me. I know others that are like myself as well. I feel if Super sides are gone then people my age and around might lose interest as Super is the way they grew up watching rugby.
The proposal from Duluth was to keep the Chiefs and other Super franchises and create five more.
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It might be a bit simplistic but the older ones like NPC and the younger ones like super rugby in its current form and although all will feel like they are losing something, if something new is created..given they follow rugby both will begrudgingly follow whatever comes, while the next generation will prefer the next version.
