RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia
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@antipodean said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
I'd encourage Oz to keep their dive teams
this is an excellent typo
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@Kirwan said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
More competitive teams mean medicore players have to work harder to get selected. At the moment you can drift along being a bit shit, and it drags down your better players.
Given the number of mediocre players we have seen go overseas, I'm not sure I agree with you.
There will always be a number of mediocre players in rough proportion to the "good" ones. The funding pool is proportional, after all.
I don't think we'll see real change unless we have something substantive underneath or instead of Super Rugby.
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@KiwiMurph said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
The only way a second Sydney team would work would be if you put them on the Northern Beaches.
A Western Sydney team would be as useless as Moana Pasifika is in Auckland.
And there is no stadium on the beaches that would be up to spec, so you're kind of stuck with Western Sydney as a base.
And there is talent here BUT there are still no pathways to develop it.
Clubs out here would draw heavily on the Pasifika population BUT are in a direct bidding war with multiple NRL clubs for talent. Plus the administration of existing rugby clubs and the Waratahs is as amateur as the rest of the game.
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@Tim said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
Is it ever going to be worth having a team in Melbourne? Would they be better off with two Sydney teams instead?
I may be biased here, but feck off.
The Wallabies are in no position to be able to ignore a population of 5½ million, or whatever we're at now.
Yes it's a city full of AFL tragics. But increasingly so is Sydney, and I've heard that they're also a bit into league there too.
If Australia's going to get back on its feet again, it's not going to be through solely resurrecting the NSW and Qld school pathways that served them well in the amateur era.
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@NTA said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
@KiwiMurph said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
The only way a second Sydney team would work would be if you put them on the Northern Beaches.
A Western Sydney team would be as useless as Moana Pasifika is in Auckland.
And there is no stadium on the beaches that would be up to spec, so you're kind of stuck with Western Sydney as a base.
And there is talent here BUT there are still no pathways to develop it.
Clubs out here would draw heavily on the Pasifika population BUT are in a direct bidding war with multiple NRL clubs for talent. Plus the administration of existing rugby clubs and the Waratahs is as amateur as the rest of the game.
Manly Oval holds 5k - that oughta be plenty
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@GibbonRib said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
If Australia's going to get back on its feet again, it's not going to be through solely resurrecting the NSW and Qld school pathways that served them well in the amateur era.
they have a unique problem though
Local junior looks super promising, and an NRL scout is going to turn up, and offer him a real money contract. The ARU will tell them they'll see them in a few years. I'm sure the same would happen with an AFL scout if he was tall.
And if they are looking at moving to club land, you can play rugby, and pay $300 in subs. Or you can play league where the subs are $5, and you might get paid.
If you don't come from money i know which way most are going to go
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@mariner4life said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
Local junior looks super promising, and an NRL scout is going to turn up, and offer him a real money contract.
...and the other issue - is Rugby more fun to play than League at the moment? Unless you're tribal, NRL offers better crowds, good money and less travel. Oh, and probably better coaching and less shitty administration. You're just missing the internationals - but the tradeoff is a proper offseason.
I love rugby, but can see the attraction of league for a player
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@antipodean said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
add them to 10 NZ teams
Won't happen. NZ can barely cope (cost and quality) with 5 teams
Aust must reduce to 3 teams. Otherwise Aust rugby is f++ked and it will likely take NZ rugby down with it
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I'm still making my way through the thread, and I'm sure this has been expressed by others but man this is a perverse feeling, I love seeing Australians take a whipping like that and I enjoyed giving it to my two Wallabies fan mates who are unbearable when the ABs lose ... but I'd much rather have a strong Oz rugby than the shit show they are now.
On a micro level it was fucking stupid to turf Rennie, he was trying to mould the team like he did with the Chiefs and (more comparatively) with the Poo. And I think relatively he was working with the worst cattle out of any of those three teams. They may have failed as spectacularly this year too, but I doubt they would have been this bad.
On a macro level unsure how Oz rugby can be fixed from reading the various Oz threads on here and all the inherent issues.
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The appointment is reported to be worth A$4.5 million over the tenure of the appointment, and will go through until the conclusion of Australia's campaign at the 2027 Rugby World Cup in which Australia will also host.
I wonder if Eddie got a clause in the contract that he has to be paid out if they fire him.
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@mariner4life said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
@GibbonRib said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
If Australia's going to get back on its feet again, it's not going to be through solely resurrecting the NSW and Qld school pathways that served them well in the amateur era.
they have a unique problem though
Local junior looks super promising, and an NRL scout is going to turn up, and offer him a real money contract. The ARU will tell them they'll see them in a few years. I'm sure the same would happen with an AFL scout if he was tall.
And if they are looking at moving to club land, you can play rugby, and pay $300 in subs. Or you can play league where the subs are $5, and you might get paid.
If you don't come from money i know which way most are going to go
Even better: an agent will get you on their books, work gratis until you get a contract, then make their money off you at that point.
And maybe you don't make it to the NRL. You can still make $200-$500 per game playing second- or third-tier league in Sydney.
Why would you play rugby?
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@Winger said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
@antipodean said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
add them to 10 NZ teams
Won't happen. NZ can barely cope (cost and quality) with 5 teams
Aust must reduce to 3 teams. Otherwise Aust rugby is f++ked and it will likely take NZ rugby down with it
We've been down this path before. Moe content equals more dollars. More competitive means more people will watch it.
Thinking we're constrained to the same amount of money now doesn't make sense. It's a new, expanded competition. More games, for longer. So it's worth more.
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@antipodean said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
@Winger said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
@antipodean said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
add them to 10 NZ teams
Won't happen. NZ can barely cope (cost and quality) with 5 teams
Aust must reduce to 3 teams. Otherwise Aust rugby is f++ked and it will likely take NZ rugby down with it
We've been down this path before. Moe content equals more dollars. More competitive means more people will watch it.
Thinking we're constrained to the same amount of money now doesn't make sense. It's a new, expanded competition. More games, for longer. So it's worth more.
and in this part of the world as well, if you're not competing until this weekend your winter sport doesn't exist.
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@GibbonRib said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
@NTA said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
@Kirwan said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
We need to help them get strong again. Less teams for them and a better comp structure in Super rugby
Why? How?
Less teams just means less money and less chance at results.
We need to revamp all our shit internally. Forget the pro level at this point. It can't be papered over.
This will take a decade of proper grassroots reform.
This.
Rushing to say we urgently need to cull SR clubs is just as short-term as swapping the coach. Who are you going to cull - Melbourne, biggest city in Australia? Canberra, historically Australia's best performing team? Perth, another huge market with great development programs (and Twiggy money)? Making the call to just give up on those regions, without a vision of what the long term structure will be, would be rank stupidity.
Plus, if RA lose 40% of the teams, they should expect to lose 40% of the TV money. And 40% of the players whose wages it pays. Not the shitest 40% either, it'd be 40% of the stars and 40% of the benchwarmers.
Yeah, you can argue that it will increase competition, so the players will be forced to compete for the reduced contracts available. Which might work, as long as there are no other leagues globally willing to pony up plenty of money to anyone who can handle a Mediterranean lifestyle
Yep but it gets balanced out by the facr=t that they have a lot of non eligible players in super teams to try and make them competitive surely. All their money should be paying Wallaby eligible players I think.
I don't pretend to know all the answers , but it's hard to argue how good the Wallabies with 3 teams, and had a lot more seemingly ability to play together. I can also understand why many don't want to lose teams etc, al so it's no easy. One of big problem is Hamish has told assured everyone of the silver bullet that was the Lions tour and WC must be at risk of being as profitable as he has said if Aussies aren't behind the team etc. -
@Tim said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:
@chimoaus McLennan is such a clown. Maybe he can pick another fight with NZ Rugby now ...
He will try something similar to deflect criticism away from his decisions. He took Eddie on saying he was there to do a quick grab of Bledisloe and WC, then it was for Lions and 27 WC, and also it was last 20 years of mismanagement that he has been part of for 3 of those years and his CEO has been part of for 5 years.
At least Eddie is constant, if you remember he said when the ABs walloped them in Melbourne, it was his fault, and he apolgies to Australian public, almost word for word in what he said this morning! -
Can't argue with how good the Wallabies were in 1999, and I wouldn't disagree that the 3 Super Rugby teams they had at the time supported that well. But you can't leap from there to the conclusion that 3 is the magic number.
I also don't know what the answer is. But I do know that culling a team or two would do (yet more) significant damage to the game.
If the long term benefit outweighs the damage, then so be it. But we need to be sure. And to be sure, we need a credible long-term strategy, not just the latest ARU tea-reader declaring that if we offer a blood sacrifice then the rugby gods will grant us a Bledisloe.
