Kiwis hold forum to discuss way forward

[KenyaQuin]

Kiwis hold forum to discuss way forward

19th March 2008, 9:45 WST Kiwis hold forum to discuss way forward : thewest.com.au


Rugby leaders from across New Zealand will meet next week to discuss pressing issues in the sport, including the challenges posed by the professional era.

The Wellington-based forum will include representatives from 26 provincial unions and five Super 14 franchises.

Provincial managers and New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) bosses will be joined by others involved in the sport, including players and coaches, who have been selected as guests to bring extra perspectives to discussions.

Tasman Rugby Union chairman Max Spence said unions and franchises were starting to question the sustainability of the game.

Those questions were being raised in the wake of the last two years of the Air New Zealand Cup and consequences of funding professional rugby and managing the needs of the amateur game.

“To satisfy our expectations and grow the game domestically and compete successfully at international level there needs to be some changes to ensure rugby remains a game for all New Zealanders,” Spence said.

He said some of the solutions might be unpalatable to sections of the rugby community, but the financial challenges unions and franchises were confronting had to be understood.

NZRU chief executive Steve Tew said the forum was to work towards “refining and agreeing a common vision for the game which is shared, accepted and owned by all shareholders”.

The forum will be held at Wellington’s Westpac Stadium on March 26-27 and builds on a similar meeting held in Auckland in December.

WELLINGTON

[BLR]

Do you think the provincial leaders will support thier competition degraded into nothing-ness by an extended super 14 season?

[shasta]

Depends on the financial implications, I'd suggest. I don't think anyone from the SH foresaw the disparity in finances between the hemispheres when pro rugby was embraced. Not that it would have made any difference anyway. Pro rugby was inevitable. It was just a matter of who would run the game.

Fact is the traditional Unions and the IRB don't have complete control anymore. They are partly reliant on the pay TV/advertising dollar. Those imperatives will have a big influence in where the game goes now and what shape the various competition structures take.

[BLR]

What if the teams were able to be brought by private entities with a certain percentage being paid to the ARU. With this money they could concentrate on the Wallabies, grass roots and the pathway into Super 14 aka ARC. To change the club v country thing there should be a constitution written up so that the ARU have control over the right kind of things eg. players availability...

[AndyS]

Too many problems, not enough solutions
MIDWEEK MAUL: JIM KAYES - The Dominion Post

STEVE Tew sighs in exasperation when the topic is raised.

"Look," the New Zealand Rugby Union boss says, "I can list the problems facing the game easily. What's not so easy, and what our critics fail to do, is provide the solutions."

It's a fair point, but also a moot one.

It's Tew's job to provide the solutions, or at least to spearhead the move to come up with them. No one else's. He knows that too.

Rugby's problems can be put into two categories – too many, and not enough.

There are too many provincial unions, too many players getting paid to play rugby and there are too many All Blacks tests, especially against Australia and South Africa. And there is not enough money to go around.

Tew suggests the solutions are hard to find, but they're not, really. What's hard to find are the administrators with the courage to initiate the biggest overhaul of rugby New Zealand has seen.

That's not a jab at Tew. The move for change has to come from the provinces, which need to look in the mirror and realise their place in New Zealand rugby.

It is true that many quality players have come from rural New Zealand – and still do – and that pipeline has to be protected, but rugby's provinces have changed little in the past 100 years.

North Harbour was born in 1985 and Tasman was created two years ago, but before that the merger of Wairarapa and Bush in 1971 was the last significant boundary change.

Where and how New Zealanders live has changed dramatically in the past 30 years.

Yet, absurdly, too many unions cling to the past, pointing piously at the game's amateur traditions to justify their existence in the professional era.

It's an artificial existence, propped up by national body funding and player imports – and many of those who are getting paid are not worth it.

The simple solution is to bite the bullet and rationalise the national provincial competition. It should be amateur and played in tandem with an expanded Super competition, acting both as a feeder and a place for those out of sorts, or injured, to play their way back in.

Most would agree there is too much rugby being played in New Zealand. Realigning the NPC – or whatever its next name is – would help fix that.

NEXT week's crisis meeting in Wellington between the NZRU, provinces and Super franchises is sure to bring change, or at the very least, the first real impetus for change.

Why? Money. Everyone is short of it and, as one leading administrator told Midweek Maul, that economic crunch means change is inevitable.

TEW needs to get out in front more. Too often Australia's talkative boss, John O'Neill, beats him to the punch with his proclamations on what needs to be done.

Some of it is undoubtedly hot air, and Tew might be following the correct protocol and procedure with his more conservative approach, but the look and perception is that he is living in O'Neill's slipstream.

O'NEILL'S idea for a bigger and longer Super competition has considerable merit, as the Super 14 is too short, with teams out of the playoff race too early.

A bigger competition could allow the NZRU to loosen its stance on player eligibility.

It would be dire if the NZRU let the All Blacks be picked from anywhere in the world.

The country would empty of decent players, with the All Blacks forced to assemble in the shambolic way the Kiwis do. But they could be picked from any team in the Super competition.
Too many problems, not enough solutions - Opinion - RugbyHeaven

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Too much rugby takes heavy toll at the gates
RICHARD KNOWLER - The Press

The sight of the Cheetahs leaving AMI Stadium was not a pretty one. Eager to get away from the site where they were humbled 55-7 by the Crusaders, they did not stick around to have a shower.

Instead they trundled out to their bus in their playing gear and bare feet, bags tucked under their arms and drink bottles in hands.

The sight of a player doubled over as he hawked up his post- match snack and energy drink in the gutter did little to brighten the scene.

It was difficult not to have sympathy for the Cheetahs coach Naka Drotske as he stood alone, lost in thought – his men had just taken a hammering, they were without a win after five rounds and in three seasons have yet to win in New Zealand.

It was always going to be lop- sided, the major reason for the small crowd of just 14,000 fans. For the Crusaders' season opener hosted against the Brumbies, just 16,500 rolled up on a wet night.

But to see a franchise like the Crusaders struggle to sell tickets further indicates there is a serious problem.

In Richie McCaw, Dan Carter and Ali Williams, the Crusaders have three of the world's best players. McCaw and Carter, especially, are once-in-a-generation players. The latter may be better than that – a man of his talent may only arrive once in a lifetime. Yet not even Carter is a drawcard any more. Many fans are sick to the backteeth of rugby.

Whether the crowds would have improved if the All Blacks had won the World Cup is debatable. Certainly their capitulation has not helped and neither did the New Zealand Rugby Union's decision to withdraw 22 All Blacks from half of last year's competition.

And now we hear Australia Rugby Union chief executive John O'Neill proposing the Super 14 be revamped and, with the possible involvement of a team from Japan, be played over 26 weeks.

That is well and good for Australians. A longer tournament allows them to compete against rugby league and Aussie rules and, of course, there is the potential to rake in extra revenue from the broadcasters. But players want to perform in front of full houses. Fans, too, are attracted by a stacked stadium.

It is difficult to see how a longer, watered-down competition will fill grounds. A speed-knitting competition would be more exciting than watching the Cheetahs and Lions in action.

O'Neill's mad-cap plan would surely mean the end of the Air New Zealand Cup.

The NZRU's problem now is what to do with, or where to put, that tournament. Clearly the 14-team programme is expensive and cumbersome. Something needs to give if the Super 14 is extended.

When the NZRU revamped the competition in 2006, it gave the provinces some rope and told them to either swim or sink.

The question is whether that rope will now be used as a rescue tool or a noose?
Too much rugby takes heavy toll at the gates - Opinion - RugbyHeaven

[shasta]

What if the teams were able to be brought by private entities with a certain percentage being paid to the ARU. With this money they could concentrate on the Wallabies, grass roots and the pathway into Super 14 aka ARC. To change the club v country thing there should be a constitution written up so that the ARU have control over the right kind of things eg. players availability...

I'm not sure I'm ready to see that happen, but who knows? Whoever runs the franchises is unlikely to have any money left over to pay to anyone, in any case. Ask Peter Holmes a'Court.

[BLR]

I'm not sure I'm ready to see that happen, but who knows? Whoever runs the franchises is unlikely to have any money left over to pay to anyone, in any case. Ask Peter Holmes a'Court.

That's League, Super 14 is international hence has more exposure....plus the teams are spread around more so have larger parts of the 'pie'....also if it gets really bad just sell the teams off to those Russian billionaires I hear so much about