Possible Bipartisan Province for S15 Melbourne
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Battle to rage over Super 15 Gold Coast bid
Print Wayne Smith | May 05, 2009 The Australian
THE other shoe in Australian rugby has finally dropped with confirmation that a Gold Coast consortium is being formed to bid for a Super rugby expansion franchise licence.
Melbourne was the first Australian city to declare itself a contender for the new Super 15 franchise but for months there has been intense speculation of a second bid, either from the Gold Coast or western Sydney.
Nonetheless, Australian Rugby Union boss John O'Neill last night indicated Melbourne was the clear favourite in the race, even suggesting Australia might enter into a joint venture with New Zealand to set up a new franchise in the Victorian capital.
"Just thinking outside the square, if you're getting to market saturation point in New Zealand then that's something we should look at," said O'Neill, who had in mind a joint venture not just in terms of funding any new Melbourne franchise but also in terms of finding players for it.
"When a NZ team plays an Australian team in Super 14, the ratings are fabulous but when two NZ teams play each other, the ratings here also are very strong and that's because there are about a million New Zealanders living in Australia.
"When the All Blacks were based in Melbourne during the 2003 World Cup, they received tremendous support, as have Crusaders' pre-season matches against the Western Force."
While Melbourne seems unassailable if and when the extended Super rugby season is approved by SANZAR and Australia fights off South Africa's Southern Kings to win the right to field the 15th team in the competition, there still is a formal tendering process to go through. And so far, O'Neill said, the only formal expression of interest had been lodged by the Gold Coast Rugby Union.
Prominent Gold Coast businessman Terry Jackman said yesterday preliminary steps had been taken to set up a consortium to challenge Melbourne for the licence.
"The Gold Coast is the third-biggest city behind Sydney and Brisbane in Australia's rugby heartland yet, while it boasts an NRL side, is earmarked for an AFL team, and even has soccer and basketball teams. The only rugby presence there is the Gold Coast Breakers, which plays in the Brisbane club competition," Jackman said.
He confirmed he had approached a wealthy Gold Coast entrepreneur - "not Clive Palmer" - to back any new Super rugby franchise to be based at Skilled Stadium, at Robina, also home of the NRL team, the Titans, and was confident there was sufficient private-equity money available to make the proposed venture a reality.
Jackman said it was planned that the new team would be a composite side made up of players from Japan, the Pacific Islands and Australia. "I don't think there are sufficient players in Australia alone to man it," he said.
He dismissed fears that a rival franchise just 100km down the Pacific Highway from Brisbane would undermine the already-struggling Queensland Reds.
"The Reds have got a million people in Brisbane to draw their support from," Jackman said.
However, to differentiate between the two organisations, Jackman proposed that a breakaway union combining the Gold Coast with northern NSW be created.
Queensland Rugby Union chairman Peter Lewis declined to comment on the proposed Gold Coast franchise and how it might affect the Reds, but he did question whether it was wise for Australia to pursue a fifth franchise.
"If you look at where the Australian teams are on the Super 14 ladder, you'll realise Australia will be lucky to get even one team into the play-offs," Lewis said. "So it's a question that needs to be asked: do we have the playing resources to man a fifth Australian team."
Lewis said the four existing franchises, the Reds, Waratahs, Brumbies and Western Force, all were anxious for the extra home games that an expansion of Super rugby would deliver. "But frankly, we'd have those extra games if the new team was the one from South Africa, the Southern Kings," he said.
"We have only two concerns: getting more games and not having our existing teams raped in order to find players to man the new team, as the Reds were when the Force was being set up in 2005."
Yet if O'Neill's suggestion that Australia enter into a joint venture with New Zealand to set up the new franchise in Melbourne is supported on the other side of the Tasman, Lewis's fears might not be realised, certainly not to the extent of a repeat of the pillaging of the Reds by the Force four years ago.
The other safeguard is that the ARU, which basically awarded the licence to Rugby WA in 2005 and then stood back, has learned from the mistakes made in establishing the Force. Almost certainly, any new licence will not be allocated exclusively to the Victorian Rugby Union, with the ARU likely to play a hands-on role in running the new franchise at least in its formative years.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...015651,00.html
A Bipartisan Province could work well for the initial years... Why not Melbourne its cold and windy just like the Shaky Isles’.... Sounds like a great idea...
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Originally Posted by mudskipper
