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"The Western Force are exploring options in Asia, with a former Wallabies captain holding talks with the Sunwolves about forming “a mutually beneficial arrangement”.
Details of the initiative are being kept sketchy, save for revelations that the Wallabies captain met with the Sunwolves chief executive last month. Force captain Matt Hodgson would say only that club officials were looking at Plan B and Plan C to keep the club alive and kicking until the next SANZAAR broadcast deal is negotiated at the end of 2020.
“Who knows if Super Rugby will change again in 2020?” Hodgson said. “That’s the really hard part about all this, we could be affected for three years and the whole competition could be restructured.”
Certainly the Australian Rugby Union is hoping it will be restructured, with a trans-Tasman competition the preferred option. And if such a competition does come about, it may well be that five Australian teams, not four — which is what the ARU is striving for at the moment — are required.
Given that the Sunwolves will play next year as part of the Australian conference under the SANZAAR plan, it’s possible that a merger of sorts — using the Japanese club’s licence — could be beneficial to both franchises. The Sunwolves are themselves under threat from SANZAAR, which recently gave them an “improve or else” ultimatum and certainly if the Force were able to stay intact, the Japanese side could benefit greatly from using some of their players. But discussions are so preliminary at this stage that neither club has any great expectations that they will lead to anything concrete.
It has raised further questions about the process that was put in place to reduce Super Rugby from 18 teams to 15. While the threatened axing of the Force has led Australian rugby to the brink of open revolt, the situation in South Africa — where the Southern Kings and the Cheetahs were culled — was vastly different. There was scarcely a peep from either franchise, even though they were widely identified as being in danger of being cut long before the deed was actually done. Why was that? Were the two sides advised right from the start that a soft landing had been planned for them in the Pro12 competition in Britain? And, if so, when were they advised? Certainly the suspicion is starting to form, at least in Western Australia, that this was the reason South Africa was so ready to cut two teams right from the start.
The Force, meanwhile, will maintain the rage at a public rally at the RugbyWA headquarters in Floreat at 9.30am Perth time on Sunday.
“It’s about getting our presence out there and showing who it’s affecting,” Hodgson said. “We’re all going through this together. It’s been amplified in the last couple of days when the actual decision has come out.
“When rugby was actually happening, we had something to focus on but now that we’re on holidays to be thinking ... it rocks you so hard that at times you snap. There are nights when you try to go to sleep and instead all that happens is that you roll through different scenarios.
“Originally, when they thought about the decision, they thought it might affect 30 people but the amount of people who are going to be affected by this decision is going to be massive.”
Hodgson is still waiting for ARU chairman Cameron Clyne and chief executive Bill Pulver to accept his invitation to come to Perth to explain their reasoning in dropping the Force. So far there has been no reply, though it’s fair to say the ARU bosses might have been a bit jumpy when Hodgson informed them it would take only “48-72 hours” of their time, a neat throwback to April 10 when Clyne suggested that was as long as it would take the ARU to reach a decision.
Now, some 129 days later, the matter is still up in the air, with the NSW Supreme Court to decide whether to grant the Force leave to appeal next Wednesday."