Brumbies sucked back into fight for Super Rugby survival
The Australian: April 17, 2017
Wayne Smith
The Brumbies are being drawn back into the vortex of the fight for survival in the Super Rugby competition, with both the Western Force and the Melbourne Rebels questioning why the Canberra side was removed from the endangered list.
The Australian Rugby Union chairman Cameron Clyne announced at his press conference last Monday that the Brumbies had been excused from the process as one of the three teams potentially to be cut from Super Rugby.
Only the Force and the Rebels remained on the hit list. No explanation was given for why the Brumbies were absolved. Indeed, no weighting of items on the ARU’s checklist of priorities has ever been published. No one knows, for instance, what weighting is given to “long-term financial sustainability” compared with “fan engagement” or “prospects for growth”.
While Force and Rebels officials declined to comment on the record about the process, the questions are now coming loud and clear from both camps, and they want answers.
Given that both franchises are threatening the ARU with legal action — the Force have actually taken out a writ and the Rebels have warned the ARU to desist from saying they could be cut for fear of exacerbating damages in any future lawsuit — it would appear the gloves are off.
As has been its stance since the original SANZAAR crisis meeting in London on March 10-11, the ARU has made no comment on the hostile Good Friday legal letter that masqueraded as a Rebels press release.
Clyne was scheduled to appear on ABC Grandstand on Saturday afternoon to talk about the crisis, but withdrew at the 11th hour.
It is also becoming clear that the ARU negotiated the Force’s demise at the SANZAAR meeting without mentioning that it had signed an alliance with the Perth club when it took it over in August.
That alliance has largely been ignored by the national body throughout this process although the Force writ went right to the heart of ARU assurances that there would be a Super Rugby presence in Western Australia during the course of the current broadcast deal.
The ARU is running out of wriggle room but so far has not acted on what seems to be the logical course of action: getting ARU chief executive Bill Pulver back on the plane to Melbourne to see if he can negotiate a deal with Rebels owner Andrew Cox.
Cox told The Australian he was not interested in selling the Rebels to the ARU if the purpose is to close the club. But he has remained tight-lipped about whether he would be prepared to merge his club with the Brumbies.
Brumbies boss Michael Thomson has consistently denied he is interested in a merger, as has head coach Stephen Larkham, but if the imperative is to trim five teams back to four, then it is shaping as the least-worst option.
One thing is becoming increasingly clear — one of the biggest losers in all of this, perhaps the biggest loser of all, is the ARU. It has botched this process from the very beginning. But as this imbroglio drags on, the increasing likelihood is that the final outcome will be that nothing is done.
Although SANZAAR has decreed that a 15-team competition will be in place for next season, that all depends on whether Australia can cut one team and South Africa can shed two franchises.
At the moment, it appears likely the Australians will end up in court, which would cause massive financial loss. The South Africans do not expect to have their position resolved — one way or the other — until June.
If the Australian experience is any guide, the republic’s six franchises will work harmoniously enough right up to the point where teams are viewed as either saved or doomed, at which point it becomes every man for himself.
For the moment, however, the Southern Kings are using their rugby to make an impassioned plea to remain in Super Rugby. Their matches against the Force and the Queensland Reds over the past week have provided some of the most entertaining rugby of the season. Though they lost both times, they scored 11 tries in the two matches.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spor...312f9ef9cfddde