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Melbourne in the running for 15th Super rugby team as part of expansion
By Wayne Smith
March 06, 2009 The Victorian Government says the Australian Rugby Union and SANZAR would not be "fair dinkum" if they did not base their new expansion Super team in Melbourne.
What Australian Rugby Union boss John O'Neill euphemistically described yesterday as a "robust" seven-hour SANZAR board meeting in Dubai took the three partners - Australia, New Zealand and South Africa - back to where they were in July, committed in principle to expanding the existing Super 14 to a Super 15 by 2011.
After the now traditional round where all teams will play off once, the expanded 22-week competition will then split into five-team conferences based in the three separate countries for an abbreviated round of local derbies, leading into a six-team finals series.
But the real coup for Australia was that SANZAR decided the new expansion team would play in the Australian conference.
The South AFrican Rugby Union signalled it might still press for an Eastern Cape team to be awarded the licence, while the New Zealand Rugby Union indicated one or more of its provinces might nominate. But, realistically, the working party set up by SANZAR to be chaired by New Zealander Cameron Goode can only come up with one workable outcome. "The thing I keep coming back to is that the fifth team will play in the Australian conference," O'Neill said.
"It really doesn't make sense for an Eastern Cape to fit into an Australian conference."
Expressions of interest would most likely come from Melbourne, western Sydney, Gosford, Newcastle and the Gold Coast.
James Merlino, the Victorian Minister for Sport, said the Victorian Government was "absolutely supportive" of the Victorian Rugby Union's bid to win the licence.
"If the ARU does not choose Melbourne, they are simply not fair dinkum about making rugby a national sport," said Merlino.
Merlino also announced that the VRU would receive $500,000 to relocate its entire operations, including its centre of excellence, to the $270million Rectangular Stadium to be finished next year.
The Bracks Government commissioned the new stadium four years ago, timing its announcement to support Melbourne's ultimately unsuccessful bid for the Super 14 expansion licence the ARU granted instead to Perth.
"The new Melbourne super rugby team will be based in an iconic new stadium in the heart of the sporting precinct in the sporting capital of the world," Merlino said.
Behind the bonhomie and bravado, however, the Victorian Government is understood to be bringing some serious pressure to bear on the ARU to ensure Melbourne is not once again "jilted" - as described by VRU president Gary Gray.
Merlino would not comment directly on rumours the Victorian Government might even withdraw its considerable investment in rugby if an Australian licence goes to another city.
"Get the Wallabies to Melbourne and you get huge crowd support," he said.
"Those Tests are certainly an important part of our sporting calendar. But what we want to see is an elite Super rugby team playing out of Melbourne."
Ultimately, it might well be the market that decides with O'Neill suggesting the broadcasters, News Corporation, would be asked for input on where the new team is located when SANZAR submits its proposal to them before June 30. If ratings are to be the ultimate measure, it is difficult to see how Melbourne could be overlooked.
But if the ARU thought it had a hard sell on its hands persuading South Africa and New Zealand to award the expansion licence to the Australian conference, it will have to raise its persuasive powers to even higher levels to convince the existing four Australian Super 14 franchises a fifth team can be created without plunging them into crisis.
"What concerns us is the prospect of a fifth fully Australian team," said Queensland Rugby Union chairman Peter Lewis. "We're just getting back on our feet after being gutted in 2005 (when Western Force raided the Queensland Reds). New South Wales Waratahs are nearing the end of a generation. The Brumbies are emerging again but the Force are just about to enter an extremely difficult contracting period.
"A fifth purely Australian team would weaken the four existing franchises. I actually have a radical alternative to suggest - a hybrid team made up of eight players each from Argentina, Japan, the Pacific Islands and Australia, to be based at Ballymore."
And while the QRU is alarmed that a Gold Coast franchise would undermine the Reds, less than 100km up the Pacific Highway, the New South Wales Rugby Union must equally be concerned about what impact a second near-Sydney franchise would have on the Tahs.
NSWRU chief executive Jim L'Estrange said it was early days to consider the ramifications of the expanded competition.
http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,...002381,00.html