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Frustrated players save Sanzar
4:00AM Sunday May 17, 2009
By Gregor Paul

Player intervention is understood to have saved the Sanzar alliance.

Frustrated by the inability of administrators to strike a working deal, players from all three Sanzar nations, through their professional associations, are believed to have stepped in.

They quickly agreed on a compromise on how to restructure Super Rugby and presented their vision to administrators.

It’s understood the nations reacted differently but were put under severe pressure by the players’ associations to accept the deal.

Sources have said the alternative transtasman competition being worked up as a fall-back option lacked detail.

They also said it was unlikely to capture the imagination of TV executives or sponsors and that New Zealand and Australia would have been facing a significant drop in income had they gone down that route.

Sanzar executives were at an impasse over the start date of an expanded competition and how to structure games during the June test window.

Details on the new agreement will not be revealed until relevant stakeholders have been briefed but it is widely expected the competition from 2011 will have 15 teams.

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Those teams will be split into three geographic conferences with decisions still to be made about where the 15th team will be based. It is also thought the new competition will start in early March and all conferences will begin simultaneously.

Details of how Super 15 will be structured during the June test window is not known. However, the Springbok players are believed to have agreed to be less involved in the early stages of the Currie Cup.

One of the major sticking blocks in the negotiations has been South Africa’s desire to protect the Currie Cup and not allow the expanded Super 15 to overlap it. They have already sold TV rights for the Currie Cup.

Because the South Africans have compromised over their domestic competition, it is thought the season will run into early August and the number of games played during the June window will be limited.

The players decided they had to get involved as they had no desire to see the alliance split. While travel has been labelled a problem, the players were adamant on retaining the link with South Africa. The new format will cut the time spent away from home as more games will be played in New Zealand.

All three parties have agreed to not make public any details of the new format until they have been presented to their respective boards and agreed. That is expected to be done this week and, assuming sign-off is granted, Sanzar will then present its plans to News Corporation and other broadcasters at the end of June.

An extended Super 15 will further decrease the importance of the provincial championship as the overlap will be greater. If Super 15 runs until early August, followed almost immediately by the Tri Nations, All Black involvement is going to be zero.

Discussions are scheduled to restructure the provincial championship with the chances now high that the number of teams will be cut to build a shorter, tighter competition. It may also be time to revert to the old format of two divisions with promotion and relegation.

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Melbourne comes in. What of relegation and promotion? What of the Eastern Cape?

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Secret’s out: more Super derbies from 2011
Josh Rakic | May 17, 2009

DESPITE top secrecy since last Thursday’s successful SANZAR meeting - at which South Africa confirmed it would remain in the Super rugby competition - The Sun-Herald can confirm a 15th team will be included in an extended competition from 2011.

Reds rugby boss Peter Lewis last week demanded Australian teams play each other twice in the regular season to boost patronage and revenue with local derbies. A source close to the SANZAR camp confirmed that this would, in fact, be the case.

All 15 teams will play each other once, while the regular season will be extended by three rounds, during which teams will play three other sides from their respective pools for a second time. This means the Waratahs would be likely to have home and away matches with the Reds, Brumbies and Force.

Instead of having six home games one season and the seven the next, it’s believed all teams will have eight home matches a season, creating three extra revenue-making opportunities over two years.

The good news for Wallabies coach Robbie Deans - who last week gave his public support to expansion - is that the 15th team is all but certain to be based in Melbourne.

The length of the Super season was a big talking point at the meeting, Australia making no secret of its intention to extend the season and start it later to compete with the NRL and AFL.

South Africa was opposed to the suggestion, which would affect its prized domestic Currie Cup season, but the two nations and New Zealand were able to agree on a likely four-week extension.

Final details are still to be nutted out but it’s believed the season could be pushed back a week to start on the second last weekend in February.

If the bye rounds remain as expected, this would push the regular season back until the final weekend of May - the same weekend on which this year’s grand final will be played.

Regardless, all three nations have agreed on an overhaul of the finals system, doing away with the four-team structure to make a six-team finals series.

In the model, teams No. 1 and No. 2 would automatically progress to the grand final qualifiers and teams No. 3 and No. 4 would play teams No. 6 and No. 5 respectively. The winners would go on to battle for a grand final berth against the top two teams.

To accommodate the extra two teams, the finals series will be extended by one week, meaning the Super rugby calendar could run until the end of June, or at least into the third week.

Daar’sy!

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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25415599-2722,00.html

However this mornings article in the Sydney Morning Herald confirms the inevitable:

See http://www.rugbyheaven.com.au/news/news/monday-maul/2009/05/03/1241289038693.html for the full piece:

The SANZAR nations arguing over an abundance of issues is not an attractive look. Offering a tournament that is television friendly, more enticing to the local market and keeps at arm’s length that irritating pest of a cousin, is.

For some time, local officials have been working away on a trans-Tasman Asia-Pacific tournament, which at first would involve 10 teams, and then through the introduction of Japanese sides, expand to a 12-team competition.

It would originally comprise of the five New Zealand teams and the four Australian provinces, with the extra side scheduled to come from this side of the Tasman. There are also thoughts of having two teams based in Japan.

It is certainly time-zone friendly. As ARU chief John O’Neill explained: “You could see a 3.30pm-5.30-7.30-9.30 smorgasbord of rugby on a Saturday.”

They have also consulted the local broadcasters, who like the proposal. This is no surprise, as broadcasters know that overnight matches from South Africa are as big a pay TV attraction as showing the test pattern.

So a SANZAR split appears inevitable. As they say in Ireland: “An Aussie and a Kiwi walk into a Dublin pub and see a horse at the bar wearing a Springbok jersey. They ask in unison: ‘Why the long face?”‘

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EC isn’t weak because it has no franchise. It has no franchise because it’s weak.

It’s always been pathetically weak.

This is no “chicken-or-egg” argument. The EC sucks at rugby. Always has, always will.

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http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/news/2379017/Tew-Sth-Africa-won-t-budge/#share

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