Wow. How exciting. A Grand Slam. What an achievement. What a boon for the NZRFU bank balance, more likely.
The departure of most of New Zealand’s rugby journalists to the Northern Hemisphere to do their Christmas shopping and be BFF’s with Graham Henry and company means the vast bulk of them missed an interesting announcement by the NZRFU HQ.
Next year Super 15 starts on February 18, and finishes on July 9 and then a week later, the ITM Cup starts to accommodate the quadrennial poison dart that is the Rugby World Cup.
What does it mean? It means that not only will Super 15 players be unlikely to take part in early rounds of the ITM Cup (and certainly not All Blacks), but that provincial unions will have to carry huge squads (and the ensuing costs) to cover these eventualities.
Think of a little province like Southland which has only six premier club rugby teams. Southland has 13 players in the Highlanders Super 15 squad. Filling those spaces if anyone has to have time off will be tough. Carrying the extra cost will be even tougher – contracted players (of which there must be a minimum of 26) get a minimum retainer of $15,000 for the competition. So Southland could end up having to pay 39 players $15,000 – an extra $195,000 over and above the 26 they have in their ‘first’ squad.
So who was the genius that came up with this idea?
The NZRFU and the Players’ Union. ITM Cup coaches were not involved in the process at all. Tells you something about the consultation process. And the brainpower behind it.
The coaches – the people who have to get the results – had no say. Add to that the ridiculous “crossover” matches, where first-tier premiership teams play against second-tier championship teams in next year’s new format, and you can see 2011 hasn’t got any less confusing for rugby. Why bother having a first-tier championship when they have to play games against the gumbies who weren’t good enough to get there this year?
Has the NZRFU gone all PC? Or just mad? Probably both.
But back to Super 15. The teams are split into New Zealand, South African, and Australian conferences. The teams in the conferences play each other twice, i.e. the Blues will play the Highlanders twice. How does this create revenue? Say the Highlanders do their usual thing of being bottom-ish after the first 10 rounds.
They play the Blues in week 11 and then in week 18. The first match is in Dunedin, so there’s no chance of getting a break-even crowd. The next match, supposing the Blues spank them, will not exactly be endearing to Auckland fans.
It almost seems that the people who come up with these wonderful ideas have been recruited from the chimpanzee cage at Auckland Zoo. But that’s being unfair to the chimpanzees.
Why couldn’t they have a two week break between the competitions and then just play round robin and then the semis and final?
Oh, that’s right. Money. It’s what Grand Slams are for, and of course the ITM Cup has to pay its own way too. Never mind the fans, and never mind screwing a competition that actually won the rugby administrators some favour this year. Just keep chasing those dollars, and telling yourself it’s all for the good of the game….