Calls for Super Rugby cull

The axing of the Western Force led to only an incremental improvement in Australia’s Super Rugby fortunes – is it time to lose another team?

There are calls for Australia to cut another Super Rugby team after only one side, the Brumbies, reached the playoffs this season.

This comes just two years after the axing of the Western Force, but it appears Australia does not have sufficient depth to support even four Super Rugby teams let alone five.

The Brumbies won the Australian conference title for the third time in the last four years, securing a home quarter-final against South African side, the Sharks, on Saturday night. Quite frankly, the Brumbies were the only Australian team that looked like playoff material.

The Melbourne Rebels and the NSW Waratahs both had mathematical chances of reaching the top eight heading into last weekend’s final round, but were thrashed by New Zealand opposition and finished 11th and 12th respectively.

Australia’s fourth team, the Queensland Reds, came second last, finishing only above the Japanese Sunwolves, who will be kicked out of the competition after next season.

A lot can be done to improve Australia’s Super Rugby teams, such as better talent identification and coaching, but the results indicate that Australia needs another cull.

Australia cannot afford to carry four teams, especially with the player exodus to Europe and Japan continuing to weaken the playing ranks. When Australia expanded to Perth (2006) and Melbourne (2011) it ignored the trend of Australian players heading overseas.

In hindsight, it was perhaps unwise to add two extra Super Rugby teams at a time when Australian players were beginning to leave our shores en masse. The trickle has become a flood and there is no sign of it abating any time soon.

It is not just the quantity of players leaving, but the quality. It used to be just veteran Wallabies at the end of their Test careers taking rich deals in Europe, but now Wallabies such as Samu Kerevi and Adam Coleman are leaving in the prime of their playing lives.

Australia started Super Rugby in 1996 with three teams and should go back to three teams, but which side would you cut?

It would be inconceivable to cut the Waratahs or the Reds. NSW and Queensland are rugby heartland states. Between them they produce the vast majority of professional players in Australia and have the most corporate and public support, at least when they are performing well.

Australia would have no choice but to cut the Brumbies or the Rebels. For different reasons this would not be ideal either.

Australia needs three highly competitive Super Rugby teams to rekindle interest in the game at the provincial level and to provide a solid platform for the Wallabies, but it also needs to keep the Brumbies and Melbourne.

With two Super Rugby titles in their trophy cabinet, the Brumbies are the most successful Australian team in the history of the competition and their brand is famous around the world, but they are based in a city of just 400,000 people.

It is a mystery how the Brumbies not just continue to survive, but thrive, in a town with such a small population and limited corporate presence.

The Rebels, on the other hand, have a history of spending big, but delivering little. But Melbourne does offer enormous potential to grow the game in a city of five million people.

Instead of cutting the Brumbies or the Rebels, Rugby Australia should look at New Zealand’s Super Rugby franchise model as a possible option to reduce the number of teams.

In Australia we often refer to Kiwi teams as the “Canterbury” Crusaders or the “Auckland” Blues, but these are misnomers. Canterbury and Auckland are just one of several provinces that make up their respective Super Rugby franchises.

For example, the Crusaders franchise represents the regions of Buller, Canterbury, Mid-Canterbury, South Canterbury, Tasman and West Coast, not just Canterbury.

In the same way, the Brumbies and the Rebels could merge to form a new South-East Australian franchise, playing home games in Canberra and Melbourne. The Brumbies’ valuable brand would be retained, while the game could continue to develop in a potentially lucrative, but largely untapped, market in Melbourne.

The axing of the Force has resulted in only incremental improvement in the remaining four Australian Super Rugby teams. The main beneficiary of the Force’s departure have been the Rebels, who got most of their players and their coach, Dave Wessels, and lifted themselves off the bottom of the table.

Another cull is necessary to make all of Australia’s Super Rugby teams competitive. Australia needs at least two teams in the playoffs every year, not just to boost Super Rugby’s profile, but also to help prepare the Wallabies for Test rugby.

It would be sad to see the Brumbies go and a waste to lose a growth market like Melbourne. If Australia follows the New Zealand franchise model, it can have both as well as three highly competitive and marketable Super Rugby teams that will provide the platform for Australian rugby to prosper on and off the field.