
sharkbok
Captain23,294 posts

sharkbokCaptain23,294 posts
28 Jul 2014, 20:23#2
Beast is the latest Springbok to announce that 2015 will be his last season in South Africa.
The French league is becoming like the Spanish Football league and English Football league in that it imports players from other countries, an then sells the TV broadcast rights back to the fans of the country from where the players come from.
The SuperXV (soon to be non-super XXXXXX), is just diluting the game in South Africa, where their is no way that we can field 6 teams with so many players leaving for France.
It seems that the administration of rugby in the Southern Hemisphere is crap because the Northern Hemisphere can make more profit from rugby. SANZAR may need to be reviewed to see if it is the most efficient body to take Southern Hemishpere rugby forward.
Their is the cashed strapped Australian Rugby union who recently announced the past executives had taken most of the profit as payout bonuses, then their is New Zealand who have a small population except for the sheep and their is South Africa (SARU is hardly an efficient business).
The new SuperX format sounds like a joke in that their are 2 divisions in South Africa, one of which is playing only New Zealand sides and the other only Australian sides.
Their is also increased pressure of transformation selection each year within South Africa which may result in teams becoming weaker.
Some of the teams that will be playing have not even been decided yet- with some talk about Singapore suddenly being apart of the tournament. It seems that Singapore and also an Argentian team is going to be in one or both conferences- so which ever SA teams get that travel schedule- what a joke.
Japan would be the logical choice to expand as they have money. The broadcast rights for the new format have allready been sold it seems, but could be a shambles.
Unless their is change for the better, the SuperX could decline as a product. The decreased viewership will make the clubs poorer and more players will leave to France etc- not just a majority of SA players.
Given that many of the best players are from OZ/SA/N, it will be a shambles if in 5 years many of the top players are playing in France. It will force all 3 countries to select internationals that are playing club rugby in other countries.
28 Jul 2014, 21:06#3
Only thing is, Sharkbok, that France has already began their own kind of little progressive quota system some time ago. The different player agents have obviously caught on, hence the recruitment of younger and younger players. At this stage 55% of the squads has to be JIFF players, i.e. players who have been playing in a French club's academy for at least three years prior to turning 21 or is licensed to play in France for five years. That has already been in place for some time.
At this stage the new sanction of a fine for clubs who fail to field at least 12 JIFFs in the match-day team. From 2016/17 it will be 14 JIFFs in the match-day team.
Having said that, the clubs are already busy finding ways to deal with the above. It is interesting that they have signed less senior players for the 2014/5 season but it is expected that by 2015/6 it will almost be business as usual.
Toulon, for instance has signed less "older" players this year, in anticipation of the signing of such players in the next season. The names of Richie McCaw, Dan Carter, Ma'a Nonu and SBW are among the ones that are mentioned. FFS, imagine myself supporting a team with McCaw, Nonu and SBW. Then again, imagine myself, Cloudy, etc supporting the same team.
These are the number of new foreign players signed by French clubs for 2014/15:
Grenoble: 6. Montpellier: 5. La Rochelle:
4. Toulon, Oyonnax, Lyon & Clermont: 3. Brive, Toulouse & Racing
Metro: 2. Stade Francais: 1. Bayonne, Castres & Bordeaux-Begles: 0.
And then the surprise a few friends of mine who like to think that France are only "draining" South African Rugby, these are the numbers of foreigners signed by French clubs by home country.
New Zealand: 11. South Africa: 8. Australia: 6. Wales: 2. Fiji: 2. England: 2. Ireland: 1. Italy: 1. Fiji: 1.
The number of new signings by position:
Props: 5. Hookers: 2. Second rows: 6. Back rows: 4. Scrum-halves: 1. Fly-halves: 3. Wingers: 5. Centres: 4. Full-backs: 4.
I think that you could have a point when you say that it won't be long before NZ and Aus might start looking at their players playing abroad.
30 Jul 2014, 02:19#4
This is the major topic in aussie rugby atm.
ARU is broke and best players can earn 5x the money in france england or japan. Problem is that this then makes them ineligible for wallaby selection.
Given the very diluted playing pool already in Australia this is going to become a bigger problem my feeling is this may be the last year of decent depth in rugby in Australia. Now even wing positions getting a bit desperate....
I think the only way forward is create a more exciting domestic / tran tasman? Comp to generstd bigger crowds and revenues and keep the best players here. Australian tv rights for s15 arent very valuable to mainstream media because of time zone and lack of interest in rugby in general.
A lesson from soccer world cup though - note the teams that really performed vs teams that flopped...? England spain and italy all have the best soccer comps in the world but all failured... the teams with strong domestic comps thrived germany netherlands...