Aussie Pro Rugby
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@barbarian said in Aussie Pro Rugby:
Been thinking about the general positioning and talk of rugby in Australia.
For all the talk of rugby dying, or being 'back', I actually think we've found our level over the last 5-10 years and it's where we will stay.
We're a second tier rugby nation, on and off the field. There's enough support to sustain a viable Super competition, 6-8 Wallabies games a year and the odd Lions tour or World Cup. We will field competitive rugby sides that may have the odd good spell but will never be dominant.
Within the sporting landscape here, our place is to sit below AFL, NRL and cricket but above basketball, soccer and netball.
It's not super interesting to discuss, but I think that's how it is. And I'm largely OK with it, but it does mean accepting that a World Cup win in my lifetime may be a bit of a long shot.
I suspect you're at a point you always were.
Not exactly second tier, but not consistently top tier.
I reckon you're on a long term par with Ireland, Scotland, Wales. Capable of producing a world beating team (and those world beating teams could last for a few years), but subject to fluctuations.
I reckon NZ, SA, England, France are likely to have less downward fluctuations, generally not as deep nor as prolonged, based on the player base we/they have. Although NZ could be in danger of slipping if too many of our base go overseas (which negatively affects us in multiple ways).
I'm surprised at your assessment of being above soccer though.
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@booboo said in Aussie Pro Rugby:
Although NZ could be in danger of slipping if too many of our base go overseas (which negatively affects us in multiple ways).
I see the same issues with NZ Schools as happened with some areas of the game over here, namely warehousing players and thus destroying smaller outposts by denying them the opportunity to field sides.
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I'd take it even a bit further and say that even if only the NRL did not exist, Australia would be a very big heavy weight in the rugby (union) world.
England took decades to recover from the 1895 split, and Australia (rugby union) has probably never really recovered from 1908.
Australia's success throughout the 80's into the 90's came from the rub off from the superior professionalism of rugby league. Something no other rugby country had the benefit of.
The other rugby union programs have now caught up, and the Aussies have lost that edge.But the RL influence is still there.
I remember Les Kiss as a player. Great little winger. Had a bad knee injury I think, and was never quite the same after that.
And if you'd told me back then that he would coach the Wallabies one day; I'd have said Fuuuuuuck off! -
so reports coming out that the Giteau law is getting scrapped and the Wallabies will be selecting from all over the world.
So that's Super Rugby absolutely fucked now. And us with it.
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@mariner4life said in Aussie Pro Rugby:
so reports coming out that the Giteau law is getting scrapped and the Wallabies will be selecting from all over the world.
So that's Super Rugby absolutely fucked now. And us with it.
Seen this before, it often ends up like the below. I know in theory Rugby has better international windows, but those boys were flying out leaving monday/tuesday from the UK, playing at the weekend and then flying home straight afterwards. Rugby should have longer windows, but it's going to suck I reckon.
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i don't understand how South Africa and now Aus do it when our stupid Rugby Championship runs for like 3 months, well outside "windows"
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@booboo said in Aussie Pro Rugby:
@barbarian said in Aussie Pro Rugby:
Been thinking about the general positioning and talk of rugby in Australia.
For all the talk of rugby dying, or being 'back', I actually think we've found our level over the last 5-10 years and it's where we will stay.
We're a second tier rugby nation, on and off the field. There's enough support to sustain a viable Super competition, 6-8 Wallabies games a year and the odd Lions tour or World Cup. We will field competitive rugby sides that may have the odd good spell but will never be dominant.
Within the sporting landscape here, our place is to sit below AFL, NRL and cricket but above basketball, soccer and netball.
It's not super interesting to discuss, but I think that's how it is. And I'm largely OK with it, but it does mean accepting that a World Cup win in my lifetime may be a bit of a long shot.
I'm surprised at your assessment of being above soccer though.
Super Rugby is more popular than the A-League. While the Socceroos and Matildas capture the national attention every four years (moreso than Union ever does), it’s pretty barren outside of that.
Rugby has a reliable annual schedule of games against traditional rivals. Soccer is erratic, games at odd intervals against tinpot Central Asian nations.
The soccer guys would be looking at the Lions series with green eyed envy. They’d love something like that. It would fill stadiums the same way. But it’s just not possible.
Which is a long way of saying soccer could be more popular than rugby if things were a certain way. But they won’t ever be like that.
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If that's what RA decide, they've killed rugby domestically. Who'd go see their SR team devoid of recognised Wallabies getting trounced?
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@barbarian yeah, i think there will always be some merit to those playing well localling
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@mariner4life said in Aussie Pro Rugby:
i don't understand how South Africa and now Aus do it when our stupid Rugby Championship runs for like 3 months, well outside "windows"
There's a window specially for the TRC, just like there is for the Six Nations.
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@booboo said in Aussie Pro Rugby:
@barbarian said in Aussie Pro Rugby:
Been thinking about the general positioning and talk of rugby in Australia.
For all the talk of rugby dying, or being 'back', I actually think we've found our level over the last 5-10 years and it's where we will stay.
We're a second tier rugby nation, on and off the field. There's enough support to sustain a viable Super competition, 6-8 Wallabies games a year and the odd Lions tour or World Cup. We will field competitive rugby sides that may have the odd good spell but will never be dominant.
Within the sporting landscape here, our place is to sit below AFL, NRL and cricket but above basketball, soccer and netball.
It's not super interesting to discuss, but I think that's how it is. And I'm largely OK with it, but it does mean accepting that a World Cup win in my lifetime may be a bit of a long shot.
I suspect you're at a point you always were.
Not exactly second tier, but not consistently top tier.
I reckon you're on a long term par with Ireland, Scotland, Wales. Capable of producing a world beating team (and those world beating teams could last for a few years), but subject to fluctuations.
I reckon NZ, SA, England, France are likely to have less downward fluctuations, generally not as deep nor as prolonged, based on the player base we/they have. Although NZ could be in danger of slipping if too many of our base go overseas (which negatively affects us in multiple ways).
I'm surprised at your assessment of being above soccer though.
I actually think Scotland are in trouble longterm, they've a fraction of the talent coming through at U20 level (Ireland aren't necessarily much better) and have likely been overtaken at that level by Italy, Georgia, and possibly Spain. They'll be relying hugely on their massive overseas diaspora.
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@barbarian said in Aussie Pro Rugby:
@booboo said in Aussie Pro Rugby:
@barbarian said in Aussie Pro Rugby:
Been thinking about the general positioning and talk of rugby in Australia.
For all the talk of rugby dying, or being 'back', I actually think we've found our level over the last 5-10 years and it's where we will stay.
We're a second tier rugby nation, on and off the field. There's enough support to sustain a viable Super competition, 6-8 Wallabies games a year and the odd Lions tour or World Cup. We will field competitive rugby sides that may have the odd good spell but will never be dominant.
Within the sporting landscape here, our place is to sit below AFL, NRL and cricket but above basketball, soccer and netball.
It's not super interesting to discuss, but I think that's how it is. And I'm largely OK with it, but it does mean accepting that a World Cup win in my lifetime may be a bit of a long shot.
I'm surprised at your assessment of being above soccer though.
Super Rugby is more popular than the A-League. While the Socceroos and Matildas capture the national attention every four years (moreso than Union ever does), it’s pretty barren outside of that.
Rugby has a reliable annual schedule of games against traditional rivals. Soccer is erratic, games at odd intervals against tinpot Central Asian nations.
The soccer guys would be looking at the Lions series with green eyed envy. They’d love something like that. It would fill stadiums the same way. But it’s just not possible.
Which is a long way of saying soccer could be more popular than rugby if things were a certain way. But they won’t ever be like that.
Its the folly of the International Football game tbh, not a single nation that'd not look on in envy at the Lions tour, traditional rivals just rarely play out, with most games outside of qualifiers being poorly attended friendlies.
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@antipodean said in Aussie Pro Rugby:
If that's what RA decide, they've killed rugby domestically. Who'd go see their SR team devoid of recognised Wallabies getting trounced?
Yeah it's a tough position to be in. They're already clearly competitive with a primarily domestic base, so with the addition of a handful of topline overseas based players ala SA who the Wallabies coaching group are in constant contact with re nutrition, S&C etc, might actually be enough to put them back into regularly competing within the top four. Perhaps having an increased level of success in the lead in to the World Cup, might create greater fanfare domestically.
With that being said, SA are in a far more convenient timezone, and don't have a behemoth like the NRL to worry about. Completely different circumstances.
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@hikastags said in Aussie Pro Rugby:
I’m not sure. Just hoping there isn’t a big exodus over the next couple of years.
I think it’ll be good where it can stop the likes of France capping the Aus teenagers that they’ve poached (Heinz Lemoto, Visesio Kite, Hopo Leota, etc.)
Yep, bring in the young European based Aus players during Autumn Internationals, and Japan based players during July window, and pick your best available for TRC, probably be the best approach.
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With Rugby Australia deciding to scrap the Giteau Law, I wanted to take a quick look at what can reasonably be expected to happen to the Australian SRP teams. There’s a pretty obvious precedent, South Africa scrapping their own restrictions on overseas selection in 2018 with the appointment of Rassie Erasmus.
Of course, there are some considerable differences between the two cases: the different status of rugby in South Africa and Australia, the South African shift in competitions and hemispheres in 2020, the economic collapse of the rugby market after Covid, you can go on for a while. I’m going to ignore all of this (for now), and just focus on what concretely happened in terms of player movement in South African rugby after 2018 and what this potentially means for Australian rugby in 2025 and beyond.
Returning to 2018
This is how the different South African franchises looked in the 2018 SR season, as far as Springboks-per-team was concerned.
It’s remarkable how evenly spread the distribution of Springboks was, at the time, each team having between 11 and 15 Boks available to them. Of course, there was still a considerable degree of difference in terms of quality and experience – Jamba Ulengo (1 cap) at the Bulls against someone like Frans Malherbe at the Stormers – but still, a considerable depth of talent and pedigree in each team.
So how did Rassie’s opening of the market impact this Springbok-presence at the South African franchises? Before we can look at the player transfers for the 2019 season, we need to look at how the market was before these restrictions were lifted.
For the 2017-18 season, 22 players had left their South African teams for an overseas club.
Of those 22 players, 10 had played for the Springboks, including some relatively high-profile names such as Jan Serfontein (Bulls to Montpellier) and Pat Lambie (Sharks to Racing 92). But both Serfontein and Lambie remained eligible for the Boks due to the 30-cap rule. Fringe Boks, however, like Faf de Klerk (Lions to Sale Sharks, 11 caps) and Cobus Reinach (Sharks to Northampton Saints, 10 caps) made themselves willingly ineligible, at the time, by moving overseas.
So, despite the restrictions, there was still plenty of movement among players for overseas contracts, including fringe Boks. With SA Rugby’s decision to scrap the limitations on overseas selection, players like de Klerk and Reinach became eligible again from 2018 onwards. So what happened in the first summer after these limitations were done away with?
In this first summer of the open market, the numbers remained remarkably consistent, with 20 players moving from South Africa to overseas teams, only 6 Boks leaving the Republic. Furthermore, most of these leaving Boks weren’t particularly high profile ones: Ruan Dreyer (Lions to Gloucester), Jaco Kriel (Lions to Gloucester), Rohan Janse van Rensburg (Lions to Sale Sharks), Nizaam Carr (Stormers to Wasps), and Raymond Rhule (Stormers to Grenoble). Only one – Franco Mostert to Gloucester – would be considered a crucial part of the Springboks, and his departure was largely influenced by Johan Ackermann going to Gloucester and taking a raft of Lions players with him.
This perhaps shouldn’t come as a surprise, since the changes to the eligibility-criteria were announced in May of 2018, when most players will have already signed their contract for next season. This should then be seen as a continuation of the market-profile of the 30-cap era, where some Boks decide to go overseas, as well as many fringe club players, looking for opportunities abroad.
The floodgates open
It was only in the next season that the new reality would hit, and boy, would it hit hard. For the 2019-2020 season, no less than 47 (!) players would leave South African shores for an overseas team. Of those 47, no less than 20 would be Springboks. (Sidenote: looking back, I think this mass exodus largely impacted Mark Robinson’s thinking in not particularly trying to retain the South African teams in Super Rugby. A short-sighted decision, perhaps.)
And these were not just any Boks, these were crucial players to the 2019 World Cup win: Lood de Jager (Sale Sharks), RG Snyman (Honda Heat), Duane Vermeulen (Kubota Spears), Handré Pollard (Montpellier), Jesse Kriel (Canon Eagles). And that’s just from the Bulls. Marx (NTT Shining Arcs), Etzebeth (Toulon), de Allende (Panasonic Wild Knights), they would all leave for more profitable overseas deals.
So the Australians can expect, not this summer, but the next one to be absolutely brutal, with European and Japanese teams strongly targeting top Australian talent, as well as this talent willing to grab better deals.
At the same time, players at the fringes of national selection also started to look for overseas deals, as they were no longer tied to the Springbok 30-cap rule. Talented players who created depth in the South African teams like Hanro Liebenberg (Leicester Tigers) and Jacques Vermeulen (Exeter Chiefs) also went to overseas teams, where they would form the backbone of Premiership contenders, instead of staying in South Africa, hoping for a Bok call-up.
2020-21: a slowing market
Thankfully perhaps, the player trajectory and the market would once again start to shift in the next season, meaning that there wasn’t an endless drain of talent. Instead, if we look at the player movements of the next few seasons, both the numbers of Boks and non-Boks going overseas would not reach the levels of 2019-20 again, returning rather to the levels of before 2018 (around 15 to 25 players leaving annually).
A large part of this has to do, of course, with the Covid-pandemic which ruined teams’ finances, with the effects of this market collapse still being felt today. A similar thing will, hopefully, not happen for the Australian case. But there were other factors which impacted this trend as well, which could also apply to Australian rugby.
One of these factors was the reality of having active internationals on the club’s books. As overseas teams became more and more aware that these Springboks would be away for a long time during the year – July and November Internationals, the Rugby Championship – their demand drastically dropped in the next few seasons. French teams especially, who have high requirements of their players in the nearly year-long Top 14, lost much of their appetite for high-profile South African players, as they would be gone for a long time as well as not perform (e.g. Etzebeth at Toulon and Kolisi at Racing 92) in the same way for their clubs as they did for the Springboks.
Another factor was private investment in South African rugby at home as well. With SA Rugby more open to the mechanisms of the open market, there also appeared more opportunities for private investment in South Africa itself, with rich benefactors and wealthy investment groups becoming large stakeholders at both the Bulls (Johann Rupert and Patrice Motsepe) and the Sharks (MVM Holdings). Players like Etzebeth, Kolisi, Esterhuizen and le Roux were brought back to the Republic, where their playing time was more carefully monitored and expectations weren’t quite as rigorous as they were overseas.
Interestingly then, the opening of the market didn’t necessarily lead to the mass exodus of Springboks as first feared. To the contrary, as the below table shows, there are actually more Springboks playing for South African teams in 2025 (59 players) than there were in 2018 (55 players).
Part of this is, of course, Rassie Erasmus’ policy of spreading his caps, which means that a lot more players get capped these days than before. But it also shows that (1) the overseas market doesn’t have a massive and endless appetite for internationally active players (emphasis on active), and (2) private investment can combat overseas market forces.
As a sidenote, comparing 2018 to 2025, it is interesting to see how the equal distribution of Springboks has vanished. Instead, we see the brutal mechanics of the open market at play, with a team like the Lions, with no private investment, lagging far behind the other teams, being instead forced to heavily invest in youth while typically losing their best players to either overseas teams or other South African franchises.
Lessons for Rugby Australia
So there are a few massively important lessons for the Wallabies and Rugby Australia here, I think. First of all, if the limitations on eligibility are scrapped, it is imperative that the Wallabies actually select from overseas. You have to show overseas clubs that you are going to use these players and you will enforce World Rugby regulations in order to do so. This has the effect of devaluing top Australian players, which will make sure that not all international-quality players are actually playing overseas.If, however, these scrapped criteria are just talk, then you’ll get the worst of both worlds: there will be no downside whatsoever to buying top Australian talent, which will mean that the Super Rugby Pacific-competition will haemorrhage both established Test stars as well as fringe talent, with no immediate way of getting either a good Test team or a talent-rich local competition. You have to have, paradoxically, a considerable cohort of overseas players in the Wallabies for your local competition to survive.
And secondly, private investment must be allowed and even encouraged. By doing this, you open up another avenue through which Australian players can eventually return home, should they wish, while making the local SR-teams more financially robust as well. There are plenty of rich benefactors in Australia who love their union; RA should tap into that resource as much as possible in order to make their own market positioning competitive.
South African Rugby has shown that opening up your selection policies can work but this also means that you open yourself up to the cold mechanisms of open market capitalism. There is no point in scrapping the eligibility-criteria and then just lightly dabbling your feet in the water. Rugby Australia have made their decision; now it is time to take the deep plunge.
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