Super Rugby - The Future
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I take on board what is being said about the pro domestic structure.
But I'm of the opinion that at this level NZ is never going to have the financials to compete with the rest of the rugby world, and be able to retain this level of player.It is at the next level, the national team, that is absolutely critical.
NZ is competitive financially at the international level, and should be able to retain most of the players they really want.They just have to make the right picks of the players that are continually coming thru.
Remembering that they always have the first pick of those players.
So long as the domestic structure is helping ID the players for the NT, I dont care what it looks like.
Because whatever that structure is, it is never going to amount to much.
185G is already maxing it, which ever way they do it.As for those who don't make it into the NT stream . . . c'est la vie . . . do what all other kiwis who want to make a quid do . . . join the exodus.
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@mohikamo i find athat attitude incredibly short sighted for a number of reasons.
The biggest to me is, the better professional structures appear to be making a number of our "oh not good enough see ya champ" players better than we could. And if this is true, then can we actually say we are getting the pick of the players? or are we only getting the pick of the ones that operate a certain way.
Also, the financials might make a little more sense if we had better product to sell.
All we are doing at the moment is guaranteeing tenure to a few selected players and allowing everyone else to just fuck off. Watch how that works in 2028 when every single test capped AB 10 has left at the end of 2027 because we have picked the same rotation of 3 blokes for the past 13 years.
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Not short sighted, think I look at it a bit more "realistically."
When I look at the financials, I look at the NZ economy, and the amount of revenue that could be possibly screwed out of it to generate enough for a top class domestic rugby comp.
And I dont see it being able to sustain anything more than it does now.
In fact, I think it will be doing well to maintain what it already does.I look at the national team as "the rugby club" in NZ.
The NT is the rugby team in NZ that is financially competitive, able to tap in to the world economy.
A huge amount of the revenue that that NT "club" generates comes from overseas, something that I dont think the domestic rugby teams are ever going to be able to do.
It didn't happen in the past, when the sports environment was probably a bit more conducive.
With the loss of SA and the financial collapse of Aus rugby, not guna happen in the future.The best that can be hoped for is what happens now.
The revenue generated by the NT "club" sudsidising the pay of that 185G SR player.The performance of the NT is absolutely critical for NZ rugby.
It's the vehicle for NZ rugby to get money, lots of it.
And to maintain its excellence, they need to ensure that they get the best NZ players.For example the BB/RM thing.
They had a choice about who was going to get the max NT 10 contract, they chose BB, so RM was exodused.
Seems like they made the wrong choice, cant afford to be doing that sort of thing.I can remember when NZ domestic rugby was a powerhouse, the best in the world.
Of course there were no 185G players in those days. Lucky to get petrol money.
It was great, loved it.
I'm enough of a realist to know that those days are gone, for good.
We may be able to play around the edges of it a bit, but that is it.Just shows that not everything about pro rugby is good; we had great dom rugby, now we have not so great.
So long as the NT is great, we'll be ok, the rest of NZ rugby being just for fun.
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so yep, short sighted.
For all that to work you have to start selecting from overseas or your little NT cash cow loses relevance real fucking quick.
Next point, there will be four games of professional rugby played in NZ for the 2nd semester of this year. Four. Only one of those will occur after mid-July.
The NRL is about to add two more teams and have an enormous budget. They will be next in to the ranks of our young players. $185k? That's a bottom of the roster guy. Your option is making the NRL pathway look way better for a kid from not just South Auckland, but almost certainly Christchurch at some point in the next 10 years.
Not only short sighted, but defeatist.
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@mariner4life said in Exodus:
The NRL is about to add two more teams and have an enormous budget.
You summed it all up right there.
The NT is already selecting players from overseas, "in the sabbatical way."
Just off the top of my head; JB is back, RM is coming in; Savea and Ioane are playing overseas right now, and will be back . . . more and more of this sort of thing in the future.The second half of the year is when the main NZ pro rugby team actually make the money that pays for all the rest.
And the majority of that money is not coming from NZ sources.
What happens in NZ during that time is not important.
Let's play a quaint little NPC comp.NZ/Aus rugby cannot compete with the NRL, that horse has well and truly bolted.
30 years ago I would have said they could, but not anymore.
Rugby league was ripe for the picking in the 90s.
Pains me that it didn't happen.Not defeatist.
I am saying that that war is over.
NZ/Aus rugby (union) dont have the financial muscle to fight back, in any meaningful way.
The NRL is now in the process of mopping up.
A town like Chch will be part of that process for sure.
NRL pathway already does look pretty good for any Kiwi kid, I'm thinking.
Fuck, a development player from Nelson College (oldest rugby union team in NZ) just went to league.But . . . the AB team can compete with the NRL.
They will be fine (so long as they keep winning).
The problem being they are only one team.
So if all the other players not on the AB books want to make top dollar . . . they are guna need to exodus themselves.
Like a million other kiwis. -
we've tried nothing and we are all out of ideas
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Apparently ABs, Super players and the Black ferns are getting a pay increase next year. I can only assume it's a crap increase if all these players are still leaving...
One of my good mates plays at a shit club in the URC and gets around €200k (400k NZD). Compared to the 185k players are paid here, which is only for the top players, it's a no-brainer financially for mid-tier players to leave if they aren't making ABs.
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@hikastags said in Exodus:
Apparently ABs, Super players and the Black ferns are getting a pay increase next year. I can only assume it's a crap increase if all these players are still leaving...
One of my good mates plays at a shit club in the URC and gets around €200k (400k NZD). Compared to the 185k players are paid here, which is only for the top players, it's a no-brainer financially for mid-tier players to leave if they aren't making ABs.
Well there you have it. Lets us Taina Fox-Matamua, who was a bit part player for Ta$man who ended up spending a few seasons at Zebre in the URC. He was nowhere near Super Rugby level yet if he can demand that sort of money (in that ballpark), then it's not only mid tier players that are going to be targetted by overseas clubs, we'll end up with fringe NPC players taking up super rugby spots going forward like we're already seeing happen (Mason Tupaea and Hamdahn Tuipulotu at the Blues being an example of that last season). This isn't even taking into account the MLR which is diluting the depth in this country.
So yes, our contract model is broken and as @mariner4life pointed out, the NPC is part of the problem (sadly).
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@African-Monkey said in Exodus:
@hikastags said in Exodus:
Apparently ABs, Super players and the Black ferns are getting a pay increase next year. I can only assume it's a crap increase if all these players are still leaving...
One of my good mates plays at a shit club in the URC and gets around €200k (400k NZD). Compared to the 185k players are paid here, which is only for the top players, it's a no-brainer financially for mid-tier players to leave if they aren't making ABs.
Well there you have it. Lets us Taina Fox-Matamua, who was a bit part player for Ta$man who ended up spending a few seasons at Zebre in the URC. He was nowhere near Super Rugby level yet if he can demand that sort of money (in that ballpark), then it's not only mid tier players that are going to be targetted by overseas clubs, we'll end up with fringe NPC players taking up super rugby spots going forward like we're already seeing happen (Mason Tupaea and Hamdahn Tuipulotu at the Blues being an example of that last season). This isn't even taking into account the MLR which is diluting the depth in this country.
So yes, our contract model is broken and as @mariner4life pointed out, the NPC is part of the problem (sadly).
Hamdahn isn't super standard, but he was also used as a fourth / fifth choice due to an injury crisis. I'll add there's only a handful of super standard kiwi props playing overseas, Ainsley and Kaivelata? Bit rough on Tupaea by the way, he's fine as a third option, in this case he's a fourth option.
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@mariner4life said in Exodus:
Also, the financials might make a little more sense if we had better product to sell.
That's a point a lot of people don't understand. They keep speaking like any changes will just shuffle the same amount of cash around. There's ways of making a much more compelling competition which would increase the revenue
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@WoodysRFC said in Exodus:
@African-Monkey said in Exodus:
@hikastags said in Exodus:
Apparently ABs, Super players and the Black ferns are getting a pay increase next year. I can only assume it's a crap increase if all these players are still leaving...
One of my good mates plays at a shit club in the URC and gets around €200k (400k NZD). Compared to the 185k players are paid here, which is only for the top players, it's a no-brainer financially for mid-tier players to leave if they aren't making ABs.
Well there you have it. Lets us Taina Fox-Matamua, who was a bit part player for Ta$man who ended up spending a few seasons at Zebre in the URC. He was nowhere near Super Rugby level yet if he can demand that sort of money (in that ballpark), then it's not only mid tier players that are going to be targetted by overseas clubs, we'll end up with fringe NPC players taking up super rugby spots going forward like we're already seeing happen (Mason Tupaea and Hamdahn Tuipulotu at the Blues being an example of that last season). This isn't even taking into account the MLR which is diluting the depth in this country.
So yes, our contract model is broken and as @mariner4life pointed out, the NPC is part of the problem (sadly).
Hamdahn isn't super standard, but he was also used as a fourth / fifth choice due to an injury crisis. I'll add there's only a handful of super standard kiwi props playing overseas, Ainsley and Kaivelata? Bit rough on Tupaea by the way, he's fine as a third option, in this case he's a fourth option.
But that's my point, that guys like Hamdahn Tuipulotu are now this close to Super Rugby selection when he couldn't even crack the Auckland side and it's by no means a dig at Mason Tupaea, but he ended up playing about 8 games for the Blues last season, over half the regular season games when he wasm't even an established NPC player.
This will continue to happen going forward under our current model and these types of players are only gonna end up overseas themselves after a year or 2 as they know they've gone further than they thought they would have.
I remember when they were on the paddock when we played the Crusaders and lost late because of the scrum which was hammered by Fletcher Newell. People were waxing lyrical about how amazing Fletcher Newell was, but I was more concerned about the standard of props he was coming up against, and sure enough, he wasn't dominating anywhere near as much at the very top level of international rugby. Maybe our ABs are being ill advised as to how good they really are due to our domestic comp getting weaker and weaker?
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That's a point a lot of people don't understand. They keep speaking like any changes will just shuffle the same amount of cash around. There's ways of making a much more compelling competition which would increase the revenue
One thing I think NZR has really got its head around, is the financials.
If there is any spare revenue floating around in the NZ economy, they'll be on to it in a flash.
Looks like NZR have kinda written off domestic pro rugby.
If there was any possibility of making a meaningful change, they'd have done it.
It is a just a drain on their line.It was compelling in olden times; 40 or 50,000 at a Ranfurly shield game; world class players all over the field . . . great days.
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Professional rugby in NZ is essentially made up of three groups. All Blacks, fringe All Blacks and U26s.
The U26s either become established and push to the AB/fringe level or they go overseas. The timing of going overseas will also likely match the OEs of their non-rugby playing mates.
The ABs get paid huge salaries, so it isn't a major sacrafice to stay in NZ financially.
Living in Italy for a Super squad member (squaddie 28) would be much more enticing than splitting your time between New Plymouth/Invercargill and Dunedin/Hamilton.
We should be expecting to see fringe guys leave each year who have given it a shot ans just haven't quite made it.
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So, what's the solution?
We're basically a vertically integrated company with three divisions - two of which run at a loss.
What can you do? One solution would be to sell off the loss makers to someone who can run them better, but lock them into a supply agreement.
Could we do this?
Well, maybe we could can Super rugby and convince the more wealthy Japanese to turn their League 1 into a version of the IPL where they have access to the best NZ and Oz players from January to June.
They get a much stronger competition and we get to shed a loss-making part of our development programme while still getting our players involved in good quality rugby - at probably higher salaries. And, as fans, we got to align ourselves with Wild Knights, Brave Lupus, etc....
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They get a much stronger competition and we get to shed a loss-making part of our development programme while still getting our players involved in good quality rugby - at probably higher salaries. And, as fans, we got to align ourselves with Wild Knights, Brave Lupus, etc....
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@mariner4life I think it was Chris Pringle who, when some Aussie in the crowd called him a sheep shagger replied, "Don't knock it till you've tried it".
If the problem is that we haven't got enough cash and there's no hope of making more ourselves from our non-internationals, we've probably got to look a bit further outside the box.
I'll tell you one of the things that worried me the most last year.
Remember the good old days when NZ and Fiji shared the rugby sevens crown - if we didn't win, they did - pretty much.
Last year we came seventh - miles behind Argentina - and well behind fucking Spain!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024–25_SVNS
Our decline is happening pretty much across the board.
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look, while i applaud the outside the box thinking, this isn't like soccer where it's gonna be rugby and nothing else. if NZ's best players spend most of the year outside the country, and play in NZ 4-6 times a year, then you are just laying down, lubing up, and spreading your cheeks for the NRL.
The Kiwis would be fucking good though
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The lengths people will go to to keep the NPC.
This is it.
Having 20 semi professional/professional teams across two competitions is stupid.
We will always export rugby players. What is disappointing is that we spend so much time developing players and some overseas union gets the benefits of our hard work.
