Australian rugby has long been in desperate need of a provincial or club competition a level below Super Rugby. The reasons for this are numerous, but the most notable are to bridge the gap between their club rugby and Super Rugby, as well as to broaden the net to ensure that their pool of players continues to grow.
Ideally they need a competition which can rival the popularity and player development bonuses of South Africa’s Currie Cup and New Zealand’s ITM Cup.
One of the major obstacles which they have always faced is the fight for viewership in the face of strong competition from other sporting codes, more specifically Rugby League and Australian Rules Football. The Australian Rugby Union launched the ill-fated Australian Rugby Championship in 2007 and that lasted only one season and was terminated after losing $4mil. It was unsustainable as there was limited sponsorship and the loss was carried by the ARU.
The ARU have decided to have another crack at this very important initiative and have launched the Australian National Rugby Championship, sponsored by Buildcorp. Nine teams will compete in the inaugural season, being:
• Brisbane City
• Queensland Country
• Macquarie University North Harbour Rays
• Sydney Stars
• Greater Sydney Rams
• NSW Country Eagles
• University of Canberra Vikings
• Melbourne Rising
• Perth Spirit
The first game kicks off on the 21st of August, with the Final to be played on the 2nd of November. In terms of playing squads each team is allowed a limited number of Super Rugby players who are not selected to play for the Wallabies in the Rugby Championship, helping to balance the strength of each team. Fans have also been included in a voting process in order to determine what law variations can be applied to this new competition. The most significant variation applied is to the scoring system. A try remains 5 points, but a conversion is increased to 3 points and a penalty decreases from 3 points to 2. It will be interesting to see if this makes any material change to the way the game is played, as this variation was used in South Africa’s Varsity Cup without changing much in terms of attacking mind set. Captains would generally take the 2 points on offer and would only spurn the opportunity of the 2 points if they thought they had a superior lineout and would take the chance to score a try using a driving maul. The law variation did very little in terms of encouraging more running rugby.
A positive innovation comes in at lineout time. If a lineout throw is not straight, but the other team does not compete the throw in, play continues and possession is not turned over. One innovation which I am a little circumspect about though is the 30 second time limit being imposed in feeding the scrum from the time the referee gives the mark. The obvious intent here is to speed up the game, but there should also be a touch of caution regarding trying to set up the scrum too fast at the expense of safety.
All in all though, this is a fantastic development for Australian Rugby and I for one will be watching with keen interest.
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