As the Super Rugby competition in the south competes in an environment of fierce meritocracy, in the north it is impossible to take the Champions Cup Round of 16 seriously when teams with a 25 per cent winning record are granted a shot at knockout rugby and a place in the last eight.
We all have to wait another week for the quarter-finals weekend before the real Champions Cup commences.
The one enjoyable aspect of this weekend that will bring ironic smiles to Leinster faces will be when Munster take on La Rochelle. Under the heading of “What goes around comes around”, the Red Army arrive at the beautiful Atlantic town in the jaws of a self-made dilemma.
After several years of faithfully following the mantra “Anyone But Leinster”, hundreds of the Munster faithful proudly purchased La Rochelle jerseys to support the Ronan O’Gara-coached French side against the dreaded D4 mob in past knockout games.
There will be no confusion over which jersey to wear this weekend.
In the south the Super Rugby table has placed a smile on the faces of those who took long odds and bet on the Wallabies upsetting the Lions.
Those who disrespected the Wallabies and called for the tour Down Under to be relocated to South Africa might be grimacing into their crystal ball, because at the end of Super Rugby’s sixth round the Queensland Reds are sitting at the pinnacle of the table and all four Australian teams are in the top six.
Remarkably, the Chiefs and Crusaders are the only Kiwi teams among the top six, prompting calls from wags in Australia for the next Lions tour to New Zealand to be relocated to Australia for a more competitive series.
The welcome and significant lift in standards of the Australian Super Rugby teams is due to Rugby Australia’s senior leadership finally getting their act together on many fronts.
The financially stricken governing body has recently signed a TV deal that has provided Rugby Australia with a viable pathway to economic recovery and organisational stability from the utter chaos of the past.
Those wishing to put rugby in the north behind a TV paywall would do well to use Australian rugby as a case study following the connection between TV rights, bums on seats, eyes on sets, participation levels and the long-term revenue streams across two decades.
Amid the turmoil that ushered in professionalism in 1996, all rugby in the south immediately went behind a paywall. In the short term, there is no doubt the decision saved the game. Revenue flowed in from the TV rights, while the numbers of eyes on sets and bums on seats were solid.
Over time, every one of those metrics drastically decreased. After two decades of Australian rugby being blocked from the wider public’s view behind a paywall, financial catastrophe hit the game as crowd numbers and sponsors evaporated along with participation numbers.
In 2021, Rugby Australia made the correct decision to take the game out from behind a paywall and sign a three-year, $150 million deal.
Compared with the other Australian oval ball codes of AFL and Rugby League, this was a far smaller contract with free to air.
But over the past three seasons, attendances at matches, viewership figures and revenues have all climbed.
In February, Rugby Australia signed a new five year, $210 million free-to-air TV deal with a bonus structure of up to $30 million in incentives for successful performances by the Wallabies and Super Rugby teams.
In the short term, paywalls do what they say on the label. They pay. But farther down the road it is left to the governing bodies of the future to pick up the pieces because paywalls do not work for the long-term good of any sport.
As in Ireland, the playing pool in Oz is shallow. In 2024, Rugby Australia made the painful but necessary decision to cut the financially unviable Melbourne Rebels franchise. Australia’s high-performance system is not producing enough quality players to sustain five competitive Super clubs. With the playing talent now concentrated in four Super Rugby teams, the game in Oz is maximising its limited playing resources.
Ireland has played a considerable part in another essential area of Australian rugby’s road to revival. High-quality coaches have been appointed to leadership roles with the Wallabies and in Super Rugby.
Joe Schmidt is at the helm of the Wallabies, Les Kiss is leading Queensland, Stephen Larkham heads the Brumbies, and Laurie Fisher is the Wallabies assistant coach. All with Irish coaching legacies.
After a season with Leicester, Dan McKellar, who spent time as a player with Wicklow, has had an immediate effect as head coach of the Waratahs. At their last home match in Sydney, where the Waratahs defeated the Brumbies, the home crowd was more than 20,000 for the first time in more than a decade.
If the Wallabies have all their top line players injury free and available, they will put out a highly-competitive outfit against the Lions. This is because for the first time in 20 years, Australian rugby appears to be at the beginning of a co-ordinated, organisation-wide plan that is preparing this cohort of Australian players within a highly competitive Super Rugby environment.
The cream of the four Super franchises will challenge the Lions in a manner that was unimaginable at the end of the last World Cup.
There is one other major factor supporting this generation of Wallabies. On their shift, as stewards of the famous gold jersey, they have a responsibility far greater than lifting the Tom Richards Trophy for winning the series against the Lions.
They are striving to compete inside a rigorous meritocracy to revive the heart and soul of the game in Australia. While this is a heavy burden for a young team to carry, it is also the greatest motivating opportunity that any player could dream of in a sporting lifetime.
