Huzzah! Pinch yourself. Pigs are flying (swine flu, geddit).

Yes John O’Neill was reported in The Australian as saying that a good broadcast deal for the new Super 15 tournament could mean Australia can get a national club competition up and running again.

The Saviour reckons that this time it needs to be done on the smell of an oily rag (the one and only Australian Rugby Championship (ARC) in 2007 lost $4.7 million bucks. So oily rag is probably a fair call. There were a few things that massively added to the cost of the ARC; the fact the ARU paid the ABC to show it, costs of flying to Perth, setting up a Melbourne side with no real existing rugby infrastructure (no Super franchise or Premier club rugby ‘feeder’ teams like in Sydney and Brissy), and of course general flights and accomodation.

The general murmurs around rugby circles is that a new ARC should disclude any Perth team to save cash. While it will save some dough it would be a step back for developing support in Perth and a kick in the teeth for Perth rugby fans. Rugby has made some headway there with a Test every year and a Super franchise, chopping them out of a new ARC would be insulting. Also what about all the Western Force players that don’t make the Wallabies squad? Some will come back to the East but we can’t expect blokes to live half the year in Perth and half on the eastern seaboard.

Either way, John O’Neill, an avid reader of The Sideline Eye (haha) this is for you. We’re so happy you’re talking about re-introducing the ARC we’ve decided a few ways to do it and get close to breaking even.

Melbourne – placing a Super franchise in Melbourne means that a Melbourne ARC team will not be such a financial burden as it was last time around (the infrastructure will be there). Unlike last time where basically the entire playing roster and coaching staff had to re-locate their costing a heap.

North Sydney team over Central Coast – it was good that the ARC looked after the disenfranchised Central Coast in the form of ARC champions the Central Coast Rays. However this added greatly to the costs, the Rays were a combination side of sides on the north side of the bridge so instead of the Central Coast base them on the North Shore / Northern Beaches. (How you could not have a side properly representing the North Shore / Beaches in the first place is beyond Wally but more on that later).                              

TV deal – the standard of the last ARC was good and good enough for a broadcaster to want to show it (and not pay them to show it). This will be helped by making the scheduling of matches more TV friendly; Friday night game on FoxSports (to run against Nine’s Friday night footy), the usual Saturday afternoon game but on FoxSports (no league on Sat arvo so they’d like something to show live) and Sunday afternoon on ABC or OneHD, Channel 10. The final game wouldn’t be televised and the game can be played whenever the home side wants.

Accomodation – sorry but this has to be semi-professional and as far as possible the players are going to have to fly to and from interstate games on the day.

Flights – can QANTAS be pushed into being a top line sponsor? Even if the only contribution is paying flights it’ll be worth it.

Payment – Super rugby players and those on ARU contracts already get plenty of cash and would be playing club rugby for next to nothing anyway so do they need to be getting a heap of money for playing in the ARC? At least for the first few seasons they’d have to be pretty tight on paying players. Guys making the jump from first grade to this level would surely be more than happy enough just to get a slight better match fee than they get at club rugby along with the team kit!

Grounds – The Sideline Eye has written previously about playing quality rugby league grounds that would encourage the crowds and corporates. But if it is a matter of having a national comp or not (i.e. to save cash) nobody would care if games were being played at smaller venues. (i.e. Rat park instead of Brookvale oval, TG Milner or Granville park instead of Parramatta Stadium).

It CAN be done and as stated to death on this site, it needs to be done. More so now we have to fill out a 5th side.

Cricket has its Sheffield Shield (and that don’t make no money) and to survive and prosper on provincial Super rugby level and at International level Australia needs its ARC.