Mmmm, where have we heard these lies before?
According to SARU, the Absa Currie Cup remains the top priority for the South African Rugby Union and it will never be allowed to be “watered-down” by any other competition.
This is the message from the chairperson of SARU’s Executive Committee, Dr Jan Marais, who also rejected claims in some quarters that SARU was killing off the Currie Cup in a deal that only favoured Australia.
Sport24 & SuperSport
Marais said that despite the impressive financial deal that was done with Newscorp, Currie Cup rugby – the oldest domestic competition in world rugby – remained the crown jewel for South African rugby.
“For those people who think it is all about money, if you compare what we receive from SANZAR to the income from the television rights for the Currie Cup, the Currie Cup brings in 87.5% in comparison to the SANZAR money. The Currie Cup is always a priority because the SANZAR money is for Super rugby and the Tri-Nations,” Dr Marais said.
“The season has been extended for the Super 15 from next year, but we will still have a top class Currie Cup on the go.
Traditionally the Currie Cup has been played while the Tri-Nations is on and the Boks have returned later. This won’t change under the new format.”
Dr Marais went further to explain that the Super 15 would benefit South African rugby because of the increased local derbies.
“In terms of viewership and attendance figures, we have traditionally had more fans at the derbies than at games against overseas teams. The fact that we now have a double round of these are good for the game as a whole,” Dr Marais explained.
“Taking it further, we will be playing our rugby in South Africa most of the time and teams will only have to go overseas for four weeks. That is also better as it is less than the teams travelled in this year’s Super 14 competition.”
While the Currie Cup would still remain the premier competition in SA rugby, the format might change.
“We are looking at a few possibilities at the moment, and these will have to be debated by the unions themselves as to what the best would be for the competition.”
While it may see that Australia are the real winners in this deal, by expanding their player base and extending their season perfectly as they have no domestic season to compete with, Dr Marais rejected this as well.
“The deal will benefit all of us. We get the same share of the money as the other two partners and our players get top class competition. The benefits are the same for all three partners.”
Luckily we can believe everything SARU tells us… 😐
Dywer blames SA ref for Wallabies loss
http://www.rugbyweek.com/news/article.asp?id=26985
Does SARU enjoy trying to insult our intelligence.. For fark sakes.
Sure saru, you can only fool yourselves NOT the supporters.
@ Puma: emm…speak for yourself 🙂
just joking
Blue Bulls unchanged for Lions Currie Cup clash
http://www.rugbyweek.com/news/article.asp?id=26994
Bull will have to be carefull with this game…Lions looking pretty damm strong nowadays
Everybody seems to agree that SARU are clueless.
Everybody seems to agree that Supersport have lost the plot.
Do any of them read what people say on blogs?
Will Supersport take notice and change before it is too late for them?
Will SARU make necessary changes before they f.ck everything up?
Do they know that denial is not a river in Egypt?
Of course not!!
What SARU doesn’t realise is that you first set up your foundation competitions in rugby, before you even worry about the money.
Why?
Becasue you need to develop and sustain a quality product( I hate to call rugby a product) that can then become marketable to the public and/or broadcasters.
You need to ensure then that the way this product is scheduled for benefit of the consumer and broadcaster is not “tampered” with in any way, because this will take the necessary structures away to sustain the quality product.
Wow, so now I can get to see the Lions play the (Blue) Bulls, (Coastal) Sharks, (Stormers) WP and (Cheetahs) FS FOUR times in one season without any playoffs!
Whoopdedo.
Why on earth would I want to buy a season ticket that enabled me to watch top class international players every other week when I can watch a higher level Currie Cup with a couple of small province players thrown into the mix?
What a croc of cr@p.
I said so last year when this format was first mooted, and I say it again.
@ bos_otter: 😀
As much as I can understand the disappointment of not seeing a union’s best 23 on the field during Currie Cup matches, the amount of rugby the best players play mitigates against this anyway.
This overplaying even impacted on the S14 this year. Remember, that the Bulls chose not to play their best at Newlands (they would’ve seen their gat anyway, but I digress…).
So, may I suggest that we now dump this “purist” view i.e. the best must play every week for your Currie Cup, S15 and even Tri-Nations (remenber Jake’s withdrawing the best Boks in the 2007 Tri). Its just not practicable.
May I suggest further that for the amount of rugby we get to see it really is not a bad trade-off. Unless, of course you believe that the good ole days of apartheid and our subsequent banning was better.
Do you remember those good ole days so fondly?
OK, so what if we had no S14, no Tri-Nations, no World Cup, no tours? At least we had the rare pleasure of sitting in the naughty corner and playing with ourselves.
Ons lees tot sover…
@ fender:
We have to progress and rugby is better today than it ever was.
However there is a fine line between keeping people interested and overkill.
I say play slightly less games with more quality players and more to play for.
Tighthead,
I agree with your “fine line” thinking and as a bluesman I fully comprehend and support the concept of “less is more”.
However, if ever this fine line is to be found, it will be as a result of the process which includes tour and tournament errors in planning, interest vs overexposure, physical fitness of player pools. And less we not fool ourselves, the driver behind all of this will be maximising the return of all stakeholders. Remember, tired and unfit players will still chase that buck even when their bodies will be telling them not to.
For the present I expect that greed will win the day (and errors made) until other considerations temper this.
On overexposure: are we not already overexposed? Apart from those competitions in which our own players take part, we get all the English, French and New Zealand games all year round on TV.
What gets me more than the greed is how complaining about everything has overtaken soccer and rugby as our national past time. As GBS puts it: ons kla mette witbrood onnerie arm.
We have much to be grateful for, yet somehow we seldom take the opportunity to state this in writing. And we are much the poorer for it.
Got to duck now. I’ll catch your comments later.
Pas jou goed self op, Tighthead.
Money makes the world go round. They will play our top players to a standstill. The Currie Cup will get more players coming through which is good for our overall rugby pedigree.
As long as the fans continue to go to games and switiching on their tv’s to watch, they will exploit the players. I’ll be suprised if the top players come back to the Provinces for game time, if they stick to Noakes suggestions they will have too much rugby under their belts to do this.
The price of professionalism… get used to it and wait for the next curved ball.
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