SANZAR Options: SA Rugby "snookered" by British & Irish Cup Launch

A BRAND new 24-team British & Irish Cup will take place in 2010.

Twelve teams from the English Championship, six from the Welsh Principality Premiership, Irish provinces Munster, Leinster and Ulster, and three Scottish sides will compete for the inaugural trophy.

The teams will be divided into four pools of six, playing over five weekends during the Autumn international and RBS six Nations windows, with semi-finals and finals on April 24 and May 15 respectively.

This effectively rules out any possible notion that SA Rugby's brain(s) trust had of playing with the Northern Hemisphere, as an alternative to the SANZAR expansion plans for the Super 14 from 2011-2015. That door is now firmly slammed shut on any options in the Northern Hemisphere for the next six years.

On Wednesday, Australia Rugby Union's O'Neill said it was time South Africa's rugby bosses realised Australia and New Zealand had already given all they could at the negotiating table. They would "look in the mirror" and see that, he predicted, adding: "We will all be one big happy family again."

SANZAR rugby chiefs from the three countries have twice previously agreed upon plans for an expanded Super 15 to be played over 22 weeks with a six-team finals format and more local derbies but O'Neill said South Africa have backflipped.

The ARU and NZRU have called for a meeting with South African officials in Dublin on May 14 to sort out their differences and move ahead with Super 15 plans.

Launching the new British & Irish Cup competition in London today, Terry Burwell, the Rugby Football Union's Tournaments and Competitions Director, said: "This is an exciting new tournament that will provide quality cross-border competition and will be a winner with players, coaches and fans alike."

"There is a real appetite for this competition and, from an English point of view, it will give Championship clubs an additional meaningful competition alongside their league structure."

Welsh Rugby Union Head of Rugby Performance and Development Joe Lydon said: "We are delighted to be fully involved in this exciting new competition."

"It will engage all our teams in the type of cross-border sporting rivalry which will generate support and help improve the standard of play in all the teams involved. Here in Wales we know the appetite for this level of competition exists and it will deliver measurable benefits to the development and sustainability of the professional and semi-professional sport here."

"The names of the Welsh clubs involved will be familiar to rugby followers from around the world as they formed the tradition and history of the national sport of Wales.We have already received the backing in principle of our Premiership Division clubs and we look forward to welcoming to Wales some of the best young players from around the UK and Ireland."

Scottish Rugby's National Academy Manager Stephen Gemmell, added: "Scottish Rugby welcomes the launch of the British & Irish Cup. This competition will give some of our best players, including those from our top two clubs in Premiership Division 1, an opportunity to test themselves in an intense environment against quality, battle-hardened opposition from throughout the British Isles. We all believe such a competition will serve as a real boost to our game."

Irish Rugby Football Union Director of Rugby Eddie Wigglesworth said: "From an Irish perspective we welcome the introduction of the British & Irish Cup which will provide a very competitive professional game structure to meet the needs of our emerging contracted players."

"The teams involved are well known rugby entities in their own right and, in conjunction with our existing internal structures, will ensure that this group of contracted professionals have the necessary professional game exposure to meet the increasingly competitive demands at Magners League and Heineken Cup levels. It also provides a unique cross border game opportunity for Irish coaches and referees."

Background

24 teams

• 12 English Championship clubs (Bedford, Birmingham & Solihull, Bristol Rugby, Cornish Pirates, Coventry, Doncaster, Exeter Chiefs, London Welsh, Moseley, Nottingham, Plymouth Albion, Rotherham Titans)
  
• top 6 Welsh Principality Premiership clubs (Aberavon, Cardiff, Llanelli, Neath, Newport, Pontypridd) * 3 Irish provinces - Munster, Leinster and Ulster * 3 Scottish teams - top two finishers in Scottish Hydro Electric Premiership Division 1 (champions Ayr and the runners-up, either Boroughmuir or Heriot's) and a team drawn from Edinburgh and Glasgow and members of Scottish Rugby's National Academy Pool Stages
  
• Four pools of 6 playing once (5 matches)
  
• Pools based on travel/geography with the aim of maximising local interest and minimising cost to teams and supporters
  
• Four points for a win, 2 for a draw, 1 bonus point for either a) scoring 4 or more tries or b) losing by 7 points or less
  
• Pool matches scheduled for November 7 and 28, February 13, February 27, March 13 (all dates to be confirmed)
  
• pool winners progress to knockout stage Semi finals and FINAL
  
• Four pool winners progress to semi finals and final
  
• Semi finals scheduled for April 24, Final for May 15, 2010

This announcement coming out of the UK on the 6th May, in advance of SA Rugby's presentation of their 2015 Rugby World Cup Bid next week, followed by the SANZAR meeting on the 14th May in Dublin, pulls the rug from under SA Rugby and eliminates any options they thought they might have in plating any Northern Hemisphere rugby.

There is now nil to zero chance of this happening. This monumental oversight and lapse in judgement by SA Rugby's negotiating team, demonstrates to the international rugby community, especially the four British & Irish Unions, the NZRU, ARU, and not least the IRB, glaring shortcomings in the leadership of SA Rugby and their inability to develop a coherent strategic plan into the future.

Their modus operandi is more akin to a Keystone Cops stumble and fall with both eyes to the keyhole. Naturally, key in all of this, is the broadcast funding for rights fees, the lifeblood of the SANZAR unions and with SA Rugby having no substitute or replacement sponsor of the scale of R1.4bn, post 2010.

They are almost all out of options, unless they promote a conflict free solution to SANZAR on the 14th May and run with either a six-team apiece for a SANZAR Super 18, or with another variant of a Super 15 with promotion & relegation system to keep the competition hot and fired up for the paying broadcasters and spectators.

If the more popular option of the Super 15 is selected, with Relegation & Promotion, as it normally happens in international competitions, this should lead to three Tri-Game playoffs with each of the three SANZAR countries, right after the Super 15, or even during the Super 15, as the last placed teams will be out of contention and then a smaller lower level competition, a Super Rugby Lite if you will, during the Super 15, for those three SANZAR franchises outside of the Super 15.

This would mean that each of the SANZAR countries would have 5+1 franchises, with the extra, Plus One, or Sixth franchise, which would likely include an extra franchise from Australia out of the Gold Coast, (as Melbourne is the favoured fifth Australian franchise), one from New Zealand from either Northlan or Hawkes Bay and the ever present Eastern Cape franchise, now known as the Southern Kings, that has had a dizzying number of unfulfilled promises, upon promises made to it.

The next 10 days will be an interesting perspective of how South Africa's SA Rugby fares in establishing its future for the next five years with the SANZAR relationship and their efforts at bidding against England for the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

"He who has the gold rules" and you can expect that the Newscorp/SKY/SuperSport broadcasters and paymasters to SANZAR will have a word or two to say in the corridors.