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How the Western Force became 'rare winners' out of coronavirus pandemic
By Online Editors
The Western Force are set to make one of the most improbable comebacks to top-flight rugby the code has ever seen following the formation of a five-team domestic competition starting next month.
Booted out of Super Rugby three years ago, the Force are rare winners from the coronavirus pandemic, with the Perth-based franchise to join old rivals the NSW Waratahs, Brumbies, Queensland Reds and Melbourne Rebels in the new tournament.
SANZAAR officials are clinging to the hope of salvaging the Super Rugby season, which was this week suspended seven rounds into the 18-round season, and have yet to rule out playing a finals series.
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That would potentially feature the winners of Australia's internal home-and-away competition proposed to start on April 3 and presumably conference winners from any similar New Zealand and South African tournament.
The domestic tournament will see Australia's five professional rugby outfits playing together for the first time since 2017 after the suspension of mining billionaire Andrew Forrest's World Global Rugby freed up the Force.
Rugby Australia on Friday night said discussions were continuing at SANZAAR level and with competition broadcasters on the specifics of the draw and finals format.
All matches will be played in closed venues in line with current Australian government restrictions on public gatherings.
According to Nine Media, Forrest has approved a plan to enable the Force to rejoin the fold - provided government restrictions and guidelines on travel and gatherings allow it.
"Rugby Australia, the four Australian Super Rugby teams and RUPA are united behind the continuation of Super Rugby in 2020 and have been intensively working towards a competition solution with our SANZAAR partners over the past six days," said RA boss Raelene Castle.
"There are still some elements to work through as a group, but we are extremely confident that we will deliver a meaningful product for the remainder of the season for fans and broadcasters."
Castle said while the focus had been on developing a competition model that would enable RA to meet their commitments to fans and broadcasters, careful attention had also been given to protect the welfare of our players, support staff and match officials under the new proposed model.
"The Chief Medical Officers of each nation have been integral to these discussions, and together with the announcement of the new competition we will be announcing a range of measures and protocols to be introduced for the remainder of the season in the interest of protecting and safeguarding our athletes," she said.
"In what has been a challenging time for everyone in our sport, we have seen the rugby bodies in Australia come together to put their full weight behind finding a way for our game to continue in 2020."
- AAP
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Latest Comments
Turn it up. Give me your john A game would ya!
Go to commentsI didn't really get the should tone from it, but maybe because I was just reading it as my own thoughts.
What I read it as was examples of how they played well enough in every game to be able to win it.
Yeah I dunno if Ben wouldn't see it that way (someone else would for sure need to point it out to him though), I'm more in the Ben not appreciating that those close losses werent one off scenarios camp. Sure you can look at dubious decisions causing them to have to play with 14 or 13 men at the death as viable reasons but even in the games they won without such difficulties they made a real struggle of it (compared to how good some of their first half play was). This kind of article where you trying to point out the 3 losses really would most likely have been wins only really makes sense/works when your other performances make those 3 games (or endings) stand out.
There might have been a sentence here and there to ensure some good comment numbers but when he's signing off the article by saying things like ..
and..
I don't really see it. Always making sure people are upto date with the SH standing/perspective! NZ went through some tough times with so many different perspectives and reasons why, but then it was.. amusing how.. behind everyone was once they turned a corner. More of these 'unfortunate' results returned against SA and France at the start of the RWC which made it extra tasty to catch other teams out when they did bring it. So that created some 'conscious' perspective that I just kept going and sharing re thoughts on similar predicaments of other teams, I had been really confident that Wallabies displays vs NZ were real, that the Argentines can backup their thing against Aus and SA (and so obviously the rest), and current one is that England are actually consistent and improving with their attack (which everyone should get onboard with), and I'm expecting a more dominant display against Japan (even though they should have more of their experienced internationals for this one) that highlights further growth from July. 👍
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