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Report: Australian billionaire behind proposal for a sixth New Zealand Super Rugby franchise
By Online Editors
While all the talk has focussed on a Pacific Island team based in New Zealand joining Super Rugby's replacement next year, it appears that a sixth NZ franchise is also a very real possibility - especially when it's bankrolled by the man already propping up one of Australia's teams.
Andrew Forrest, the mining magnate who's almost single-handedly kept the Western Force afloat since they were vanquished from Super Rugby at the end of 2017, is backing a bid from the Bay of Plenty union to join New Zealand Rugby's new competition, set to start as early as next year.
Bay of Plenty and the Chinese Rugby Football Association have already teamed up to form the China Lions, who were set to play in Forrest's Global Rapid Rugby competition this year. They managed just one match against Fijian Latui before the competition was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, the two unions are again teaming up with Forrest to launch an audacious bid to join New Zealand's five existing Super Rugby franchises, according to reports out of the New Zealand Herald.
With the Western Force likely to re-join the other Australian sides moving forward, Global Rapid Rugby could be set to end before it every really began. That would mean the China Lions, who were populated by NZ provincial players who missed out on Super Rugby squads and a smattering of Chinese talent, would have no competition to partake in - wasting the developments made by the Bay of Plenty union.
New Zealand Rugby are set to meet next weekend to assess the relative merits of the various ventures proposed, including Kanaloa Hawaii, the Asia Pacific Dragons and the latest corroboration from Forrest and Bay of Plenty.
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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