Gregor Paul: Rugby Australia's Super Rugby 'fake winners' stance is delusional

OPINION:

If nothing else, you have to admire the chutzpah of Rugby Australia, to walk away from Super Rugby Transtasman with two paltry wins and think they have earned leverage to call the shots on how the competition should look next year.

Even more admirable, or wildly delusional depending on how you feel about these things, is their belief that they should be able to now stick their hand into New Zealand's pocket and take a bigger share of their TV revenue.

It's mad bordering on brilliant – taking this idea of failing upwards to a whole new level.
New Zealand sides dominated the competition, played the rugby that everyone wanted to see and yet the Australians have walked away with a definite sense they are the Super Rugby power brokers.

Provisional agreements have long been reached about forming a 12-team competition next year, played as a true round-robin featuring five sides from New Zealand, five from Australia and Moana Pasifika and Fiji Drua, should the latter two both satisfy commercial criteria next week.

The revenue splits have all been determined and then last week, Rugby Australia chair Hamish McLennan told media that his organisation's preference would be a conference system that provided a guarantee of an Australian side making the playoffs.

Everyone loves a bit of defiance in the face of adversity, a show of resolute character and resilience when the chips are down, but for Australia's five teams to have offered so little and for McLennan to now be asking for so much, the line between plucky battler and chancer might just have been crossed.

Australia have to fight for what is right for them and with TV viewing figures across the ditch reaching commercially viable heights during Super Rugby Australia, only to plummet when the Kiwi bloodbath began in Transtasman, it's understandable McLennan wants more of the former and less of the latter.

The Australian viewing public like to see winning Australian teams and have little time to wallow in the ritual humiliation inflicted by smarter, more innovative, better prepared and better resourced New Zealand sides.

So there is substance to Rugby Australia's thinking: they are driven by a desire to give consumers what they want.

But ultimately rugby in Australia will be doomed if it once again travels down the Super Rugby path of a broadcast-led competition, designed to falsely manipulate outcomes to preserve dignity.

Among a legion of bad ideas, Super Rugby's greatest flaw between 2011 and 2019 was its compromised integrity as a result of pre-agreeing that each geographic state would be guaranteed representation in the playoffs.

The certainty of being able to fail upwards broke the cardinal rule of sport that victory will lead to just rewards.

Australians might have no time for losers but they will, in the end, realise they have even less time for fake winners and manipulating the format of Super Rugby might seem like an appealing shortcut to the summit, but it is in fact a track to an international wasteland where the Wallabies will kick about with the likes of Georgia and Italy wondering why they didn't stick to the only true path.

And that's why it is time for Rugby Australia to reacquaint themselves with the phrase hard yakker and get on and do some once they have those two words front of mind.

Success can't be given, it has to be earned and however much Australia's executives may not like the thought of TV ratings plunging next year when the Kiwis roll into town, that is the future they must embrace.

How can they inspire the next generation of Wallabies if they don't live sport's foundation truth that it comes with adversity, cruel losses and moments of humiliation.

Sport doesn't give up its greatest treasures easily – those who succeed typically do so having been guided by the Roman adage of per angusta, ad augusta – through hardship to glory.

The whole point is not who wins or loses per se, but what is learned along the way and if Australia wants to see winning teams in Super Rugby, they must build them.

They must face the best and learn from them. They must adapt, evolve and fight the way Australian Super Rugby teams used to and while it will hurt to see the losses mount next year as they inevitably will, in time they will become less.

In time, if Australia are brave enough to make themselves vulnerable by agreeing to stick with the Super Rugby format to which they have already agreed, the skillsets of their players will be broader, tactical understanding greater and the ability to deliver under pressure better.

Failure for Australia will not be defined by losing more against New Zealand sides than they win. Failure will be refusing to accept the challenge of playing them – of believing that to never try is better than losing.