KEY POINTS:
Sanzar has agreed not to dilute competitions during the 2011 World Cup season and hopes to imitate the NFL and AFL sporting models in its next broadcasting deal.
"I think it is fair to say we have agreed we won't let it happen again," chairman John O'Neill said
of this year's dramas.
"It is around scheduling, it is working with the IRB, as I said in the potential for an integrated global season. And working within our individual unions and coaches to ensure our obligations to each other and broadcasters, sponsors and fans are able to be quarantined while still allowing proper preparation for the World Cup."
O'Neill accepted Sanzar did not have any powers to sanction member nations such as New Zealand who removed 22 players from the Super 14 this season or South Africa who have rested their frontliners from their overseas Tri-Nations internationals.
"But we have had a definitive airing of the issues and we are not going to go around suing each other or making claims for compensation. We have shared the pain in a sense and shared the understanding of the impact in our own backyards."
While there was an agreement not to repeat player exemptions in 2011, NZRU chief executive designate Steve Tew did not exclude a repeat in other years.
"We are still learning and will continue to learn how best to manage our players and the workload they have to bear to get the best out of them for as long a time as possible," he said.
O'Neill said the broadcasters - SuperSport in South Africa, FoxSports in Australia and Sky in New Zealand - had objected firmly about the resting of players this season. That had been digested but there were also issues about the Northern Hemisphere sending under-strength sides south mid-year and the shadow of the World Cup.
The Sanzar partners held two days of meetings in Christchurch to work through issues and to start, with the help of sports consultant Morgan Buckley, planning strategies for the third broadcasting deal that starts in 2011.
O'Neill said the targets were to envisage where Sanzar wanted to be in 10 and 20 years. The group also had to have a clear vision about what they would propose at the IRB meeting in November to help broker an integrated global calendar.
"There are a lot of good things Sanzar has done but we need to continue to be innovative and to think bravely where we would like to be as a group and in our commitment to each other," he said.
SARU official Jonathan Stones said South Africa was not contemplating any breakaway as it was dedicated to the Super and Tri-Nations series. It knew of no political changes which would affect South African involvement after this World Cup.
Tew and O'Neill said the next few years would be spent consolidating the Sanzar competitions so there could be a springboard for new schemes in 2011.
"If you have a look at the models that really work, and are enduring, two were the NFL, which is not surprising, in the US and AFL in Australia.
"And you ask why do they work, what are their attributes? It is about consistency of high-level competition, it is forms of regulation and engagement with the players, the sharing revenue with the players. A lot of what Super 12, Super 14 has done over 12 years has not been that dissimilar but on a different territorial basis.
"The ambition and innovation is that post 2010 we can move into another stage and it may be that Super 14 is expanded in a way that does not overburden the players - such as a pool system."
No ideas had been excluded. The involvement of Argentina, the Pacific Islands, Japan, the United States and Canada were all being explored and decisions would be made in the next 18 months.