Three critical decisions need to be made to give Super Rugby commission best chance to be a positive influence

Now that Rugby Australia (RA) has ousted its former chair Hamish McLennan, Super Rugby Pacific has a chance to get on with fixing itself.

McLennan, who was never the out-of-control destructive force he is now being portrayed as, didn’t fully support the idea of an independent commission to run Super Rugby.

He saw it as needless and treated the whole idea with suspicion, fearing - without any reason to do so - that the commission would take control of issues beyond its remit and end up randomly kicking out Australian teams and expanding into new geographic areas.

Even when the joint venture deal was eventually signed a few months ago, there was still a sense of McLennan not having fully embraced it and fears that he would be looking to somehow undermine it.

Now he’s gone, there is optimism on both sides of the Tasman that Super Rugby Pacific can find a way to flourish now that it is going to be managed at arm’s length from the national unions of New Zealand and Australia.

But there are three critical decisions to be made to give the commission its best chance of being the positive influence everyone wants it to be.

The first is the appointment of a chief executive. The commission already has a chair - former Kiwi ad executive Kevin Malloy - and six other board directors, who will meet for the first time next month.

The key appointment, however, will be the commissioner [chief executive], as this person will not only be the driving force behind the competition, but they will also have to command the respect of all 12 teams.

How difficult it will be to find the right person was illustrated last year when McLennan pushed hard for former Wallaby Justin Harrison to be given the role.

When New Zealand Rugby (NZR) pushed back, arguing that there needed to be an independent process to find the commissioner and not a personal anointment, Australia went cold on the whole idea.

With McLennan out the way, there is presumably scope for a process-led appointment, one which will need to find someone who appeals as much to Australia as they do to New Zealand, and who can understand the separate and mutual needs of both.

The second key decision that needs to be made is whether both New Zealand and Australia can agree to a unified eligibility proposal.

Both NZR and RA, as well as the respective players’ associations of both countries, have expressed an interest in exploring the prospect of a player draft system to disseminate talent across the competition.

But the barrier to this ever being a possibility is the current eligibility rules of the All Blacks, and to a lesser extent, the Wallabies.

New Zealand, famously, doesn’t allow overseas-based players to be picked for the All Blacks - and so any form of draft or even transfer to an Australian club is not viable without changing the eligibility criteria.

It’s much the same for the Australians, although the Wallabies coach does have dispensation to pick a small number of overseas-based players.

Any form of innovative draft or mechanism to allow players to transfer relatively easily and freely between New Zealand and Australian teams can only begin to be planned if NZR and RA jointly agree to saying that any player contracted to a Super Rugby Pacific team will be eligible for the All Blacks and Wallabies, respectively.

For NZR, the decision is not as monumental as they may believe it is, given that the All Blacks are already able to pick players on sabbatical in Japan, which this season will include Ardie Savea, Sam Cane and Beauden Barrett.

And the final change that the respective unions of New Zealand and Australia need to agree on is a means by which they can jointly build a free to air (FTA) broadcast component into their broadcast deal.

While rights holder Sky and NZR both said publicly that Super Rugby audiences reached levels they were more than happy with this year, there is an argument, based on the evidence of major sports leagues around the world, that an FTA component would drive viewing figures and subscriptions yet higher.

But again, it would seem that Super Rugby Pacific’s best chance of growing its standing and number of followers is to ensure there is a co-ordinated broadcast strategy on both sides of the Tasman and that there are equal amounts of FTA content in New Zealand and Australia.

Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and has written several books about sport.