Ardie Savea and the All Blacks perform the haka ahead of The Rugby Championship match between the Argentina Pumas and the New Zealand All Blacks. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
Ardie Savea and the All Blacks perform the haka ahead of The Rugby Championship match between the Argentina Pumas and the New Zealand All Blacks. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
OPINION:
Building road maps to a better future seems to be the theme of the moment. Maybe not in Southern Hemisphere rugby, though, where there is neither a road nor a map to anywhere.
There isn't even a particular destination in mind and at the close of another Rugby Championshipthat produced its usual mix of epic and highly forgettable tests, there continues to be an uneasy sense that the Southern Hemisphere unions are adrift in the Pacific.
Not on the field. South Africa, New Zealand and Australia are getting that bit right. They can play, and even Argentina, when conditions aren't conspiring against them, have a bit to offer.
But off the field, there are broken balance sheets and no sense that anyone knows how to glue together all the fantastic rugby content and package it as a compelling, aspirational, must-watch competition.
The Rugby Championship has been going in its current four-team format since 2012 and it can't, hand on heart, say it has engaged Southern Hemisphere fans the way it had hoped.
To most New Zealand followers the Rugby Championship is seemingly a series of individual tests that don't necessarily play out within the context of an overall competition.
The Bledisloe Cup is much loved and yet half the time it feels like no one cares or even understands that it is a cup within a cup – a mini-competition within the bigger competition which is the Rugby Championship.
Interest spikes around specific tests. Everyone gets a kick out of seeing the All Blacks play the Springboks but no one connects that sense of occasion back to the Rugby Championship.
No one said Jordie Barrett kicked a last-minute penalty to win the Rugby Championship in Townsville: folklore, the all-powerful force that shapes collective memory, will be clear that his three points won the All Blacks their 100th encounter against the Springboks.
There's an argument to be made on the back of the Rugby Championship's failure to grab the imagination, that the big three Southern Hemisphere sides would be better off economically at least, if they ditched Argentina and worked out how to play each other in a more meaningful, engaging way.
How about the All Blacks playing a three-test series in Australia as well as a few mid-week games, before returning home to host the Boks doing much the same thing in New Zealand?
That's a pathway which has short-term appeal certainly, but longer-term limitations in terms of growing interest beyond the current fan base.
Jordie Barrett of the All Blacks celebrates after winning the Rugby Championship match between the New Zealand All Blacks. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
After 25 years of professionalism it is undeniable that the global finances of the sport are broken and the root cause is that the sport has failed to grow the high performance capabilities of emerging nations such as Japan, USA, Canada, Georgia and Fiji.
Rugby is dominated today by the same eight nations – New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland and France – it has been for the last century.
Argentina and Italy have tried but failed to reach the top table and if rugby wants a brighter, sustainable economic future, it needs to create a world where Japan beating South Africa or Tonga beating France are no longer considered the greatest shocks in history.
Rugby needs a greater global footprint and the Southern Hemisphere in particular needs to be part of a bigger eco-system and specifically, one which includes the commercial heft of the USA and Japan.
The long-term goal for Southern Hemisphere rugby must be to expand rather than wind back the clock and ride a wave of nostalgia of longer tours and mid-week games.
The Rugby Championship has to be redefined and rescoped so it carries greater significance and with it, win a wider fan base and broader range of commercial support.
It needs more drama, more intrigue and a greater sense of being a competition rather than being a series of disconnected tests.
To get to this new world, the Southern Hemisphere needs a plan. It needs a strategy and a vision for when and how the likes of Japan, Fiji and the USA can get involved.
It needs dates and pathways so these teams can make a graduated entry and not vague notions that one day they will suddenly arrive in this competition and be ready to go when they do.
But right now, it's impossible to see how the game in this part of the world will gain clarity and purpose, because what it is being driven by a weak, directionless administrative body in Sanzaar.
It's an ill-defined, powerless entity that can just about function as a travel agency that books flights and accommodation, but has precisely no ability to unify the various nations and align them to a plan to build the game's presence South of the Equator and Pacific Rim.
Before the Southern Hemisphere can create its road map to a brighter future, it first must create an independent and powerful force that is empowered to act in the wider interests of the whole region.
Rugby in this part of the world needs a leader and it needs one now.
