Anzac Day test not Aussie's best idea

There are renewed calls for a Bledisloe Cup test to be played on Anzac Day. Photo / Dean Purcell

Australia is not a hotbed of strong and enduring rugby ideas.

Not on the evidence of some of their recent Super Rugby mischief and renewed calls for a Bledisloe Cup test to be played on Anzac Day.

The sentiment is fine, however the concept is as useful as Super Rugby stopping in June for a month of tests.

Thankfully that bonehead model gets the heave-ho in every World Cup year but now we have administrators across the Ditch calling for annual Bledisloe tests on Anzac Day.

The ARU pushed hard last year to have a 2015 Anzac test to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli but that idea was scrubbed by NZ Rugby. Now the Aussies are pushing the idea once more.

Previous Rugby Union Players Associations and now Waratahs boss Greg Harris championed the Anzac Day test idea as a way of sharing the nations' history and further boosting the transtasman sporting calendar.

"They (NZR) just felt it was too early to have the All Blacks lined up. The ARU, as I understand it, went to great lengths to try and get this (organised), especially on this day," Harris said.

He supported the idea as a way of tapping into a bigger share of the hugely competitive sporting market in Australia.

Maybe the Australians feel a test slap-bang in the middle of Super Rugby is their best chance of nicking the Bledisloe Cup from a pickup All Black team.

The NZR response should be - let the Ockers have their quickfire test but tell them they're playing for the Trevor Chappell Trophy rather than the Bledisloe.

Neither side would have time for much training other than meetings, whiteboard plannings and a few light sessions after the previous weekend of rugby. Either that or Harris envisages damaging Super Rugby even more by pulling players out of the previous round so they can get set for the Bledisloe.

Super Rugby has enough scheduling snafus already without another intrusion.

The next-best solution for the ARU's must-have itinerary was an all Kiwi-Aussie set of matches on Anzac Day but obviously Harris and his fellow administrators weren't too pushy about that concept when they sat down to arrange the 2015 season.

There are four transtasman duels and they could have adjusted the other two if they were hell-bent about invoking the Anzac feelings.

This year the Bledisloe Cup will be decided on successive weekends on August 8 and 15 with the usual third meeting cancelled because of preparations for the World Cup in September.