Andrew Slack: Melbourne's arrival weakens Australian cause

George Smith of the Brumbies looks to pass during a Super 14 match between the Brumbies and the Waratahs at Canberra Stadium. Photo / Getty Images

Let's overlook Supers 6 and 10 for the time being, and concentrate on 12 and 14.

Over the 14 years those two tournaments have been in existence, Australia's provincial teams have hardly created major waves.

The Brumbies have been far and away the most successful - indeed the only successful ones if you count holding up the trophy at the end of the show as the one meaningful yardstick.

Only twice have two Australian teams made the semifinals in the same season and the most recent of those was eight years ago - a veritable generation in rugby terms.

So, emboldened by such unflattering statistical momentum, we've decided to catapult another Australian team into the 2011 Super 15. "Premature" is the word that comes to mind.

Australia has the most competitive footballing environment in the world, and last year rugby lost ground to league, Australian rules and soccer.

Like most other human beings, Australians look for two things from their sport. They like to be entertained, and for a reasonable percentage of the time they like to be successful.

The entertainment bit is in the lap of the gods, players, referees and lawmakers, but chances of success must have something to do with not spreading the talent pool too thin.

The aforementioned league, AFL and soccer have a plethora of young men with the talent to play for the Wallabies, but who have never played rugby and who, frankly, couldn't care less about the sport.

We do not have a limitless pool of rugby resources.

What have we done then?

Ignored that fact and chucked another team into arguably the code's toughest competition.

Historically, rugby in Australia has always been about New South Wales and Queensland. Once the professional era began, things had to broaden.

The ACT Brumbies made the most of some outstanding home-grown talent and a lot of very capable players who needed to leave Sydney or Brisbane to get a chance. Subsequently, they became our most successful modern team.

Their success, and a wonderful Wallaby side of the late-1990s and early-2000s had us thinking we could conquer the world. Trouble is, when it comes to winning the hearts and minds of entrenched AFL and league followers, conquering Australia is hard enough.

The decision to enter a fourth Australian team in the 2006 Super 14 was never going to bring immediate success, but in the desire to "go national" and try to compete with the other codes, it was a reasonable thing to do. Indeed, for rugby's growth, it was a risk that had to be taken.

The Western Force finished with the wooden spoon that first year, while seventh is as high as they've ended up on any end-of-season ladder. In establishing themselves, they decimated the Reds stocks and also snared key players from both the Waratahs and Brumbies.

That's their right in a dog-eat-dog professional environment, but it demonstrated that Australia hasn't got the player numbers to sustain four teams, each with valid hopes of contesting the finals.

The Melbourne Rebels jump into the mix in 2011 to only make matters worse.

They have the advantage of being able to sign 10 overseas players and they can - as the Force did - pillage the Reds, Waratahs and Brumbies.

They can also steal a few players from the Force. Exactly what benefit that has for Australian rugby, either long or short term, has me very puzzled.