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Could the Western Force return to face Australian Super Rugby clubs?

(Photo by Lampson Yip - Clicks Images/Getty Images)

In the wake of the Australian Government’s announcement to close its borders indefinitely, an opportunity has emerged for the Western Force to rise from the ashes to take on Australia’s Super Rugby clubs in a makeshift domestic competition.

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Super Rugby was suspended indefinitely late last week as the impact of coronavirus continues to make itself felt worldwide.

In its absence, both New Zealand Rugby and Rugby Australia have spoken publicly of formulating makeshift domestic competitions featuring their respective Super Rugby franchises.

Continue reading below…

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NZR chief executive Mark Robinson has outlined a proposal which could see all five Kiwi sides face off against one another over a 10-12 week period.

That plan comes with its challenges, though, especially with the Chiefs, Crusaders and Highlanders all currently in self-isolation after returning to the country from overseas, while the prospect of playing in empty stadiums can’t be overly appealing.

RA is looking at a similar concept, although such a competition within the Australian conference presents its own issues through the presence of the Sunwolves.

The Japanese club’s time in Super Rugby was scheduled to come to an end at the end of this season, but it may well be all but over already as Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison will shut the nation off from overseas visitors at 9pm AEST on Friday night.

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The move echoes that of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, which eliminates the prospect of a conference-based round-robin and Super Rugby finals series that RA chief executive Raelene Castle said SANZAAR unions were still hopeful of earlier this week.

“Yeah that’s one of the scenarios that we’re working at [a domestic conference competition] because of the fact that the travel restrictions mean the cross-border system doesn’t seem realistic, so domestic obviously leads the conversation,” Castle told media in Sydney on Tuesday.

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Without the Sunwolves’ involvement, the idea of a conference-based system in Australia with the current Super Rugby sides becomes unfeasible.

Their misfortune, though, could open an avenue for a return of the Western Force, one of three sides who were culled from Super Rugby three years ago.

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The Perth-based club have since been taken over by billionaire mining magnet Andrew Forrest, who established Global Rapid Rugby as a rebel competition to allow the Force and professional rugby in Western Australia to survive.

However, the first full season of Global Rapid Rugby – featuring teams from Fiji, Samoa, Malaysia, Hong Kong and China – has also been suspended due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

With Australia’s border restrictions preventing any international travel between those sides, there may an opportunity to reintegrate the Force as the Sunwolves’ replacement in an Australian domestic competition.

Whether or not that comes to fruition remains to be seen, but Castle revealed that conversations regarding a new competition have included Global Rapid Rugby chief executive Mark Evans.

“We’ve had significant conversions with Mark Evans, who’s the CEO of Global Rapid Rugby, he’s been included in all the conversations that we’ve had to date,” Castle said.

“That is something that is a consideration in the discussions that we’ve had and we continue to keep Mark in those.”

In other news:

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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