Revamp of rugby competition hailed

The proposed revamp of the national provincial rugby competition has been welcomed by Taranaki's rugby boss and coach.

Less than a week after New Zealand Rugby Union chief executive Steve Tew announced he wanted to press on with plans for a 10-team premier division in 2011, a new Players' Association driven format was unveiled on Thursday.

The plan sees the Air New Zealand Cup remain as a 14-team competition next year before the teams are split into a top seven premiership and a bottom seven championship.

Teams will play a complete round robin in their pool, as well as four cross-division matches. All points accumulate, before semifinals and finals are played in each division.

There is also automatic promotion and relegation between each division.

"I think it's positive that we've got some certainty," Taranaki Rugby Football Union chief executive Mark Robinson said yesterday. "There seems to be a clear majority of unions in support of this."

While there were still some details to iron out, Robinson believed it was a good compromise between the unions wanting change and those wanting 14 teams in a meaningful competition.

"It's clear that there has been no alternative that we've been able to find that suited everyone and we arrived at a stage where provincial unions, by and large, are positive in support of all this, as are the players and the broadcasters."

The introduction of automatic promotion and relegation should also ensure a high level of community interest in the competition, Robinson said.

"There's no bones about it. We have to be really focusing on getting into that top group."

The sudden shift away from the NZRU's original plan to cull four sides had surprised the Taranaki chief executive, although the explanation behind the change of tack made sense to him.

The concerns some unions had when the seven-seven format was first mooted had been ironed out, he said.

This was largely because of the success of the collective bargaining process and the large amount of work that went into it.

Taranaki coach Colin Cooper, who will be in charge for at least the next two years, found the new model "pretty good" and a sensible alternative to a 10-team competition.

"At the end of the day, you have to look at what is happening on the field, and I think that is what they [NZRU] are doing.

"The championship will still be a meaningful competition."

Robinson added that Taranaki was "comfortable" with the reduction in the salary cap, from $2.2 million to $1.35 million, while the new contracting model, where Super franchises directly contracted players, would provide smaller unions like Taranaki with "some relief".

The reduction in the salary cap would also mean second-tier unions would be able to hold on to their Super 14 players, he said.

"There will still be the opportunity for guys playing out of the championship to rub shoulders with the upper competition, which will let Super 14 coaches make some pretty clear judgements if players can compete at that level."

- © Fairfax NZ News