Rugby Workshop agrees to a new eight-team National Rugby Competition

A 70-man Rugby Workshop, involving Australia's Rugby leaders, has agreed on a new, eight-team National Rugby Competition starting in 2007, with the prime objectives of improving the Wallabies, the four Australian Super 14 teams and importantly, providing more opportunities for club Rugby players to take the next step up the representative ladder.

The National Competition will involve three teams from NSW, two from QLD and one team each from ACT, Victoria and Western Australia.

The National Competition will run from 28 July until 14 October. This playing window has been agreed based on the following:

• It minimises the impact on Club Rugby
• The current Club Rugby seasons will no longer be broken into two separate competitions (as is currently the case). Club Rugby will run from March until July.
• It will begin after the completion of the Tooheys New Super 14 and the Australia A program
• It has been scheduled to ensure the availability of Australian Under 19 and Under 21 players

The top four teams will play in two semi finals to decide the finalists, with each team playing 10-12 top-quality, highly competitive matches.

The NSW and QLD Rugby Unions will work with the existing clubs to determine the teams in their states.

These two State Unions will also work with the clubs to nominate them as feeder clubs into the National Competition teams, providing two-way benefits for both the clubs and the National Competition teams.

The clubs, with Member Unions, will be involved in providing coaching and team management personnel, providing these people with a similar pathway to higher representation that is offered to the players.

The Victorian team will include a number of contracted players from the Super 14 teams, including Academy players.

Each National Competition team will have 28 players, a total of 224 players across the eight teams.

The Workshop felt that this is an economically sustainable and commercially attractive competition that will attract sponsors, broadcasters and Rugby fans.

While there is significant additional detail yet to be announced, much of this detail has been fully discussed, analysed and committed to within the workshop, including:

• Infrastructure
• Commercial & financial model
• Collaborative investment
• Contracting and player movement
• Player development
• Maintaining club Rugby
• Additional detail of competition structure
• Vision and governance
• Implementation plan
• Integration model

All participants agreed at the beginning, and again at the end of the workshop, that they are fully committed to the outcome of the workshop.

The Workshop agreed that the three-day consultation process had been inclusive of all the major stakeholder groups and had gone through an exhaustive, and extremely cooperative and constructive process to achieve its goals.

Additional detail will be available via a media conference tomorrow (Thursday) or through the following people:

-          Gary Flowers            Australian Rugby Union

-          Fraser Neill            NSW Rugby Union

-          Theo Psaros            Queensland Rugby Union

-          Andrew Fagan            ACT & Southern NSW Rugby Union

-          Peter O'Meara            RugbyWA

-          Tony Dempsey            Rugby Union Players' Association

Rugby Workshop - stakeholder group