Rugby Australia takes first steps towards Super Rugby overhaul with summit

Rugby Australia has engaged McKinsey & Company as it looks into what number of teams in Australia would be best both high performance-wise and commercially.

Rugby Australia CEO Phil Waugh. Picture: David Gray/AFP

Powerful consulting firm McKinsey & Company has been engaged by Rugby Australia to help them “shape” the future of the game in Australia.

It comes as Rugby Australia is set to hold the Australian Rugby Summit which involves its member unions, Super Rugby bosses and the Rugby Union Players Association as it moves towards restructuring the game.

Rugby Australia CEO Phil Waugh said a number of issues were on the table as they worked towards creating a strategy for the future of the embattled code which currently has an $80 million loan and a Super Rugby franchise, the Melbourne Rebels, in voluntary administration.

“RA is working with our member unions and stakeholders to shape a clear strategy through until 2032,” Waugh told The Weekend Australian.

“The first material step forward in this consultative and collaborative approach is the Australian Rugby Summit occurring in Melbourne on the 4th and 5th of March, involving all Chairs and CEO’s of our various member unions and Super Rugby clubs and the Players Association. We have had a small number of firms assist us with their guidance in shaping a positive future for rugby in Australia”.

Waugh confirmed McKinsey & Company had been involved in their analysis they were also looking at a number of successful high performance systems including Ireland’s model - which RA HP advisor David Nucifora designed.

“McKinsey are one of the small number of firms that have been assisting us with our analysis and forward thinking,” Waugh said.

“We are analysing the best and most successful rugby systems in the world. We need to learn from those and create an Australian version. A specific system that optimises Australian rugby’s performances across all national teams.”

McKinsey & Company are understood to be providing their services ‘pro bono’.

With rumblings that ACT Brumbies are potentially on the chopping block, and Melbourne Rebels unlikely to survive beyond this year, some power brokers are leaning towards a three-team Australian Super Rugby presence.

Last week when Waugh was asked whether a three-team Super Rugby contingent was an option, the CEO said RA’s priority was to ensure the Australian franchises were “commercially viable”.

“We are doing our due diligence to analyse what the most ­appropriate number of Australian teams is – which covers both commercial viability and RA’s aspiration to have winning teams in gold,” Waugh told The Australian.

“The two most important things for Super Rugby are, firstly, for us to continue growing participation and building stronger pathways to grow our talent pool in Australia.

It’s understood concrete decision on the future landscape of the code won’t be made until “June/July”, following this Super Rugby season.

On Friday former Wallabies captain Kearns said it’s time for hard decisions to secure the future of the embattled code.

“We have too many teams in Australia, there’s no doubt,” Kearns said. “Our talent is spread way too thin. And there are some. I use the term advisedly, ordinary players playing Super Rugby. If you’ve got ordinary players, you get ordinary teams. Which is why we’re not excelling against the New Zealanders. Physically our players are probably up to it, certainly the good ones are. But skill wise we’re definitely not there and that’s a function of just we’ve got our talent spread too thin and we are coaching the wrong things.

“The vast majority of our players still come out of New South Wales and Queensland and despite the Rebels being around for, what, 10 years? And the Force is pretty much the same. they’re not producing the quality or volume of players that we need to be competitive.”