<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (C A Iversen @ Sep 1 2009, 09:34 PM)
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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (William18 @ Sep 1 2009, 08:41 PM)
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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (C A Iversen @ Sep 1 2009, 04:18 PM)
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There are no four specific "worst teams". Who goes, Northland, Counties, Manawatu, Waikato, North Harbour, Taranaki, Tasman? They all have an even shot of finishing in the bottom four in this comp.
Would the british premier league of soccer be better with only 10 teams? No. NRL? No. NBA? No. 14 teams is a great number four our domestic game, so that players who come through out of smaller provinces like Aaron Cruden from Manawatu can get the exposure they deserve.
Of course I'd expect the "to hell with the smaller provinces" attitude from those in the major centres. They really hate it hate having the focus off them for five seconds.
"That's four provinces we could poach from, get rid of them!"[/b]
If I had my way I would get rid of Otago, Harbour, Counties and Tasman. My province, Wellington, produces most of their own players, so I hope that jibe wasn't directed at me. I think it is pretty LOL worthy comparing the ANZC to the NBA or EPL. EPL has the whole world to get their talent from, the ANZC just has New Zealand and you have to take away the players gone overseas and the All Blacks as well. The way I see it 14 teams into 10 will provide us with 10 financially stable teams, with good facilities and good crowd figures. The teams should all be of high ability and provide for a great competition.
Smaller provinces will have the chance to earn the right to play in the top division through automatic promotion-relegation. Right now, a few of the teams at the bottom have hardly any chance of making the finals and have hardly anything to play for. Promotion-relegation means that every team even the ones at the bottom will have something to play for. It will make it a hell of a lot more interesting. Even the Heartland provinces can dream for ANZC and they have been very much forgotten about with the current ANZC format. And, after all, it works in the EPL.
The worst teams are not just judged on the competition placings. Things like finances should come into account, you need your teams to make money and actually produce good crowds. What's the point in having a team if no one enjoys them?
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Wellington are largely innocent of any charge of not developing their own talent nowadays. Although in the era of the 10 team NPC, they were as capable as anyone of plucking Div 2 teams or any other team for that matter. Even then, they were nowhere near the guiltiest, so yeah you have a point.
Still back then, Christian Cullen started out at Horowhenua-Kapati, then Manawatu, which is where he'd probably have stayed if they were Div 1, like they are now. Jonah Lomu, wasn't homegrown Wellington either. David Holwell, was a Northland man until Wellington got him. Don't get me wrong Southland aren't 100% innocent either, but the current stucture has made the playing field much more even. Teams like Hawkes Bay have some of the richest talent around over the years, but have been milked dry by many other teams. Now they have most of their own back, they have been very competitive, knocking over Auckland for one.
I couldn't care less if you think it's "LOL worthy" that I compared competitions like EPL, NBA and NRL to the ANZC. It's not about the population, it's about the fact that competitions work better with those numbers of teams in a grade. Why not prune back further to follow your logic and just keep Auckland, Wellington, Waikato and Canterbury in a supreme grade of their own and have them play each other? After all, we don't have 1/4 the population of London in this country, let alone England, as you so cleverly pointed out in relation to my EPL comparison. We have 26 unions in the country, maybe they should dissolve down to a dozen or so due to our country being so small? Your argument holds no water on those grounds.
"Right now, a few of the teams at the bottom have hardly any chance of making the finals and have hardly anything to play for."
Now that's LOL worthy! 12 of the teams out of 14 have a mathematical chance of making it to the semi's from here. A 9 point spread covers them, with serveral rounds to go. 12 points covering the entire table. Any tabled competition will have teams that at a certain point of the season can't win, that's the same the world over, so your logic there is not sound either.
I think empathy is an emotion disappearing from society. The "have's", don't spare a thought for the "have nots" and so I guess it's easy to make a quick decision to flush four teams if your living in Wellington. Just remember though, I'd have the vast majority of the rugby people of all four of those provinces behind my opinion, so I'm not alone on that front.
Finally I'll say, yeah I think promotion relegation would be great if the top div was still 14 teams. Then the 2nd div teams could decide if they could financially afford to come up and have their promotion to the higher grade and more power to them if they can.
14 has gotten better each year, let's stick with an improving formula.
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You are taking what I said out of context. There is a complete difference between dropping four teams from the ANZC and dissolving some of 26 unions. I don't want that to happen and I don't want the four major centres to develop a super competition.
What you have decided is that I am from a big city so must obviously be anti the provinces. I do not see why getting rid of 4 teams means destroying the game in the provinces. If Wellington, Waikato, Canterbury and Auckland all struggled to make profits, got absolute **** crowds and were languishing near the bottom of the table then I think they should be relegated. I would be disappointed for Wellington but could not complain if fair criteria was used. From going through the teams (obviously without proper information) I have found the following to be the four worst teams overall.
Otago **** crowds, pinch players and only average on the field.
North Harbour Poor results so far this season and the area doesn't seem to really get in behind the team like you see with Manawatu.
Counties Get about 2,000 fans. Why should they keep a team if only 2000 people bother to turn up. To me, it looks like people don't really care about the team if they don't turn up.
Tasman The hardest one. Quite a few clubs down there still seem to be against the merge and they don't excel in any areas.
I don't wish to get rid of teams like Manawatu and Hawkes Bay who have changed the face of the competition for the better. I just don't like the under performing teams who are least supported. If a team wrongly goes down then that would be unfortunate. That team would still have the ability to get back up next year if they performed on the field. There, the NZRU would have no power to stop them.
