Even though the Melbourne Rebels had a great season that would mean a first extended go in the Super Rugby finals next week depending on their regular-season finale performance in Suva this Saturday v Fijian Drua after Week 15, unfortunately the new consortium group involving ex-directors just didn’t prove to Rugby Australia that they can make them financially viable to bring back from the dead and not fall into the red once again as instead the Rebels will not be back playing next year with their last game coming up next month. There’s nothing anyone can do about it when the club entered this season under huge financial uncertainty and despite this, they managed to do so well with a really strong squad they’ve got over the off-season while the Waratahs had lots of injury clout that reflected yet another worst ever season & the Force still very unlikely to make just inside the Top 8 when you got the Drua (win and you’re in) and Crusaders (win and see Drua lose) in front of them.
We feel very sorry for the Rebels administrative staff, players and coaching staff who have to suffer this difficult announcement like this where some will be moving to another Super Rugby club here like the Waratahs (Andrew Kellaway already onboard with a few more looking to follow him soon) and Force or else head overseas. It doesn’t mean everyone should hate the Rebels when they first entered Super Rugby back in 2011 but their on-field performances have been mostly mediocre for so long combined with them running as insolvent in recent years when RA first controversially cut the Western Force back in late 2017 – only for the Force to return a few years later off the back of COVID & South African teams leaving for Europe full-time.
It doesn’t mean that RA will stop investing community and grassroots rugby within the Melbourne and Victorian area despite the Rebels shutdown with more home-grown players coming through which isn’t going away any time soon but for these kids to play for either of the four Australian Super Rugby clubs at some point in their careers after high school or juniors U-16 to U-19s level with Rugby Victoria. For example, loose forwards Rob Valetini and Pete Samu whom are both born and bred in Melbourne, both also grew up there & ended up moving interstate later on (Valetini to Brumbies & Samu to Sydney/Brisbane).
We also hope to see that the ACT Brumbies and even NSW Waratahs (both teams wouldn’t be mergers to Melbourne after all – don’t stress) could play some of its games there at AAMI Park from next year if that can be done too but you never know when the annual Super Round might be heading elsewhere at the same time. At the end of the day, RA is unable to support their senior talent pool of players up to five teams financially as said above where they will field four Australian teams next year consisting of the Brumbies, Reds, Waratahs and Western Force – with no replacement team elsewhere like the Jaguares in place of the Rebels to make up 12 teams & will instead go with 11 teams in the next Super Rugby instalment for now. Let’s hope they can make it count with more than just the Brumbies so our Australian Super Rugby teams can have a really strong campaign against the New Zealand teams that would mean a great extended Finals campaign and most importantly, a strong Wallabies performance at last in a long time in order to win back both the Rugby Championship and Bledisloe Cup.
What does it mean for the Western Force? They’re also beginning to build a good group of experienced players too other than Nic White onboard this year thanks to the ownership of Andrew Forrest, with his ex-Brumbies team-mate Darcy Swain expected to join soon after the season is over for the second row department alongside two brilliant hookers like Nic Dolly and Brandon Paenga-Amosa from Europe. But again, they’re a team who still hasn’t yet had a full Super Rugby finals campaign before that goes way back to when the Force first started in 2006. If they don’t continue to make much progress in the next few years regardless of how much money being thrown here and there, then they would be better off either expanding into Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong or Singapore on top of Perth (they can continue some of the games there), merge with Sunwolves if Japan wants to play Super Rugby again (also doesn’t mean they shouldn’t leave Perth altogether with some home games like the PNG link up suggestion) or else play in a different competition. The NRL is about to give PNG their 18th team soon, so no doubt Twiggy can have a look at the growing PNG market just like the other Pasifika hotspots such as Fiji. It doesn’t mean that the work of developing and producing more of the homegrown talent is to be missed/overlooked where he can get some of the best PNG league players to play for the Force alongside the experienced & youth players in Super Rugby.
For now, this weekend and next weekend is all about the Rebels putting their best show as they possibly can to go out with their head held high. They can make the Crusaders make Finals possible if they can beat Fiji on their home turf to finish 6th spot before going all in regardless of their final result against any of the Top 3 sides like the Brumbies, Blues or Hurricanes.
