Merger could be Lions, Kings salvation

WITH the spectre of Super Rugby exclusion looming large, it didn't seem a viable option last year and it may even seem more unpalatable now, but failure to temporarily join forces could be the death knell for the Lions and the Southern Kings' Super Rugby aspirations.

With their promotion/relegation matches drawing ever closer, suggestions of the Lions and the Kings merging intensified this week as the reality of two potential years in the rugby wilderness and its consequences set in.

Super Rugby, that great open-ended juggernaut, is set for expansion in 2016, by which time the losers' supporters may have joined their sponsors over the horizon.

Rugby bosses in the respective franchises are likely to find common ground sparse and logistical problems insurmountable in their search for a solution that will benefit the local game.

Perhaps emboldened by his team's performances in the Vodacom Cup and in their challenge matches, Lions vice- president and foremost shareholder Altmann Allers poured cold water over the speculation of a merger.

"I can't see how the business model would work," Allers shrugged. "Where do you play, whose players are you using and where do you base players, are questions for which you are going to have to find answers."

Kings chairman Cheeky Watson wasn't quite as fist-thumping in denouncing a merger. "I haven't attended a single meeting about this. I don't know what this merger is about," said Watson.

The bigger picture, the parameters of which the South African Rugby Union should perhaps be making the franchises more acutely aware of, is understandably not the focus of rugby officials in Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth.

The waters are further muddied by the smaller provinces which help make up the franchises. They may contribute little but they have a say.

Not playing Super Rugby for potentially the next two years is a prospect which rugby bosses don't seem to find too ghastly to contemplate.

The problem for rugby is that if they don't find a solution, the driving forces that helped earn the Kings their status could wield their influence again.