Money's tight: ARU boss Bill Pulver. Credit:Getty Images "We're just suffering the short-term environment where $144 million in revenue in 2013 drops to $100 million and then drops to $80 million, and we've been losing $5 million to $10 million a year. "I defy anyone to step into my shoes to fix it. People need to look at the mathematics behind our financial situation. We are fixing it and we're putting in place some tough measures at the ARU – we have cut that place to the bone. "But they are measures that will deal with our short-term challenges and there are a series of other initiatives that we have in play. I am trying to share the financial pain evenly across the players, the administrators, the fans and grassroots." Pulver's comments come in response to reports the ARU will exhaust its cash reserves next year if changes are not made, and that professional rugby could be dead in Australia by 2020 without significant reform.

Super Rugby's governing body, SANZAR, unveiled its agreed 18-team model on Thursday. A sixth South African franchise – the Southern Kings – will be added to the existing 15 teams, as will an Argentine side and an undetermined 18th side. SANZAR is putting the 18th team up for tender, with the Australian Rugby Union hoping it is awarded to a team in a big Asian market to increase the broadcast deal. Australia and New Zealand will stay in their existing five-team conferences, while the six South African sides will be split into two new conferences and joined by an Argentine side and the 18th side respectively. The new model will see the number of regular season matches increase from 120 to 135, while the finals series will be expanded from six teams to eight. The play-offs – to be held in a sudden-death format over three weeks – will feature five teams from the Australia and New Zealand conferences, and three from the South African-based groups.

The top team from each conference will secure an automatic berth, while one wildcard will be taken from the next top side out of the South African conferences and three wildcards will be handed out to the next three top sides from the Australasian conferences. Pulver said he secured agreement from the five Australian provincial chief executives at a meeting on Thursday. After weeks of fierce debate about whether Australia should stay in the competition, it appears the forecast broadcast revenue the ARU took into the meeting was enough to settle the provinces' concerns. Before the meeting, Pulver told Fairfax Media suggestions Australia's interests were better served by either Australia and New Zealand cutting South Africa adrift, or Australia pulling out of Super Rugby entirely, were nonsensical. "Almost a quarter of our revenue comes from that broadcasting agreement," he said. "[If] we walk away from it, how is that revenue replaced?

"We don't even have a domestic competition to run, which is why strategically the National Rugby Championship is actually very important to the long-term structure of the game. You need those strategic pillars in place to even consider those options. "The game can't afford to walk away from [the SANZAR] revenue. It can't. Actually the game needs a lot more revenue in Australia and [the proposed new competition model] is the best path to achieving that." Pulver said SANZAR had tested the trans-Tasman conference model, first mooted in August last year, which would see Australia and New Zealand form one conference, and South Africa, Argentina and possibly an Asian team form a second. "The reality is all three broadcasters from South Africa, New Zealand and Australia said that that competition structure would result in them paying less for the broadcasting rights and realistically that is not the outcome we want," he said. "Like [RUPA] we like the idea of playing all within one time zone, but once the broadcasters took that position I don't think it was a [possible] outcome."

The ARU has come under fierce criticism that its support for continued South African involvement in the competition was not acting in the national interest. Pulver rejected these claims. "In our present financial condition, the revenue outcome is arguably one of the most important results we're looking for and I have no doubt that this is the best option from a revenue perspective," he said. "RUPA is saying 'walk away from South Africa'. South Africa contribute nearly 50 per cent of the broadcasting revenue. It is an ill-founded idea to say we should walk away from that opportunity. "When you play the games in Australia and New Zealand you can watch them in the morning in South Africa, whereas when we play games in South Africa we get them at 2am.