Super Rugby side NSW Waratahs is poised to play all its regular season games at Allianz Stadium from next year "after the SCG Trust intervened to stop a lucrative new deal with the operators of ANZ Stadium," according to Georgina Robinson of the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD. The future of the reigning champion "is still in limbo" after it was forced to "all but abandon" a management deal with Stadium Australia Operations that would have delivered the franchise a guaranteed A$2M ($1.6M) a year -- double its current deal -- over a minimum six-year term with no change to the current spread of matches between Allianz and ANZ Stadiums throughout the season. A heads of agreement "was signed just before Christmas but the powerful SCG Trust moved to scotch the deal, which had an extra five-year option, expressing concern over dealing with a franchise owned by its major competitor and threatening to boot the Waratahs from Allianz altogether if it went ahead." With little appetite for deserting the team's Moore Park stronghold, Waratahs Rugby and its licensee the NSW Rugby Union "were forced back to the drawing board." The new agreement, a "straight stadium hire arrangement" without the management component proposed in the Stadium Australia deal, "is understood to include a neat uplift in revenue for the Waratahs via at least two extra games each season moving from ANZ Stadium to Allianz, as well as some concessions on overheads including office rental" (SMH, 1/27).