RugbyRebels

Coincidence?

The Highlanders have been dealt a double injury blow early in the Super Rugby season.

The defending champions, who lost their opening match 33- 31 against the Blues at Eden Park, will have to do without Waisake Naholo and Fumiaki Tanaka for at least the next month, or longer due to injury.

The All Black Naholo, who made a miracle recovery to make the World Cup squad in 2015, sustained a new fracture to the same leg that he injured during his test debut.

The injury occurred late in the game against the Blues and the fracture was confirmed by X-ray.

"While this is very unfortunate for Waisake, the positive news is that this injury is not as bad as his last fracture," said team doctor Greg Macleod.

"He is already managing well and it's expected his rehab will take six to eight weeks."

...

Naholo will not be returning to Fiji for treatment as he did last year, his rehabilitation will be under the guidance of Highlanders team doctor Macleod.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/7742 ... ng-his-leg

And the Blues went without their captain (albeit to completely different reasons).

The Highlanders were beaten by the team that we ALL know are champions-in-waiting.

Blues were always going to be better off without JK. Great player but fairly unsuccessful throughout his coaching career.

Canes blew their golden opportunity last season and their embarrassing status as the only New Zealand team never to have won the title looks set to continue - probably for eternity.

Jaguares showed that they belong in this competition and will be a force to be reckoned with. Not surprising, of course, given the strength of Argentine rugby and the fact they only have one team.

Sunwolves' defeat was unsurprising, and although the scoreline may not have been so bad, I think they'll be in for a few good thrashings this season, especially when they come up against Australasian opposition.

Interesting article on the Sunwolves. I agree with it for the most part:

By Patrick Johnston

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The Sunwolves entry into Super Rugby is unlikely to grow the game around Asia, according to the sport's new rights owner in the region who believes showcasing more local action online will have a greater impact.

The Tokyo-based franchise, who will also play matches in Singapore, begun the Southern Hemisphere competition with a 26-13 home defeat by South Africa's Lions on Saturday after a tumultuous pre-season trying to assemble a team.

The expansion into Asia is expected to increase the revenues of tournament organisers SANZAAR but New Zealander Tim Martin, who has scooped up the rights to show Super Rugby matches in 23 Asian countries, wondered what else a Japanese entrant brought.

"I don't think the Sunwolves will do a huge amount for Asian rugby," he told Reuters in an interview in Singapore this week after securing the rights deal.

"I think they will do a lot for Japanese rugby but they won't do a lot for Malaysian rugby. I don't see how those dots join."

Martin, a former advertising executive, made waves when his Coliseum Sports Media snapped up the rights to show English Premier League soccer matches in New Zealand using his online platform in 2013.

He took a bold leap then for a fledgling start-up - albeit backed by a U.S.-based billionaire - but believed Japan would have been better off taking a conservative approach to growing the game after the World Cup win over South Africa last year.

"Why leap into Super Rugby, which is the hardest, most competitive rugby competition in the world?

"The Sunwolves could be a disaster, I hope not and I don't think they will be but they could. Nobody wants to watch a team get whipped."

As well as showing the Sunwolves and Super Rugby around Asian countries, he also bagged Rugby Championship matches, European internationals and domestic action from England, France, South Africa and New Zealand among others.

He admitted the $14.99 a month subscription could prove too costly outside the expat heavy markets of Hong Kong and Singapore and did not expect many people in Myanmar or Bangladesh to subscribe and watch the English league final.

But he said his online model meant no increased cost for running matches in multiple countries and opened doors to the inquisitive few in Bhutan and beyond.

He believed adding local rugby to his portfolio would help attract audiences and showcase a pathway to the elite, adding he also planned to make some All Black internationals free to view.

"I think we have to make rugby bigger in Malaysia and Singapore and Korea and I think that's about getting younger people in to it and access to more content and all that stuff," he said.

With rugby's inclusion in the Olympics this year, the sport is tipped for big growth in playing numbers.

Martin said the number of Asian unions had doubled to 32 in the last 10 years and that there were 400,000 registered players in Asia - outside of Japan.

"I reckon rugby in the region can become a significant thing. It's right on the cusp."

He said he wanted to eventually grow from 23 countries to 200, leaving the traditional sports bases like New Zealand and England alone and showing rugby online to new audiences around the world where television companies have overlooked the game.

Asia, though, with its young, tech-obsessed population that could easily access his platform was first priority. He said New Zealand and the bigger unions had failed to maximize their name by selling individual rights in different markets like he has.

"There are a whole bunch of fragmented unions. Its chaotic, we think there is a role for an aggregate," he said.

"It will help turbo charge the game's growth."

Meanwhile, they drew 19K to their home debut, well short of capacity. Interestingly, they're using a 27K stadium in Tokyo, but a 55K venue in Singers. It's going to be fascinating to see what sort of crowd they draw for their "home games" in the latter stadium.

Sounds like bad luck for the Sunwolves today, and perhaps they will be more competitive than I had anticipated. But I understand the crowd was only 8,000 in Singapore's 55K stadium. That's got to be a concern. If they can't do better than that this year, the Sunwolves should just play all their games in Tokyo and try to build up a bit of a fan culture there.

On another note, I was thinking about this today and it seems to me Super Rugby could be just a step away from splitting in two. There could be a Pacific Championship with separate Australian and NZ conferences, with Japan added to the former and perhaps a Pacific Islands team added to the latter. And there could be an Atlantic Championship comprising six SA teams and two Argentina franchises in two groups of four. Note: These would be two entirely separate competitions. If the respective winners wanted to meet in a sort of 'Champions League' finale, that would be fine. But for all intents and purposes we would have two separate tournaments, one to determine the Pacific champions, the other to determine the South Atlantic champions. Who knows, a few more decades down the line it could break up even further, with separate Asian and South American competitions getting underway...

rowan wrote:Sounds like bad luck for the Sunwolves today, and perhaps they will be more competitive than I had anticipated. But I understand the crowd was only 8,000 in Singapore's 55K stadium. That's got to be a concern. If they can't do better than that this year, the Sunwolves should just play all their games in Tokyo and try to build up a bit of a fan culture there.

Or, you know, you could give the team a chance to actually build a following in Singapore instead of shouting for them to abandon the place entirely. You might not have noticed this, but Singapore is a bit of a rugby outpost, and they're not going to be able to develop a following that would fill in a stadium overnight.

Singapore is a bit of a rugby outpost

Exactly. & you expect them to develop a following for a Japanese club team? Didn't they promote this match or anything? I remember when the Warriors debuted in NRL, there was a spectacular amount of hype and fanfare, and the match was a sell-out well in advance. Of course, we can only analyse things as we see them, and from yesterday's attendance I'm assuming Singapore may well be abandoned next year.

Nice false equivalence there.

Perhaps you'd like to elaborate on that apparently meaningless comment...

If you honestly think that there is any equivalence between the popularity of rugby league in New Zealand in the mid-90s and rugby union in Singapore right now, I don't know what to say to you. It's a daft comparison.

No, I don't think there is a comparison. That's what I'm trying to point out. Having a Japanese club rugby team play 'home games' in a 55 K stadium in Singapore is what's daft. They got 8000 for the team's first ever game at the venue! I wonder if they even bothered to promote it at all.

I don't imagine it's going to get any better, to be honest, and that's why I suggest they might be better off abandoning Singers altogether and just concentrate on trying to build up more of a fan base in Tokyo. Ok, the whole idea of playing in Singers was to reduce travel for their South African opponents.

Well, if SANZAAR has any nous at all, they'll find a way to switch the Sunwolves to an Australasian conference in 2017.

I think we'll soon see an All SA/Argentina competition, whether it be a single league or two conferences, and an entirely separate Australasian championship with an Australia/Japan conference and an NZ/Pacific Islands conference. That would solve a lot of problems.

A more split competition would be easier for fans to understand. Presumably you could have a play-off between the winners of each if wanted.

This starts to get us into idealistic territory for national sides with the American and African championships (eventually if the Africans get strong enough) promoting/relegating into a SA/Arg league and 3 levels of promotion from Asian 5N -> PNC -> AU/NZ/Pac

rowan wrote:No, I don't think there is a comparison. That's what I'm trying to point out. Having a Japanese club rugby team play 'home games' in a 55 K stadium in Singapore is what's daft. They got 8000 for the team's first ever game at the venue! I wonder if they even bothered to promote it at all.

I don't imagine it's going to get any better, to be honest, and that's why I suggest they might be better off abandoning Singers altogether and just concentrate on trying to build up more of a fan base in Tokyo. Ok, the whole idea of playing in Singers was to reduce travel for their South African opponents.

Or, you know, you could actually let it grow there instead of trying to write off the entire thing immediately. And once again, I will point out that the NRL had a proportinally larger base to promote the Warriors' first home game to than the Sunwolves would have in Singapore. If it's not meant to be a comparison, then don't mention it in a comparative manner.

But you missed the whole point of the comparison, Cashead. That's already been explained to you. & growing the game in Singapore is obviously not the objective here, and it almost certainly isn't realistic. If you want to grow the game anywhere you give them their own team; not a foreign club side which means nothing to them. Anyway, the organization and the franchise will do whatever is in the best interests of the team financially, and right now it's not looking good for Singapore's continued involvement. That's all I'm saying. They might look at an alternative, such as Hong Kong, but I personally think their best option would be to restructure the competition next year and create separate Atlantic and Pacific divisions. In fact, the former might entail a single 7-team conference with the extant teams (minus Japan), while Australia and NZ could expand their conferences to 6 teams apiece with the Sunwolves joining one of them, and another team (Pacific Islanders?) joining the other.

Why is it not realistic? Rugby is a growing sport in Singapore, so why are you now suggesting they be abandoned and left to their own devices?

If you want to grow the game anywhere you give them their own team; not a foreign club side which means nothing to them

That's why

rowan wrote:If you want to grow the game anywhere you give them their own team; not a foreign club side which means nothing to them

That's why

Or the Sunwolves could provide a pathway to professionalism for talented amateur players in Singapore, similarly to how they've already picked up a Korean frontrow forward.

That makes about as much sense as having a European club play some of its home games in, say, Sweden, in an attempt to promote the game there. Why isn't that happening? Because it's clearly not the way to grow and develop the game in Sweden. That's being achieve through Swedish involvement in ENC competition. Similarly, the way to grow and develop the game in Singapore is through their invlvement in Asian competition - not by having a Japanese club team play some of its home games there. That's achieving nothing.

rowan wrote:That makes about as much sense as having a European club play some of its home games in, say, Sweden, in an attempt to promote the game there. Why isn't that happening? Because it's clearly not the way to grow and develop the game in Sweden. That's being achieve through Swedish involvement in ENC competition. Similarly, the way to grow and develop the game in Singapore is through their invlvement in Asian competition - not by having a Japanese club team play some of its home games there. That's achieving nothing.

Why pick Sweden rather that Belgium, Spain or the US, all of whom have hosted competitive Eurpean matches for precisely the reason of developing the game in those places.

Ok, Belgium or Spain. I knew the odd game has been played in Barcelona, but that's because of the size of the stadium, not due to the extensive travel requirements of the opposition. But does any French (or British/Irish) team actually use Belgium or Spain as a regular home base, the way the Sunwolves are using Singapore? I don't believe so. The USA analogy doesn't really apply as that's a tier 2 nation on another continent.

Anyway, the point I was making was that having the Sunwolves play regular home games in Singapore is not an effective way to promote the game there, as evidenced by the low turnout for their opening game at the venue. Perhaps the franchise could look at Hong Kong as an alternative next year. The game has a bit more of a following there and it would still shave a few hours off the South African teams' travel time.

Ideally, however, I think SANZAAR should look at switching the Sunwolves to one of the Australasian conferences. To balance it out, they might call for applications of interest in hosting a 19th Super Rugby franchise. Singapore might well enter the running, though I'd personally like to see a Pacific Island team involved, operating out of Suva. The Hawkes Bay province, currently within the Hurricanes franchise, has also expressed interest in the past.

Atlantic division
South African Conference: Lions, Bulls, Cheetahs, Stormers, Sharks, Kings, Jaguares

Top 4 teams into semi-finals leading to final to determine Atlantic division champion

Pacific division
Australian Conference: NSW, Reds, ACT, Force, Rebels, Sunwolves

New Zealand Conference: Blues, Chiefs, Hurricanes, Crusaders, Highlanders, ?Singapore/Islanders/Hawkes Bay?

Conference Champions determined by standings at the end of the regular season

Top 4 teams into semi-finals leading to final to determine Pacific division champion

Atlantic champion plays Pacific champion in Super Rugby final

You simply can not make a call that it will be absolutely of no use for Singaporean rugby to have a regular professional team playing there on the basis of one game. Making a sweeping judgement call like that before it even has a chance to be bedded in, or for the organisers to adjust accordingly, is colossally stupid and staggeringly shortsighted.

Any more babies you want to chuck out with the bathwater?

You simply can not make a call that it will be absolutely of no use for Singaporean rugby to have a regular professional team playing there on the basis of one game.

Yes I can, actually. This is a chat forum and it's a free world where everybody has their own opinions on things. That concept is evidently beyond your grasp. I personally think you notion that a Japanese club team based in Singapore will promote the game there is pie in the sky & totally absurd - as indicated by the woeful crowd which attended their first game at the venue.

rowan wrote:That makes about as much sense as having a European club play some of its home games in, say, Sweden, in an attempt to promote the game there. Why isn't that happening? Because it's clearly not the way to grow and develop the game in Sweden. That's being achieve through Swedish involvement in ENC competition. Similarly, the way to grow and develop the game in Singapore is through their invlvement in Asian competition - not by having a Japanese club team play some of its home games there. That's achieving nothing.

It's almost as nonsensical as having a European club play one of its home matches in New York, in an attempt to promote the game there. Or a French team playing some games in Spain. Or for New Zealand and Ireland to stage a test match in Chicago.

Puja

I'll also note that you're chucking around "only 8,000 crowd" like that's an utter disaster, when I'd view it as a very promising start in an unusual country for rugby. Sale fail to get 8,000 for a lot of games and they've got most of the North West of England to get fans from.

Puja