NZ Super Rugby reboot

[cashead]

This is the time of year when the Blues will now kick into gear and ruin the playoff hopes of as many other teams as possible.

Yep, accounted for the Brumbies comfortably in the end. Being the team players that they are, I believe that the Blues have now all but guaranteed that all four of the other NZ teams will make the finals.

Honestly, Piers Francis should be starting at 12 anyway, since he's been the MVP of the Blues backline this year. I'm pretty sure we'll get some naysayers coming here soon explaining how he's an average journeyman because he didn't set the world on fire with Edinburgh 5 years ago or whatever, though, because players are incapable of developing or having the sort of skillset that fills a niche in a team.

[zer0]

I personally have no problem with Francis. The problem I refer to is that Williams will presumably play at different positions for the Blues (centre) and All Blacks (second five), while Moala will be shunted out of the midfield entirely. This is a great problem for the Blues, but might not be viewed as the most optimal distribution of playing resources by the All Blacks coaches.

[cashead]

I personally have no problem with Francis. The problem I refer to is that Williams will presumably play at different positions for the Blues (centre) and All Blacks (second five), while Moala will be shunted out of the midfield entirely. This is a great problem for the Blues, but might not be viewed as the most optimal distribution of playing resources by the All Blacks coaches.

It was just more a dig at the tendency of a fair few people on here to judge people's careers and prospects entirely on one game or season with no regard to any possibility of improvement or development.

[rowan]

Kings taking a hammering. That's three already this weekend. Dare I say it, but this competition just about needs a first and second division Lions, meanwhile, looking like the team most likely to break up the Kiwi hegemony...

As I was saying, another hammering underway in Christchurch right now, making it 4 lopsided encounteres out of 4 so far already this weekend, and once again it's a Kiwi team on top & a non-Kiwi team on the bottom.

The following game should buck the prevalent trend however. I'm expecting a down-to-the-wire thriller from the Tahs & the Canes in Sydney, and one which could largely determine the playoff aspirations of both teams.

[Doorzetbornandbred]

Cru have really took their foot off the pedal only averaging a point a minute at halftime.

[cashead]

Australia, sort your shit out

[Len]

Lolstralia

[Which Tyler]

Australia, sort your shit out

We, err... softened them up for you?

[Len]

Australia, sort your shit out

We, err... softened them up for you?

All those years ago when you deported them? They've always been soft mate.

[zer0]

The aggregate score over the four trans-Tasman matches this round was 203-63. It is also possible -- thought very unlikely -- that the Blues could finish on more competition points than the best Australian team.

[Len]

The aggregate score over the four trans-Tasman matches this round was 203-63. It is also possible -- thought very unlikely -- that the Blues could finish on more competition points than the best Australian team.

Man they suck balls

[rowan]

Well done to the Canes, I suspected it would be the tightest game of the weekend - even if only because all the rest were one-sided thrashings Sunwolves on the receiving end as we speak. Still, the Canes have rugby's Everest in front of them next weekend with a trip to the mighty Crusaders. Should be epic

[Eugene Wrayburn]

Really shockingly lopsided now. It definitely isn't fair to have a league which doesn't have to play any NZ franchises. That desperately needs a rethink.

[Lizard]

Well done to the Canes, I suspected it would be the tightest game of the weekend - even if only because all the rest were one-sided thrashings Sunwolves on the receiving end as we speak. Still, the Canes have rugby's Everest in front of them next weekend with a trip to the mighty Crusaders. Should be epic

The Canes blew a ton of scoring chances, too.

[rowan]

& the aptly-named Hurricanes will be sure to blow it at some stage anyway. Credit to them for getting past NSW in Sydney, never an easy feat, but Christchurch next will will tell us a great deal more about their genuine title prospects. I suspect the Saders are going to bring them back down with a thump . . .

[rowan]

According to reports, the Highlanders have secured a playoffs berth. The Highlanders are on the same number of points as the Canes. No reports have stated the Canes have secured a plaoffs berth yet. Can anyone shed any light on this for me??

Meanwhile, it seems moves to get the Pacific Islands into Super Rugby have gained momentum since the Saders played the Chiefs there a week or two ago. Would that entail further expansion, or one of the current teams being axed?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/gregor-paul/n ... d=11667796
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/sport/r ... se-in-fiji

[Lizard]

I heard that all NZ teams but the Blues are through, but the order might vary. I haven't checked that myself though.

I do know that the Chiefs need to do better than the Cru, but have the advantage of a later kick off so will know whether a BP is necessary. If the Cru get a BP win the Chiefs need the same or to somehow win while making up a 30-odd point PD, which would probably involve scoring a BP anyway.

[Lizard]

Ok, I've now looked at the Aussie points table. Their top two teams are on 39 points so they cannot catch the Canes/Landers on 48. One of them will go through as conference winner, the other will not win a wild card spot.

If the Force beat the Brumbies (unlikely) and the Blues get a BP win while denying the Tahs a BP, then we could see the farcical situation of the Blues being denied a playoff spot despite having more points than every Australian side.

On the other side of the draw, the Lions are uncatchable and will win the SA2 conference and SA/Jap/Arg division. (arguably due to not having to play any of the four best other sides). The Stormers are locked in to take SA1. Their guaranteed "wild" card playoff spot comes down to the Bulls and Sharks, playing the Cheetahs and Sunwolves respectively. Sharks are therefore in the box seat.

The real interest this week is only in the order of the NZ qualifiers.

[rowan]

Much obliged, Lizard, and that's very good news indeed, because I think the Canes will go down in Christchurch (as per usual). Just goes to show how important that win in Sydney was. Unfortunately, however, they're unlikely to have home advantage in any of their playoff games, so I don't see them progressing too far. Sorry to be the eternal pessimist, but I've been a Canes fan since the outset, and they are the only NZ team yet to have won the tournament. This probably won't be their year either.

[zer0]

Also, only one of the NZ team will have a home quarterfinal. The other three will have to travel to Australia or South Africa.

[Lizard]

Sorry - in my previous post, I should have made my snide comment about not playing the top teams in respect of the Stormers, not the Lions.

The Lions beat the Chiefs in Hamilton and are worthy of their play off spot.

[Lizard]

I saw this interesting chart on Twitter. For non-Francophones, the caption says, "Number of kilometers traveled by each Super 18 franchise in the regular season in 2016."

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cm_hGBuXgAQ3hxb.jpg:large

(Disclaimer: I do not know by whom or how these figures were calculated or rounded.)

If you graph km travelled against competition points, there is a clear negative correlation, i.e in general the more airmiles, the fewer points. Obviously great caution is needed before implying any level of causation - the Sunwolves could have played every match in Tokyo and still finished rock-bottom, and the Jaguares also may have struggled even without the travel. However, it is interesting to note that in SA and Aust, the top team in each case traveled the least, and in Aust, the worst team traveled the most. If you look at each country separately, the effect on NZ teams is practically non-existent possibly due to the lower average amount of travel and lack of disparity between teams. The effect is pronounced in Australia but again the Force's relative weakness is not purely due to it's remoteness. The trend is weakly apparent in the SA 2 teams from SA, but reversed in the SA teams in SA1, because of course they travelled the furtherst just to play the Sunwolves.

I've quickly done a graph to show all this, but please excuse that my Excelfu is weak so the graph is shit.

graph.jpg

[rowan]

It's a ridiculous amount of air travel. If they went back to three conferences, with the Sunwolves in Australia and Jaguares in NZ, as I've previously suggested, and played a 16-week regular season, it would reduce the number of inter-conference/continental fixtures significantly.

[morepork]

I can't believe you actually took the time to make a graph. You could have made an effort to give us an R-squared value FFS.

[Lizard]

I can't believe you actually took the time to make a graph. You could have made an effort to give us an R-squared value FFS.

I have never forgotten more about one subject than MATH110 or whatever my 1st year stats paper was.