RugbyRebels

I like the conference system. I back the Canes because I grew up in Wellington, and the Jaguars are my second team because I want to see Argentina do well in rugby. I have enormous respect for the Saders - the Real Madrid of rugby - and am also in awe of what the Chiefs have achieved given their limited resources, but I am nonetheless wickedly gleeful when the other Kiwi teams lose, thereby enhancing the Canes' own prospects. I've lived in both Auckland (twice) and Christchurch (short term) and observed for myself just how anti-Wellington a lot of the people there were. I doubt too many of them would back the Canes against a non-Kiwi team, in most circumstances.

BOMBSHELL

Two Super Rugby teams are set for the chop, if reported comments by Cheetahs chief executive Harold Verster are to be believed.

Speaking to Netwerk24, Verster said the Cheetahs had been told they were safe, with Super Rugby to go from 18 to 16 teams.

Verster told Netwerk24 that his information indicated that the tournament would only be reduced from 18 to 16 sides, with a team from South Africa (expected to be the Kings), and a team from Australia likely to lose their place.

'All I can say is that we are safe. I keep my ear to the ground,' Verster said.

'There is much discussion about the current series and the format, and that two teams from South Africa and and a team from Australia will fall out.

If it's two, they should be the Kings & Sunwolves, certainly, but the Japanese outfit may be retained for economical benefits and the Rebels (& Force) will be feeling very nervous right now.

I wonder what the format will be - a 6-team SA/Arg conference, & 5 team NZ & Aus/Jap conferences? or 2 groups of eight? or maybe back to a round-robin? Probably the latter. 16 teams is about the maximum for that structure.

Two is odd. I'd have thought that it'd be either three or none. Anyway, if it is two then I'd imagine it'll be full round-robin play as the NZRU isn't keen on conference play. Neither is SARU, I believe, but to a lesser extent.

Still, we're supposed to get a definitive answer some time this week. So we should soon find out soon enough.

I was happy to see them move to a conference structure because it allows for unlimited expansion. A round-robin doesn't. That's my only concern. But I agree. If Verster's comments are legit, I think there's a good chance it will be back to round-robin, which seems to be what most people want.

The problem with the structure is that they're trying to have it both ways - teams are split into conferences with unequal numbers because shut up, and then seemingly arbitrary cross-over games. And because the strength of the conferences overall are currently so lopsided in one direction, it's resulted in an utter farce of a play-offs.

Try and claim that the Brumbies and the Stormers deserved to finish above the Crusaders, the Chiefs and the Highlanders? The Brumbies went into the play-offs having suffered a stomping at the hands of the Blues in their last outing against non-Australian opposition and the Stormers got immediately knocked out by the Chiefs by getting their shit pushed in at their own grounds.

And the idea that the South Africans automatically deserve two teams in the play-offs? Fuck off.

Yes, even I'm beginning to change my mind about the conference system. Meanwhile, the Kings have been a joke from the outset and their admin's in crisis, so pretty sure we can kiss them goodbye. The Canes put 80 points on the Sunwolves and those kind of scorelines don't belong in Super Rugby either. Although they also put 70 on the Rebels, and I warned that those two glorified training runs would have softened the Canes up for the Chiefs last weekend.

As I've said before, Super Rugby would work better as a 2 or 3-tiered competition, like the J.League in Japan. They also went through identical issues with seemingly endless expansion after 2 or 3 seasons (the first two expansion teams actually were good additions, with Iwata providing healthy national team representation and Hiratsuka almost pipped the eventual champions to the title, even doing the home and away double on them in the second phase of the regular season). Later expansion sides struggled to make the same impact, resulting in tweaking until they hit the current format of a 3-tiered system:

J1 is made up of 18 teams, with the bottom 3 teams being relegated to J2.
J2 is made up of 22 teams, with the top 2 automatically being promoted to J1, while 3rd~6th go into a promotion play-off where the winner of that gets the 3rd promotion spot. The wooden spooners get automatically relegated, and 21st plays the runners-up from J3 in a promotion-relegation fixture where they play one game each at home and away.
J3 is made up of 17 teams, 3 of which are U-23 teams from J1-level teams that are meant to basically live in that division permanently in order to develop talent.

Super Rugby could do a hell of a lot worse than to adapt this format in a way that best fits Super Rugby.

I think South Africa had a good idea a while back by arranging a promotion-relegation match at the end of the season. If the Kings and either the Rebels or Force are dropped and want back in, let them play for a spot at the end of the season against the bottom ranked team from their own country. Personally I think it would be fairest if NZ, SA and Australia were all simply awarded 5 spots in the comp and got to decide themselves which 5 teams they were. But a round-robin format really can't go beyond 16 teams when several different continents are involved (including recently discovered Zealandia ), so that means we won't be seeing a second team from Argentina or any other exciting development of that nature in the foreseeable future. That's my main issue with it.

Despite Verster's comments, the NZ Herald is still insisting 3 teams will be dropped, not two, with 2 of them likely to come from SA (wishful thinking, perhaps)?

Three Super Rugby teams are set to get the axe when Sanzaar announce the new competition structure for next season, according to reports.

TVNZ's Andrew Saville is reporting that two South African franchises and an Australian side will be axed as Super Rugby will be reduced to 15 teams.

Chief executives from all five Australian franchises were briefed on recent developments by senior Australian Rugby Union (ARU) officials on Tuesday, just hours after a report emerged claiming an Australian team is to be cut.

The Force, Rebels and Brumbies are considered the local sides under most threat.

In South Africa it looks likely the Southern Kings will be dropped from the competition along with one other franchise.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/ar ... d=11818693

Meanwhile, former All Blacks star, (South African born) Andrew Mehrtens, seems to agree with my idea about Oceania breaking away from South Africa.

Mehrtens suggested there was no need for South Africa and Argentina to be part of the competition.

"I think the competition is stupid at the moment," Mehrtens said on the programme.

"There's no way, in 10 years' time that we're going to be looking at a competition that covers three massively distinct time zones.

"Our best thing is to go just within this time zone here. It makes it a lot more logistically easy to manage for the teams and players.

"You fly overnight, a 10-hour flight to Japan, you can handle that because the time difference is not massive.”

Mehrtens called for the introduction of Pacific Island nations like Fiji, Samoa and Tonga to join the competition.

"In Asia and Australia and New Zealand and the (Pacific) Islands is where the future of this competition lies for us. The sooner we can get there the quicker we can develop it and the better."

http://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/SuperRug ... a-20170315

It's not just the NZ Harold saying that 2 SA teams will be axed, along with 1 Aussie team. That does end up taking things to 15, which still doesn't fix things entirely.

The scuttlebutt I've come across is that it's possible it'll become 2 pools of 8. If that were the case, I'd rather it be that the Sunwolves and Jaguares each permanently live in their own pool, with the 7 other teams being random draws each year, with fixed numbers from each conference. So, something like:

Pool A
2 NZ teams
2 Oz teams
3 SA teams
The Jags

Pool B
3 NZ teams
2 Oz teams
2 SA teams
The Sunwolves

with periodic local derbies where the NZ, SA and Australian teams play the other teams from their own country in the other pool with the 1 NZ or SA side being left out doing their fixtures against the Jags or the Sunwolves. This should also accommodate for local rivalries (like the Reds v. the Waratahs, the Battle of Huntly or the High Veldt triumvirate) as well as trophies contested like the Gordon Hunter Memorial Trophy between the Blues and the Highlanders or the upcoming Dan Vickerman Cup between the Waratahs and the Brumbies.

Which reminds me, the upcoming Brumbies v. Waratahs game has high potential for being a good 'un, and certainly an emotional affair, as they'll be contesting the Dan Vickerman Cup.

The crowds have been pretty average for the Sunwolves, and downright poor in Singapore, so don't discount the possibility of them being axed as well, even though it hasn't been suggested by the media (to my knowledge). I don't know how that franchise can be sustainable given the travel distances involved. They'd need to be playing in front of sell-outs at every venue, but that's not likely when you get beat by 80 points . . .

The Sunwolves enjoy the NZRU's protection due to their wanting to expand their presence in Japan. Given that the NZRU's seems to be the most powerful of the three unions at the moment, it'd basically be like trying to remove a NZ franchise.

Indeed. New Zealand is the 'USA' of rugby admin, you might say...

Meanwhile Kings & Sunwolves face difficult away matches in SA this weekend as they battle for perhaps their very survival in the competition. One thing that does seem to have been overlooked amid all the media hyperbole over changes to Super Rugby is the promising start the Saffas have made this season, Kings not withstanding. So I think it's highly unlikely they'll axe two SA teams, especially as SA has about as many reg. players as NZ & Australia combined. Rebels also have a tough task, albeit at home to the table-topping Chiefs, while the Cheetahs visit the Jaguares - who will be looking to augment their promising start with another win. As for the Canes, they'll need a solid performance against Otago to get back on track, while the southerners themselves will also be desperate to turn things around in this battle of the comp's two most recent champions.

While we await further news from last week's Super Rugby meeting, one thing is for certain: The Super Rugby break will be a thing of the past come the 2020s, according to World Rugby's global calendar annoucement today. Whether anything is done about it before then remains to be seen. http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/sport/201 ... boost.html

Given all the shitfighting that went on over SA's 5th and then 6th teams, removing them could well cause a civil war. Stand by for the Eastern Cape to apply for independent membership of World Rugby.

Fighting talk also coming out of Melbourne's corner. So I still think they'll retain the 18 and just go back to 3 conferences, with Japan joining Aussie & the Jags joining NZ. I may well be proved wrong. But the weaker teams have certainly been given a wake up call by this entire drama, nonetheless, and at least with the conference system we have the capacity for virtually unlimited expansion. They just need to be a little more picky in future about who they let in . . .

Meanwhile either the Saders are going to have to come from behind for the third week in a row, or the Blues are headed for an almighty upset, as the latter are currently leading 5-21 HT.

Amazing! For the 3rd week in a row the Saders look set for a comeback miracle!!! Right now 26-24 in the closing minutes, after they trailed 5-21 at the break . . .

Canterbury seal it with a late try. 33-24. 3 coemback wins in a row. Are they a team of destiny? As for the Blues, their prospects looking very bleak now, even though they're obviously a half decent side. Undoubtedly this will add to grievances over the unfair playoff system.

A much improved performance by the Rebels, despite a home loss to the competition leaders.

Sunwolves appear to have upped their game this weekend too, in spite of a 34-21 loss at the Bulls.

Canes are running away with it in Wellington after an even first 60. 34-15 in the final minutes v 2015 nemesis Otago. I believe that was 4 unanswered tries in the final 1/4, Canes spank the Highlanders 41-15

Real shame. Kings led the Sharks until the final 10 minutes, but the home team edge in front with a late penalty and hung on for a 19-17 win. Still, we've certainly seen improved showings by the strugglers in the comp this weekend, as the axe looms overhead, but none of them managed to pull off a win - as usual . . .