Supa Iberica de Rugby
Roar Guru
By Working Class Rugger, 13 Jul 2009 Working Class Rugger is a Roar Guru
Last Sunday saw the inaugural final of the inaugural season of the SupaIberica de Rugby. The SIR is the brainchild of Michael Robinson and the Spanish Rugby Clubs Association in response to the perceived fall in competitiveness of the Spanish National team and the inaction of the Spanish Rugby Union to amend it.
The SIR is Spain’s first tentative steps toward establishing a greater Professional league in Spain and Portugal along with growing Rugby’s presence in the community and its participation numbers.
Its first season had 6 City based franchises. Originally four Portugese teams were to participate but the Portugese RU decided to hold back to see how the first season was received and the Spanish RU reaction to the competition.
The SIR as you may have already figured is not sanctioned by the Spanish RU. On face value they have given the SIR public support but the relationship behind the scenes in far from friendly. The Spanish RU has tried everything in their power to disrupt and stall the SIR to no avail.
For the record the 6 professional set ups are the Madrid Gatos, Sevilla FC Adulucia, La Vila Mariners, Vacceos Cavaliers, Catalunya – Blaus Alamgovers and the BasqueKorsarioak. With the Gatos defeating the Mariners in the final.
All the games were broadcast live and in prime time on Canal+ who also sponsored the competition alongside Powerade, Adecco and Canterbury who were the official kit providers.
I’m currently trying to find out about next season, crowd figures, TV audiences, standards of the competition and whether the Portugese team will join either next year or the year after. And of course that the SIR website be published in English.
On the German front, this weekend sees the Hannover 7’s in full swing, with the SIR already proving useful as the Spanish team made the semi- finals. Hopefully they can beat the crowd attendance from last year where they sold 35,000 tickets predominantly to German locals. If all goes to plan next year could see the arrival of the WILd Titans out of Heidelberg as a professional the European Challenge Cup.
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Thurston said | July 13th 2009 @ 7:27am | Report comment
WORKING CLASS – this is great news for Spanish rugby, and the Portuguese will help raise the level (they have an excellent 7s team). The Catalan and Basque teams have been influenced by their proximity to France, while Madrid and Seville have been helped by ex-pats of various nationalities. The Barcelona club, Enginyers (sic) has toured to several European countries and as far away as the States, Brazil, Argentina and South Africa. They play in the Greene King league (GK is one of the world biggest breweries) in Hertfordshire, on a home and away basis, and have topped the comp on a couple of occasions.
On an historical note, seeing you mention the Hannover 7s, Germany, along with France and Great Britain, entered a rugby team in the Paris Olympics, 1900, and took the silver.
Bay35Pablo said | July 13th 2009 @ 9:02am | Report comment
Nice article WCR. Good to see fringe Europeans getting their act together. The success of the European Cup and the Italians can only fill them with energy to get involved too.
netrug said | July 13th 2009 @ 12:21pm | Report comment
The reason Portugal did not join was because the SIR is not sancioned by the Spanish Rugby Federation. The portuguese were frightened that if they joined that their players would be banned.
A promtion of the SIR was held at a Seville soccer game. rugby was played at half time in front of 40,000 spectators and was well received. I believe the Seville soccer sponsor the SIR Rugby team.
Spain did very well in Hannover, beating top seeded and local adversary, Portugal. Russia beat France, 26-19, to become the European Rugby Sevens champions,
Working Class Rugger said | July 13th 2009 @ 5:28pm | Report comment
Netrug
You’re right. The Portugese RU decided against competing in the first edition of the SIR because it is effectively a rebel league set up by Michael Robinson ( a prominent figure in rugby in Spain) and the Spanish Rugby Clubs Association. The SRCA is a body of composed of some of the top Rugby clubs in Spain. The Spanish Union even attempted to establish its own counter to the SIR in the Iberian Cup, which collapsed as most of the players in the competing Spanish Clubs were also in line to play in the SIR and choose with the feet. The editor of Portugese Rugby News has stated that the Portugese RU are watching to see what happens, whether the SRU comes on board, if the IRB sanctions the SIR ( the IRB are supposedly supportive of the SIR but would like the SRU to come on board before the sanction it, but its not a deal breaker) they will honour their 4 team commitment to the league. And yes Sevilla FC sponsor the Seville side as does Real Madrid sponsoring the Madrid Gatos.
Most of the 7′s squad and for that matter the entire National Team played in the SIR. They had a 12 -14 week period to train as Rugby players and it seems to have paid dividend. The SRU should really swallow their pride and get behind the League.
Thurston
Yeah I’ve seen footage of them on a couple of occasion of the IRB Rugby TV show.
Bay
Yes it’s great they real progress is finally beginning to happen it the emerging European Nations. In terms of Germany the DRV runs a tight ship and have very solid development pathways now with the edition of the first WILD Rugby Academy and the planned second academy in 2010. the German national teams will also be using these facilities as will the age grade sides.
Monty said | July 14th 2009 @ 12:59am | Report comment
WCR
Mate, keep up the good work. Im loving all the information you are providing on how rugby is faring around the globe.
captain nemo said | July 14th 2009 @ 1:22pm | Report comment
I back what monty is saying. well done WCR
Working Class Rugger said | July 31st 2009 @ 12:58am | Report comment
Thought I’d just update the happening involving the SIR. The participation of the four Portugese franchises seems likely in 2010. With the Portugese RU Head meeting Michael Robinson ( President of the SIR). The first season has obviously left an impression. The FER ( Spanish RU) will have too swallow its pride and officially endorse the SIR. Good times ahead for Spanish and Portugese Rugby.
Sharminator said | August 4th 2009 @ 4:29pm | Report comment
I used to play for Rugby La Vila (La Vila Mariners) and actually I think the Super Liga Iberica is all a bit silly.
The point is that historically there has always been a regional championship in Spain. It is usually played around Christmas/New Year when all the Spanish rugby competitions have about 2 months off. But people always cared more about their club so it never really meant anything.
Div Honor 1 in Spain is a semi decent standard but there are too many teams .. diminishing the skill level .. and for example when the eternal spanish champions El Salvador went in the European Challenge cup, they got beaten by 100 points (although they did beat an Italian team once). So the idea of the Super Liga was to form a higher leve.
BUT … what the Super Liga did was instead of forming regional teams, existing local teams got the right to bid for franchises.
And this was the start of all the problems.
In the case of Valencia .. the area of south eastern Spain, my old club, La Vila got the franchise. The problem is that La Vila is a small fishing village of 30 000. Valencia is the third biggest city in Spain witha few million inhabitants. The other strong teams from Valencia are Las Abbelles and CAU Valencia, and Tecnidex Valencia .. all Divison Honor 1 or 2 (the top two tiers of Spanish rugby).
These 3 teams are all from the city of Valencia, and they all see La Vila as an upstart (because it only recently got to Divison Honor and has a lot of British and Foreign players). Consequently their players didnt play for the La Vila Mariners in the Super Liga.
The same problem happened in other areas .. for example in Vallodalid .. a traditional rugby stronghold … El Salvador got the franchise .. so the players from VRAC the other Div Honor club …. decided not to play.
Consequently the league isnt really a Super League of the best players … it is a super league of the clubs that won the right to franchises … plus a few other players …. and minus many of the best players who play for other clubs in Division 1 of Spanish rugby.
85% of the La Vila Mariners team which made the final were also La Vila rugby club players … this highlights the problem.
The other problem is the timing of the league .. the Spanish off season is the summer … May-July .. and this is exactly when the Super Liga was held … so as not to clash with the normal FER (spanish rugby federation) season. After a 10 month regular season (with 2 months off at xmas) … the players in the SIR have an extra 3 months of rugby … in 30 degree heat … from a player welfare point of view … I dont think it is ideal.
The idea of any Super League should be to be a league at a higher level than anything that already exists .. the SIR didnt do this.
For it to really work, and develop rugby .. you need new, regional franchises … independent of the clubs. They select/sign the best players from each region … you have a higher level competition and something that can develop rugby ..
Shorten the normal Spanish league season … have a real Super League of independent teams of the best players at the end of the season .. and select the best players in that league in the national team … just my personal idea …
Sharminator said | August 4th 2009 @ 4:34pm | Report comment
Forgot to say the reason why the FER didnt endorse the SIR was precisely because existing individual teams got franchises … endorsing the league would really really annoy all the rest of the teams in the FER that didnt get licences … and as only 6 teams got licences .. there were a lot of really annoyed clubs … who didnt allow their players to participate.
Spanish rugby is really really political .. and everytime a team wins promotion or gets relegated it ends up in the courts …
Working Class Rugger said | February 7th 2010 @ 1:05pm | Report comment
It’s been sometime since I’ve heard anything about the SIR so I went looking and found out about season 2. the SIR’s second edition will start in August of this year and run through to mid October. So about 10 weeks maybe 12. There will also be an increase in teams. The first season had 6 Spanish based outfits while the 2010 edition will have 8. No mention on who they but considering the Portugese Rugby Federation have been talking extensive to the SIR I’m willing to bet they will be Portugese. Overall, it appears to be positive growth of the Competition. All I need now is to find footage of the Championship.
Oh, BTW. The new Ukrainian League will kick off on March 13 with Kiev based Aviator replacing Olymp in the first edition.