Over the weekend we got a taste of what Super Rugby’s future will be from 2016. Super Rugby is going to be really super rugby.

With the foreshadowing of the format that SANZAR is going to take to the various broadcasting businesses, there was more consternation than there were high fives from the punditry.

There was Greg Martin, for instance, wondering why the heads of the Australian franchises had initially opposed the format and then endorsed it after a meeting with the ARU’s CEO Bill Pulver.

The answer is pretty obvious to anyone who looks at the details of the format.

This is the best outcome that could be expected for Australian rugby from a difficult negotiation that requires SANZAR to somehow make a perfect triangle out of a circle.

SANZAR represents South African, New Zealand and Australian rugby. The essential difficulty with this grouping is that while the general rugby interests of the three parties are aligned, their specific interests are not.

Moreover, following the dictum of Karl Marx that political power follows economic power, the economic power in SANZAR is the South African Rugby Union. And it is SARU that has different objectives from the ARU and the New Zealand Rugby Union.

The bulk of the money in SANZAR comes from the South African part of the triangle. As with Indian money and cricket power, whoever pays the piper calls the tune.

Because of the politics of colour in South Africa, the SARU had to ensure a sixth South African Super Rugby team based in Port Elizabeth, a bastion of coloured and black rugby power, came into the Super Rugby format in 2016.

This team, the Kings, helps fill out the quotas imposed by the ANC authorities for black and coloured players in South African rugby.

There is a prevailing belief in South African rugby, too, that it is extremely difficult for South African teams. With the arduous travelling requirements imposed on them, it’s hard to win a Super Rugby tournament. So the new format had to reduce the travelling requirements for South African teams.

RUPA, the Australian players’ union, rather naively argued for dropping South Africa from SANZAR and creating a new NZAAR, incorporating Asian rugby. The problem here is that the television money is not in the pot yet for a New Zealand, Australia and Asia tournament.

The operative word is, yet. But this new agreement will increase the playing and watching reach of Super Rugby by adding a team from Argentina and one other new team, hopefully based in Tokyo, Hong Kong or Singapore.

What we know of the proposed 2016 format looks good for Australian rugby.

There will be effectively two major pillars in the new Super Rugby format – Australasia and South Africa.

The Australasian pillar will have two conferences, with five teams from Australia in one and five teams from New Zealand in the other.

The South African pillar will comprise of two conferences of four teams. There will be six South African sides and two other sides – one from Argentina and one other. Saracens, which are owned by South African interests, are said to be interested in a franchise.

Where Bill Pulver could really earn his salary is in getting an Asian team up as the 18th side, rather than a team from Europe. Asia is in the Australasian time zone, while Europe is in the South African time zone.

RUPA and others have been banging on about the need for a Super Rugby format based essentially on Australian and New Zealand teams. Well, they haven’t exactly got this format but they have got Australia and New Zealand as an entity with the majority of games played by their teams being against each other.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why the Australian rugby community can’t grasp this essential truth.

The Australian teams will play all the New Zealand teams each season. They will also, along with the New Zealand teams, play all the teams from one of the South African conferences.

The Australian and New Zealand teams will lose some of their local derbies. Instead of eight local derbies in each conference, there will be six. But the conferences will be rewarded by a new arrangement where each Australian and New Zealand team plays each other every year.

The point here to understand is that not all the home-and-away matches are big sellers. The Waratahs, for instance, get a bigger crowd for a match against the Crusaders than they do for matches against the Force and Rebels. And after Saturday night’s thriller, there should be a really big crowd the next time the Waratahs play the Hurricanes in Sydney.

The other great benefit for the Australian sides is that it will be slightly easier to get into the finals series. The Australian and New Zealand conferences will provide five finalists out of 10 teams. The South African conferences will provide three finalists out of eight teams.

The presumption on the part of South African authorities, presumably, is that the three finalists from South Africa’s conferences will come from the six South African sides. But Wayne Smith, in an informative article in The Australian, has found out that the Argentinians will only pick players playing in the Super Rugby tournament for the Pumas. This will make the Argentinian team, despite all the travelling they will have to do, a most formidable side.

There will be slightly fewer matches and less travelling for most of the players. Good. But with the increased number of teams, from 15 to 18, there will be 135 regular-season matches compared with the 120 matches in the current competition. The broadcaster will welcome this.

The spread of countries involved will bring in new and bigger audiences. I was intrigued, for instance, to hear from one of the New Zealand broadcasters over the weekend that there is dedicated Super Rugby coverage in the UK with Michael Lynagh and Sean Fitzpatrick involved with the discussion.

As I noted at the top of this article, we got a taste of what the refocused Super Rugby format will bring us over the weekend with some terrific matches: Blues versus Reds, Crusaders versus Brumbies, Waratahs versus Hurricanes, and Stormers versus Highlanders. All these matches involved a New Zealand team.

After the thrilling victory by the Waratahs, coach Michael Cheika praised the Hurricanes for their determination to play open, attacking and vibrant rugby despite the consequences. And watching the television coverage of the Stormers versus Highlanders match, you could hear the enthusiasm of the crowd for the way the Stormers had changed their playing style.

The Waratahs’ season was on the line when they were 17 points down with time still remaining in the first half. The Hurricanes had just scored back-to-back tries, the second from the kick-off. But the Waratahs kept to their ball-in-hand game, won their kick-off and mounted a torrid series of attacks before scoring a crucial try.

By half time the Waratahs had, amazingly, levelled the scores. In the second half their superior fitness, and possibly home-ground advantage, took them through to a bonus point victory.

Michael Hooper was man of the match, and he deserved it for his tackle on TJ Perenara that saved a certain try for the Hurricanes. But for me the crucial player was Will Skelton. As soon as he came on the Waratahs’ ball-in-hand game began to find gaps in the Hurricanes’ defensive line.

The Brumbies found that the Crusaders are very difficult to defeat at home in Christchurch. Their new signing, Fijian giant Nemani Nadolo, has given the Crusaders the battering ram they have missed since Robbie Fruean’s health problems made him a spasmodic threat.

The return of Richie McCaw added a lot more muscle in defence. I always believe that sides that want to win tournaments (and this applies to rugby league as well) need at least one tackling machine, preferably a forward who knocks over everything that comes his way.

McCaw is seen, incorrectly in my opinion, as a ‘fetcher’ who breaks the rules. In fact, he gets only a few turnovers, generally at crucial times. His main contribution is his work rate at taking the ball up hard, backing up to continue attacks, his lineout play and especially his ferocious tackling.

Once again he has come up with a new variation in this play. He sort of wrestle-throws ball-runners so that the ball is facing the tackling side of the ruck. This enables Crusaders moving into the ruck to force a turnover.

I thought that Stephen Larkham, who has proven to be an excellent coach with potential for higher honours, made a mistake in leaving Pat McCabe out of the starting line-up. McCabe’s combination with Matt Toomua destroyed the Blues earlier this year. It was only when McCabe came on as a replacement for Christian Lealiifano that the Brumbies looked like breaching the Crusader defence.

It’s worth asking here what Wallabies coach Ewen McKenzie is going to do about his inside centres. Last year’s combination of Quade Cooper and Matt Toomua, working as a NZ-style five-eighths combination, worked in Europe.

But Cooper is playing like someone dissatisfied with the game plan given to him by Reds coach Richard Graham. This raises the possibility of a Toomua, McCabe and Tevita Kuridrani as a trio, with Adam Ashley-Cooper played as a winger.

With the Reds last on the Australian conference ladder, there is cause for concern. The questions raised about Cooper’s performances are minor compared to those over Richard Graham’s future. This is now the second franchise he has coached to a notable lack of success.

How much more rope can he be given before it is turned into a noose?

The Rebels’ victory over the Sharks was well taken, professional and without the sort of magic play that the leading Australian and New Zealand teams can produce. The Sharks play the Brumbies at Canberra on Saturday night in the match of the round. The Brumbies need to win to give themselves and the other chasing sides from Australia and New Zealand a chance of getting to the top of the table.

The surprise package in the Australian conference are the Western Force. They are three points behind the Brumbies on the table with a game in hand. They begin the perilous South African part of their schedule on Saturday night with a match against the Cheetahs. With the previous week off, they arrive in South Africa fresh, playing a side not performing as well as they should.

It seems likely, even with the Bulls’ victory over the Cheetahs this weekend, that only one South African side – the Sharks – will make the finals. There is a possibility that between one and three Australian sides might make the finals, depending how the Brumbies, Waratahs and Force play out their remaining matches.

I must say that I am more hopeful for the Brumbies and Waratahs.

At the beginning of the season, I stuck my neck out in suggesting that this could be the season the Waratahs made the finals, with a good chance of continuing on to the grand final. I must admit that when they went behind by 17 points against the Hurricanes, I thought that the Curse of Spiro had struck once again.

But the splendid fightback and ultimate victory gives some hope that it’s not an impossible mission for the Waratahs. And once in the finals, anything can happen for a side with more strike power than any other Australian team.