- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
In a frightful turn of events SANZAR’s decision to expand Super Rugby into an 18-team competition involving Japan and Argentina has turned a significant number of Super Rugby fans English!
Too much travel, the teams don’t all play each other, the new teams will be too weak, it’ll destroy rugby in this country, and that country, and I’m not going to watch anymore, let’s leave SANZAR!
Such whinging can be heard echoing through the rugby sections of the internet like a pandemonium of halfbacks stuck in a tunnel.
I’d like to address some of these common viewpoints.
Too much travel
Rubbish. Any increase in distance travelled will be offset by the fact the competition will be a week shorter. The Australian and New Zealand teams will continue to play all but two of their matches in Australia and NZ, while South African teams will actually play one less match outside of South Africa every second year.
The new Argentinian and Japanese teams will have it far tougher. Even then, rugby players have it easy compared to tennis players, Formula One drivers and people from any number of professions that travel all around the world on a regular basis for work. And it’s not like Super Rugby players aren’t well compensated for what they do.
It’s unfair that teams don’t all play each other every year
Quick, someone tell the NFL their competition has no credibility. This has been the case in Super Rugby for a few years now. While each year some teams inevitably get a better draw than others, this balances out over time. And the fact some sides don’t play each other every season adds a bit of occasion to those matches.
The best teams are still always going to qualify for the finals.
The new teams will be too weak
Nonsense. While both will suffer from their geographic isolation and are unlikely to win the tournament in their first couple of seasons, they’re also unlikely to be the worst teams going around.
The Argentinian team won’t be able to bring back all their top European based players, but they’ll be able to bring back enough. These will be added to the impressive locally-based Pampas side which had no trouble beating the ‘A’ sides of the Australian Super Rugby teams this year.
Many of those players also got significant game time in the Rugby Championship – including the win over Australia. With another year of preparation and development, they will certainly be competitive in 2016.
The Japanese national team has in recent times beaten Italy and Wales (minus their Lions players), and got within seconds of defeating the Maori All Blacks a few weeks ago. This team will be topped up by some foreign players who will add quality and depth in key positions.
Don’t doubt the competitiveness of the Japanese team. They will do fine. They’ll also play a very fast and entertaining brand of rugby.
Let’s leave SANZAR!
Many believe Australia should change direction, leave SANZAR and focus on building a domestic competition in its place. Likewise, a number of South Africans would like the Currie Cup to take back its place as the premier competition for South African teams.
I agreed with this once, but have come to believe it would be a disaster, particularly for Australian rugby. If this was to happen it had to happen 20 years ago. It might have worked then.
Now it would simply result in a very sudden exodus of all the top players to Europe and Japan. Broadcast and sponsorship revenue would plummet and the ARU would be forced to abandon their ‘local players only’ selection policy for the Wallabies. This would heavily wound Australian rugby.
You only have to look at the NRC to see how popular domestic rugby is in Australia without the top players involved.
The reality is that Super Rugby has to expand to new markets to compete with the money on offer in Europe. The retention of top players is important and a global competition offers more potential broadcasting and sponsorship revenue.
Certainly there is risk, but the potential upside is much higher than sticking an extra team in Western Sydney, Newcastle or the Gold Coast – all of which would have a high chance of failure anyway.
Australian rugby is not going to get ahead by trying to be exactly like the NRL and AFL, it just doesn’t have the fan-base at this point in time. Not to mention the sporting market in Australia is the most crowded in the world.
The NRC is important, but it will work better building from where it is now – a pathway between the grassroots and fully professional rugby. In time that might allow for further domestic expansion, but it just isn’t realistic at the moment and certainly not as a replacement to Super Rugby.
The 18-team structure is undoubtedly a bit messy. Japan in a South African conference is particularly weird. But it is clearly a bridge format to something bigger.
If these initial expansion teams have some success, particularly off the field, then it will open the door to further expansion in Asia and the Americas. This would then give better structural options in future.
Most importantly, if you love rugby none of this should even matter. Forget the format!
When you sit down on the couch or at a pub on the weekend you’ll still have many games of top level, intense and entertaining super rugby to enjoy. In fact there’ll be one more game each week to choose from. And when you’re sitting there watching a sport you enjoy, will you really be thinking about the competition structure?
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.