1. Remember the Six, Five, Four rule
The Super Rugby 2016 kicks off on Friday night with three of last season’s semi-finalists (Brumbies, Hurricanes and Highlanders) meeting in what SANZAAR calls (correctly) “an opening night extravaganza.”

And the extravaganza continues throughout the tournament. Each team in Super Rugby 2016 plays 15 regular season games on a eight home, seven away format, or vice-versa on a two-year cycle.

There will be 135 regular season matches and seven finals matches, up from 120 and five in previous seasons.

2016 SUPER RUGBY TEAMS

Oh brave new world of Super Rugby!

I have had my shot on The Roar at casting doubts about the integrity of this new Super Rugby system, especially the introduction of the sixth South African team, the benighted Kings.

But in the spirit of embracing the new, I am going to take a cue from the best rugby coach going around, Steve Hansen: “SANZAAR have made some pretty brave decisions in how it will be run and how they want Super Rugby to work. So rather bag it or applaud it we need to sit back and see if it works.”

So on Friday night I am going to sit back and enjoy the stunning opening matches: Blues-Highlanders followed by Brumbies-Hurricanes.

One way of following the seemingly intricate format of a tournament of 18 teams playing in five different countries is, according to Rob Clarke, the ARU general manager of professional rugby, to apply the Six, Five, Four Rule: “Australian teams will play six games against Australian teams. They will play five New Zealand teams and they will play four of the eight in South Africa, on a season by season rotation basis.”

2. The Waratahs and the Brumbies are the best Australian Super Rugby teams, perhaps.
I expect the usual Australian Conference suspects, the Brumbies and the Waratahs, to be finals contenders, at the very least.

If there is a third Australian team in the finals, it could be the Melbourne Rebels.

The way the finals systems works is that the top team in all for conferences (Australia, New Zealand and the two South African groups) automatically qualify for the quarter-finals. That yields four finalists.

The top three teams in the Australasian Group and the next top team in the South African group qualify also for the quarter-finals as wildcards. That yields another four finalists.

This means that the South African conference will have three finalists and the Australasian group will have five teams in the finals.

I don’t believe it is mathematically possible for one of the groups in the Australasian Conference (the Australian and New Zealand group) to have only one team in the finals. No doubt someone with better mathematical skills than I possess will inform me and The Roar readers on the possibility or probability of this happening.

The most likely split in the finalists in the Australasian Conference is a three/two divide.

If this split is three Australian sides, with the very strong New Zealand conference teams cannabilising each other perhaps, then the third side could be the Melbourne Rebels. It is a very big “if” though, given the history of the Rebels, a side like the Western Force that has never made the finals.

Last year Tony McGahan’s Rebels started the season with a bang and then fell away in the championship part of the season.

The issue for the Rebels in 2016 is whether they can start well and then continue to win later on, especially winning those crucial overseas matches.

McGahan has shown his hand somewhat in the type of game he wants the Rebels to play by naming Nic Stirzaker as the captain. He wants to build a side, it seems to me, around one of the most gifted backs currently playing rugby in Australia.

I believe that Stirzaker should have been introduced into the Wallaby squads by coach Michael Cheika last year. He is a feisty character, with a sharp pass and a strong running game. He is destined to become a long-term Wallaby.

His halves partner, Jack Debreczeni, is also talented in different ways. He has a fluid style of playing. He is a strong runner, big in stature and has an enormous boot. He is, or should be, a Wallaby as early as this season, and like Stirzaker destined to be a long-term Wallaby.

Stirzaker and Debreczeni offer the key to the Rebels playing in the finals. If they rise to their potential, the Rebels will have momentum throughout the season.

The Rebels, too, have a very strong contingent of loose forwards, with Adam Thomson, Jordy Reid, Scott Fuglistaller, Lopeti Timani and Sean McMahon. Properly utilised, these loose forwards could cause havoc among sides that are slow around the field.

McMahon, too, has the power, pace and intensity to be Australia’s best all-round loose forward since Simon Poidevin.

The trio of Stirzaker, Debreczeni and McMahon have the potential to lift the Rebels from their general mediocrity to challenge the Waratahs and the Brumbies as Australia’s leading side.

The Rebels were tenth last season. I am picking them for a much better season this year.

I can’t say the same about either the Western Force or the Reds. A dismal season for both of them is likely, it seems to me.

I have never been impressed with the coaching of Michael Foley, either when he was at the Waratahs and with the Force. There does not seem to be a system or pattern to the play of his teams, aside from an annoying tendency to slow down the games they play to the point of boredom.

He has cruelled the career of Kyle Godwin, who should have been a Wallaby inside centre by now if he had been coached by someone who understood anything about attacking back play.

Foley says he wants his side to score tries. Then he has selected an ageing kicker from South Africa as his playmaker, Peter Grant, to somehow set up this try-scoring mode!

The Reds have retained Richard Graham as coach, despite terrible losing seasons with the Force and then the Reds. Graham (like Foley) is a nice man. However, nice guys we know finish last in coaching. His record as a coach is awful.

The only explanation for his being retained by the Reds, indeed in getting the Reds coaching job in the first place, is that he has the trust of people in high places in Queensland and Australian rugby.

People in high places do not win rugby matches for embattled franchises.

The Reds is a franchise that is brilliant off the field with their supporters base and hopeless on the field with the selection of their coaches.

In their final pre-season match, the Reds lost 31-18 to the Brumbies on the fabled field of Queensland rugby, Ballymore. This, I fear, is a portent of what is likely to be another dismal season for the Reds.

Stephen Larkham, the Brumbies coach, is honest about the 2016 season for his team: “It’s probably our last opportunity as a group to achieve something.”

By achieving “something” he means winning the 2016 Super Rugby tournament. Since 2013 (with Jake White), the Brumbies have been in three successive finals, the last two with Larkham as coach.

SANZAAR (the additional A covers Argentina) has tightened up the maul laws interpretation to make it harder for the attacking side to use the ploy.

This could have a damaging impact on the Brumbies most successful try-scoring option last season. It could also encourage the Brumbies to finally reject the last vestiges of JakeBall and get back to the traditional intelligent, attacking game that Rod Macqueen created so successfully for the franchise.

However, in the trial match with the Waratahs the Brumbies scored their first try from a rolling maul.

Like the Rebels, the Brumbies have got a tremendous back row, anchored by David Pocock. It will be interesting to see where Larkham plays Pocock, as a number 7 or as a number 8.

Number 8 is Pocock’s best position for the Wallabies as it allows him to play with Hooper at number 7. But for the Brumbies, Pocock is probably better placed to play at number 7.

The effect on the smart Pumas halfback Tomas Cubelli on the Brumbies attacking will be crucial, too. Too often in his years with the Brumbies Nic White just kicked away attacking ball in the pursuit of an attritional, territory-obsessed game.

The Brumbies, too, were more expansive than in previous years in the final trial with fullback Aidan Toua coming into the line and running kicks back, something the Brumbies haven’t done since Jake White took over coaching the side.

The issue for the Waratahs is whether they will modify their Cheika-style no-kicking game. Teams began to understand the Waratahs’ pattern last year and, as the Highlanders demonstrated in the 2015 semi-final, found various ways to make the tactic somewhat of an impediment for the Waratahs.

The Waratahs showed some tenacity in defeating the Brumbies on Friday night 17-12. They have a starting side that is virtually all Wallabies. On paper it is a side that has everything; a big, mobile pack and sparkling, hard-running backs.

A lot depends on whether the new coach Daryl Gibson has created the authority over his players as Cheika did with his tough-love approach.

3. Is the South African Conference the weakest?
What do we make of the Sharks going to Europe a couple of weeks ago and defeating the European rugby Champions Toulon 29-21 and then some days later smashing Toulouse 31-17?

On the face of it, these look like impressive victories. But there is a slight dampener with the injury to star playmaker Pat Lambie. This injury, perhaps, is balanced by the return of the mercurial Willie le Roux.

The Sharks are in a group (with the Kings, Lions, the Jaguares) that features only one strong South African side, the Lions.

You would think that either the Sharks, with this record of two impressive victories over French sides playing at home, would feature either as the winner of the group or as the third top South African side, if the Lions build on last year’s performances and win the group.

The Bulls, Cheetahs, Stormers and Sunwolves group is harder to call, especially as Handre Pollard is out for the season for the Bulls.

The Bulls, though, will have a lethal mid-field combination of Jesse Kriel and Jan Serfontein. But what is the point of having lethal centres when the Bulls continue to play Jakeball, kicking the ball away at every opportunity instead of running the ball at opposition defensive lines?

I would think that the Stormers, with new coach Robbie Fleck, are the favourites to win their group.

There are apparently about 200 South Africans playing rugby out of Africa. This has had a devastating impact on the South African Super Rugby sides. What it means, I reckon, is that most of the teams have weaknesses in key positions that would not have existed if the many Springboks playing overseas, say, were playing Super Rugby.

The point here is that you need a complete side, strong in every position, forwards and backs, to win the Super Rugby title.

I don’t see any of the sides in the South African Conference (the Jaguares are a possibility, I guess) having that all-round strength to win the 2016 Super Rugby title. To my mind, the South African Conference is the weakest of the three conferences

4. Are the New Zealand teams as strong as they look?

On Friday night the Hurricanes monstered the Crusaders 74-7, 12 tries to one. I’ll repeat that because this is news that appears to be unbelievable: The Hurricanes 74 – Crusaders 7!

The Crusaders were missing their All Blacks, Kieran Read, Israel Dagg, Ryan Crotty and Luke Romano.

But even an under-strength Crusaders side in their glory days would not have capitulated so abjectly as this. I reckon that Todd Blackadder’s last season as coach is going to be a season of tears for Crusader supporters. The franchise needs to pay Robbie Deans whatever it takes to get him back and rebuild the franchise into the powerhouse it was when he won five Super Rugby titles coaching the franchise.

I will make one point about the Hurricanes (following on from a comment by Paul Cully in The Sun-Herald) that there is a possible weakness in the side’s lineout, with Jeremy Thrush now playing in Europe. This takes us back a couple of years to when the Hurricanes could hardly win a lineout, even on their own throws.

But if the lineout is okay (and it wasn’t so accurate in the 28 – 0 to the Force some weeks ago), all the sides they play against in the tournament are going to have a devil of a time trying to contain their ensemble attacking game.

The Chiefs have Aaron Cruden back and this will help the side. It will be interesting, too, to see whether (or how) Sam Cane takes on the leadership role in the forwards with the stalwart Liam Messam no longer playing for the side.

The Chiefs have a terrific coaching staff headed by Dave Rennie, a tough and well-drilled pack and some exciting young backs. Watch out for the dynamo Damien McKenzie at fullback, for instance.

Talking about dynamic players, the Blues, coached by Tana Umaga, have the Ioane brothers who have starred for the All Black Sevens side. Patrick Tuipulotu has had hip surgery and he will give the Blues the size in the lock position the side needs. The mid-field combination of George Moala and Rene Ranger will be a handful for any defence in the tournament.

On paper, the Blues could be the bolters of the 2016 Super Rugby tournament.

The defending champions the Highlanders defeated the Waratahs 40-35 at the weekend at Queenstown. This is more impressive than it sounds as New Zealand teams generally don’t perform too well in pre-season matches against Australian sides.

The Hurricanes lost to the Western Force earlier this month. Last season the Hurricanes lost all their pre-season matches and ended up in a losing home final.

5. The Zavos fearful prediction
The Highlanders, Hurricanes and Blues, along with the Waratahs and Brumbies, to make up the Australasian Conference finalists: and the Stormers, Sharks and Bulls to make up the South African Conference finalists.

6. How the bookies see the finals list and it is different from mine
Bookmakers put their money where their mouth is. For this reason their picks are always worth considering, given that there is no room for emotion in establishing their odds.

Here is the Centrebet betting list for the tournament winner: Hurricanes $6, Chiefs $7, Waratahs and Crusaders $7.50, Brumbies and Highlanders $9, Sharks and Jaguares $13, Stormers $15, Bulls $17, Blues $21, Reds $26, Lions $34, Rebels $51, Force $81, Kings and Sunwolves $251.

As constant readers of The Roar know, I am the only New Zealand Greek living in Bondi Junction who doesn’t gamble. But if I were a betting man, the odds on the Blues and the Rebels look to be particularly attractive.

Whatever, it is Game On! on Friday and the unknown will start to become the known…