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Not since 1996, when Super Rugby started, has there been a more open tournament, with no team establishing a clear favouritism. The TAB Sportsbet bookmakers, who have a financial interest in getting it right, have rated the top sides as the Crusaders ($4), the Hurricanes and Stormers (both $6), the Blues ($8), the Bulls ($10) and the Waratahs ($11).
These odds are at variance with the pre-tournament trials which in Australia and New Zealand revealed the Chiefs and the Waratahs (three wins each) as potentially the best teams, along with the Stormers, who had a splendid pre-tournament build-up.
Let’s not forget either that at the business end of the 2008 tournament, the Highlanders quite convincingly defeated the Crusaders. The Highlanders, on paper at least, are a much stronger side this season than they were last year.
The Queensland Reds, too, look to be much stronger this season than they were last year.
Coach Phil Mooney has insisted that his squad will form the nucleus of the Wallaby squad for the 2011 RWC and that his team isn’t far off a “remarkable” Super 14 tournament.
This is brave stuff from a coach of a team that has been on the bottom three of the table for the past five years. But is it overly-optimistic? Possibly not.
What the Reds and the other Australian Super 14 sides have got going for them this season is what may be called The Deans Factor.
The 2008 Wallaby squad members have been subjected to the coaching of Robbie Deans, an experience that involves improving mental and physical skills and talents both on and off the field. T
he players should be better rugby players for their exposure to Deans’ coaching, and their improvements should have a powerful impact on their Super 14 sides.
As an example, Quade Cooper went from being a scatter-footed and brained, occasionally brilliant player, to a player of controlled and effective brilliance for the Wallabies. If Cooper can bring the Deans Factor into his play for the Reds, then Mooney’s seemingly grandiose predictions might not appear to be so far-fetched after all.
The Waratahs have a permanent carry-over from Deans’ coaching of their Wallaby players with the appointment of Michael Foley as the forwards coach.
So much of the Waratahs season depends on the quality and toughness of the front five – the players who Foley has to get to replicate their strong Wallaby performances in the blue jerseys of the Waratahs.
If the Waratahs front five can perform and stay injury free, then New South Wales could make a mockery of the bookies odds against them.
While the Deans Factor will or could work for the Australian sides this season, it won’t be available to the Crusaders.
Todd Blackadder has taken over from Deans and inherits a squad and a system that has had remarkable success (with five Super 14 titles in the bag). In cricket terms, Blackadder is in the position of having to come into bat after the dismissal of Don Bradman.
My guess is that a large part of the Crusader’s success was due to Deans and that the Crusaders will struggle to be as dominant as they were when he was coach.
The Blues (who have never really kicked on since Graham Henry departed, with two Super Rugby titles in three years, at the beginnings of the tournament) have a strong team on paper, once again.
But it is doubtful if new coach Pat Lam will make the team a contender this season.
The Hurricanes are rated by many as the best New Zealand side. But this is a franchise that has been profligate with its talent, unlike the Crusaders. The Hurricanes have tended to play a helter-skelter game that enables them to blow oppositions away, and also to lose games they shouldn’t ever lose.
If I had to choose the most likely New Zealand team, it would be the Chiefs. With the proviso, though, that they need to make a strong start to the season.
This won’t be easy as the Chiefs have got a horrendous opening schedule: the Crusaders at Christchurch, the Waratahs at Sydney, and the Sharks (one of the favoured South African sides) at Hamilton.
The Brumbies and the Western Force look to be thin on reserves, especially in the forwards.
The new Brumbies coach, Andy Friend, is trying to get some of the fizz back into the side’s style, but whether he has the talent that Rod Macqueen developed when he made the Brumbies the leading Australian side and a style-setter for the other sides is debatable.
On paper, too, in keeping with my opening suggestion about the evenness of the teams, the Western Force look strong. But whether this paper strength can be translated to points on the board is the issue.
It’s hard to believe that when 31 members of a team and the coaching staff tell the management they have serious issues with the coach and his method, and the coach in retained on a shorter leash, that the team will be effective over a long haul.
The Force play the Blues at Perth and the Cheetahs at Perth before playing the Brumbies at Canberra. These matches will be crucial for the way the team performs in the tournament.
Winning covers a multitude of sins.
Two wins out of three, or three wins would transform the Force into, well, a real force in the 2009 tournament. Losses early on, though, could make the season long and bleak for all concerned.
The South African sides are always a bit of mystery to all of us until the season starts.
But knowledgeable people are suggesting that the Sharks and the Stormers, the two sea-level provinces, could have big years this season.
The Stormers are coached by Rassie Erasmus, a cunning, gamesmanship coach, who is ambitious and ruthless.
Remember the way his Cheetahs side ‘collapsed’ all over the SFS several years ago in an effort to slow down the match against the Waratahs and bore the locals into a defeat?
Erasmus, apparently, has been using Andrew Johns to teach his backs some tricks. The Sharks were good last season in Australia and New Zealand. They have the inspirational Jean de Villiers as their captain and the team could be a surprise package in the tournament.
The Sharks have quality personnel (Ruan Pienaar, Francois Steyne, Adrian Jacobs, Odwa Ndungane and J.P.Pietersen), and a strong-willed and intelligent coach, John Plumtree, a New Zealander with a point to prove to the New Zealand Super 14 franchises that have ignored him as a head coach.
John Smit, another inspirational captain, has returned from France. They get their Australia/New Zealand leg of the tour (with three matches rather than the four of last year) early on when they are fresh.
The Stormers play the Sharks at Cape Town in the opening round.
This match, like the Highlanders-Brumbies, Hurricanes-Waratahs, Crusaders-Chiefs, Force-Blues and Bulls-Reds, will gives us some clues as to how the 2009 Super 14 tournament will unfold.
Some clues, but not all the clues, in a tournament that is unlikely to follow the logic of years past.