Super Rugby finals system is an anomaly

You South Africans always complaining about your Curry Cup. There's only ever 4 teams in with a chance. And you have those four teams in super rugby, and the fifth (lions) added for good measure. You should just award the curry cup to the conference winner, or if you really want to make it special have a conference final between the top two in your conference, and give the Currie cup to the winner, no need for these same teams to play each other another two times in the year. So please stop complaining, as JON has just transplanted your CC teams into a more meaningful comp. And given Australians a rugby comp to follow as well. That's 2 birds with one Gilbert!

I think ultimately the solution for this will be for SANZAR to have its desired Super 18 and an 8 team finals. Until then, they'll just have to go with the present finals system.

I think we're missing the point. The aim of SANZAR is not to have the fairest competition, just the most salable set of games possible. Hence more 'local derbies' (man I hate that term) and a final in each country, with high likelihood of all countries involved into the second week of the finals. I don't particularly care that the Highlanders have to play more 'hard games' each season (2x vs Crusaders and Blues, the two best teams in the comp) compared to Reds who get more soft games. Rugby is better watching the Highlanders play, competition stronger = better players avail for ABs. It's all good.

It does not make the system right does it Brendon, Your obviously a fan of not seeing the best teams contest the finals. Brendon by the way don't be fooled for a second that Australia has the biggest influence on the financial standings in Super Rugby that in fact comes mostly from South Africa. Whilst the competition finances may take a hit it will survive in both countries NZ / SA.

Exactly Loftus couldn't agree more, That is why not many Australians are concerned with the finals format. It is their surrogate domestic league and it will be to the detriment of the Currie and ITM cups. I too also said from the start that this system is flawed and it really is unfortunate that politics have been allowed in to ruin what was an otherwise fine tournament.

It is unfair Reds Fan how could it not be. The conferences are of differing qualities and anyone who tries to deny that are only fooling themselves. The Reds are going well this year in the Australian conference whilst playing some good rugby they are also getting a hand up by the inferior bottom three teams the Brumbies, Force and Rebels. Would the Reds be going as well were they playing in the NZ conference on current form it really is hard to tell and I think after this weekends round we will have a better idea, at the same time remembering the Reds were pumped by the underachieving Hurricanes who at the time were the bottom placed team in the NZ conference missing 4 starting All Blacks on the back of a flight from South Africa. Teams should qualify by the points and overall standings, pity finals will only ruin the appeal of the finals and give a possible weaker team an unfair advantage

But that team with the greater record still gets into the playoffs so whats the big deal? If they are so superior the wildcard team will still win. If 4 Kiwi Super 15 teams finish with the highest point then they will all qualify. There is nothing stopping 4/5 Kiwi teams making it to the finals. Right now only 2 are in position with the Highlanders a good chance. But the Chiefs and Hurricanes are not even remotely in contention. Same thing with qualifying for the Fifa world cup. Do you think the 32 teams that were in South Africa wer ethe best 32 teams in the world? Do you think New Zealand would have stood a chance of qualifying if they had to prove they were in the top 32 teams in the world?

What I find interesting is that Kiwis/Saffers complain about the Super 15 but yet are happy to have Australian teams compete and Australian money contribute towards the Super 15. Don't forget rugby is not a major sport in Australia yet Australian rugby plays a vital part in South Africa's and especially New Zealand's rugby finances. Lets say rugby dies out in Australia. You would have to drastically reduce the Super 15 to 8 teams. Tri-Nations would essentially develop into a South Africa v All Blacks with Argentina tagging along. (Argentina only works if theres 4 teams in the series). No Bledisloe Cup. etc Anyway, the Stormers are a whole whopping 1 point behind the Crusaders. Yes, lets throw a fit and whinge and moan and condemn a system because the top placed South African team is ONE POINT behind the 2nd place Kiwi team. Obviously this means the DEATH of rugby. As it stands now each conference has a team in wildcard qualifying position. Other countries use conference systems + wildcards to great success.

Funny how many people cry about the new format now while many people(me included) said from the start this is a flawed format. If you want to blame anyone, just blame Australia's John O'Neill for this mess. But he wanted a domestic league for Australia and it came at a cost. He ruined a perfectly fine tournament and now the (more than 100 years old) Currie cup will get watered down and eventually dissapear.But hey,at least Australia got their ''domestic league'' now.

I don't see a problem. The conference winners receive the top 3 seeded spots as reward for finishing top of a conference where half (8) of their games have been against opponents within that same conference already. The other 8 games are played against teams from other conferences, which helps to then cross rank the strengths/weaknesses of each conference internally vs the other conferences. Therefore if (for instance) the Reds win all their remaining Aussie games, and lose all their remaining Kiwi games, they may finish say 4th overall, but they will take the 3rd ranked spot - justified by the fact they were not as strong as the kiwis, however as reward for the fact they were strongest out of their conference derbies (again - these are weighted to HALF of the home and away matches during a season). Similarly, if the Blues & Crusaders finish 1 & 2 overall in the standings, Blues receive Rank 1 overall, the top SA team Rank 2, and the Crusaders Rank 4. It may look like the Crusaders have been ripped off, however lets remember they played half their games against kiwi sides, and could only manage 2nd. They may have by then lost both their local derbies vs the Blues - again, there is a reward for dominating your conference which is half your games. If you can't, then you have to settle with a wildcard entry and go from there. And if you are a strong team anyway, then you should be able to easily knock off the teams from other countries come finals times. So in summary, yes the finals are weighted towards the conference winners, but so too is the draw with 50% of games being conference derbies for each and every team. So there should be reward for topping a conference. So now finals are more about play offs between countries rather than the old 15 team format lumped into one comp. I love it.

Totally agree Badboy... given the home-and-away intra-conference games, it would be highly unlikely that a conference winner would not also qualify for the top-6 overall. For instance, has there ever been a case since super ruby started where the top six did not contain at least one representative from each nation?

McKenzie is not that dumb - I remember the article and I dont recall him discussing in on ruggamatrix it was not 4 pools of 6, rather the opposite 6 pools of 4 - I suspect he would know and maybe an editor made a hash of it

Yeah, I hate the idea that all a team has to do to qualify is be in the top half of the table.

There was decent publicity about it at the time. Besides, it's not actually happening until next year. There is a World Cup in between to worry about... Personally I think they should have been invited from this year. The Pumas will already be playing warm-up games through July and August, so the team is assembled. We had to reduce the tournament this year for the World Cup, so this would have enabled us to fit in two (2) extra Tests in preparation. A bit more travel sure, but so what, it toughens you up...

Matt, The only logical reason I can see for the use of a six (6) team finals system as opposed to an eight (8), is that historically the SupeRugby competition has been very difficult to make the finals, and to double the number of participants, whilst only adding one (1) team, significantly alters the "prestiege" of the finals. Also, it would mean that more than half the competition qualifies for the finals. Never a good look for a comp in my opinion.

You could have three matches, with only the bottom two losers eliminated. So 1 v 6, 2 v 5, 3 v 4 with 1, 5 and 3 winning sees 2 get a second chance.

I stand informed - didn't research before commenting - not sure how this slipped past me considering the date of the press release. http://www.irb.com/newsmedia/mediazone/pressrelease/newsid=2033716.html However whilst the invite has been extended and seemingly accepted I am surprised that there is not more publicity about this? Either way its a great move and one to look forward to.

I am thinking that a greater anomaly would be the prospect of this 3rd placed team not exactly having the 3rd best record. By the explanation given, regardless of the records of the other 3 teams, that team will still get a home game against the 6th seed. I would think that a team in 6th place would not like to face an away game against a team that might have a worse record. It would be worse again if the team that would be ranked 7th and missing the finals would of out ranked this 3rd confrence champion. It happens in the US all the time (especially in Baseball and NFL) where a side, makes the finals by virtue of winning the division, over a team that has a superior record

If South Africa was to have another team and it was an option for NZ and Oz to have another, I would perfer one of two things. 2 Argentine teams, Although expensive and hard for travelling, if SANZAR Rugby was ever looking for a huge pay day via TV rights it will need a strong Argentina in the 4 nations. Having an Argentina team used as whipping boys in the 4 nations will devalue the comp hence having at least 1, perferably two teams in super rugby. I wouldn't want to see a 6th Oz team if Super rugby was to expand again. I would perfer a' Pacifica' team to help raise the standard of play in Tonga, Fiji and Samoa. Travelling would be an issue but maybe Pacifica could have their home games based in Oz and NZ. In Oz maybe play in Gosford and Parramatta and in NZ in Albany(North Harbour). This way they can get a huge support base from not only the Islands but from the Pacific Islander communities in the 2 countries

Andrew, Argentina WILL be in an expanded Tri-Nations (Quad-Nations?) from 2012..