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Watching the South African conference kick off Super Rugby over the weekend confirmed two things for me. First, I was right to suggest that Jake White’s Sharks will be the South African front-runners in my uninformed preview last week.
I had suggested the Stormers should be up there as well, but on viewing the Sharks’ 31-16 demolition of the Bulls, I’m already sure the Stormers won’t have the firepower to match.
(And on the Sharks run to the top, many congrats to Roar regular ‘Moaman’ for the puntastically superb ‘Great White-Shark Effect’ yesterday – well played, Sir!)
The other thing confirmed for me was that all this talk about expanding the South African conference – or conferences, but more on that soon – is massively ironic, given the common criticism out of the Republic remains that Australia doesn’t deserve five teams.
The Bulls already look to be in for a tough season, and found out the hard way in Durban that all the talent in the world doesn’t make up for an obvious lack of experience.
The Lions will discover this soon enough, despite their impressive last minute win over the Cheetahs, just as the Kings discovered it last year, too.
Yet two articles late last week spoke of further expansion of the South African conference, with as many as seven teams across two conferences being possible. True story.
The first article was a report on ESPNscrum (which I’ll disclose my continued involvement with, for 2014) on Valentine’s Day. A four conference, 18-team proposal “along the lines of America’s NFL” was said to be on the agenda for consideration by SANZAR as part of the expected growth of the tournament in time for the commencement of a new media deal from 2016.
According to the ESPNscrum report, the radical plan was “presented to the South African board’s executive committee and still has a long way to go before it becomes the new format of the competition. However, the proposal is currently being discussed by all three participating nations with a possible report back to SANZAR in the next few months.”
Loosely, the plan is this.
The current Australian and New Zealand five-team conferences will remain as is.
The current South African conference of five teams would be split into two conferences of four teams (the report dubbed them ‘Africa 1′ and ‘Africa 2′), comprising the five 2014 teams, the reintroduction of the Southern Kings, and a new Argentinean team.
Then the kicker. “The eighth franchise is still to be decided, but it could either be another South African team, an African franchise [as in, Kenya or Namibia or Zimbabwe, or a combined side], or even a European franchise team such as Italy,” the report said.
Yes, you read that right, Italy.
The NFL references come with the new and expended Super Rugby being split into East and West divisions, with the two African conferences in one, and Australia and New Zealand in the other.
You can see where this is heading, can’t you.
After a series of intra-division knockout finals, Super Rugby would be decided with a Superbowl style playoff between the East and West champions.
The plan is said to reduce travel requirements, which it will, with a full home-and-away round of local derbies, and then games against the neighbouring conference.
Essentially, no-one would cross the Indian Ocean except to play in the SuperRugbyBowl.
The flaws are obvious and immediate. Despite 12 of the last 18 Super Rugby Finals being all-New Zealand or trans-Tasman affairs, under this plan it would be impossible for the Chiefs or Crusaders or Brumbies or Reds (to name just last year’s finalists) to play each other in the decider.
An Australian or New Zealand team could only ever play an African team.
And this is without the obvious debate over the relative strengths and weaknesses of East and West.
The origin of this plan is unclear and was not cited in the ESPNscrum article.
But the fact that it was first presented to the SARU executive gives us a fair indication. And to be completely blunt, it smacks of ‘we want a guaranteed finalist every year’ all over again.
The other expansion article to do my head in came from Spiro’s old sparring partner, Wayne Smith, in The Australian on Saturday.
Smith’s report was based a chat with SANZAR boss, Greg Peters, and outlined a similar four conference plan that would also see the current South African conference split into two.
Eighteen teams was again a feature, with two extras being the Kings and an Argentinean side, which is fast becoming fait accompli.
What’s interesting in this plan, said to be in front of SANZAR currently, was that the 18th team is set to come from one of Japan, Hong Kong, or Singapore. Japan isn’t a surprise; indeed, the ARU has been singing the virtues of Japanese involvement for years now.
Even Hong Kong isn’t that much of a surprise, given that there is something of a rugby history in the former British outpost, and even its place as a world travel hub.
But Singapore? Really? It appears that despite being ranked outside the top 50 in world rugby, the city-state has apparently been expressing interest in joining the Super Rugby ranks.
The fact that the SANZAR CEO is even mentioning them as an option suggests it’s an option being seriously considered.
And an Asian team does make some commercial sense; I don’t have too much trouble with that. But why base them in an African conference, as Smith’s article suggested would be the case?
If this expanded competition is supposed to be growing the TV audience while also reducing the travel component, then surely it makes more sense on both fronts to basing an Asian team in either Australia or New Zealand.
In fact, given the All Blacks’ popularity the world over, and especially in Japan, basing them in a conference where some degree of New Zealand participation is involved is surely the most logical move.
One thing is clear, reading both these articles, we are heading for 18 teams one way or the other. But it might yet be a long and winding – and wacky – road to get there.