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An embarrassing first is shaping to take place in the finals of this year’s Super Rugby tournament, one which should force a rethink of the inherently flawed finals system.
The unwilling recipient of this injustice (should it occur of course) will be the Chiefs, who are currently the clear second team in the competition on 37 points, with daylight next, and the Brumbies third on 31.
To put this six point margin in perspective, every other margin between the top nine teams is one point. The scores go 38, 37… then a six point margin… 31, 30, 29, 28, 27, 26, 25. On this basis, it is not hard to agree that so far, the Hurricanes and Chiefs are easily the best two teams in the league.
They both have eight wins for the year, already two wins clear of every team other than the Stormers, who have seven Unlike the rest who have played 10 games so far, the Hurricanes also have a game in hand, so they could well end up with nine wins from 10.
However you cut the stats, it is pretty much impossible to argue anything other than the fact that the Hurricanes and the Chiefs are the two standout teams.
Now. Before we go further, let’s agree that yes, while it is possible for a team below the Chiefs to gain two wins worth of ground on them over the next seven rounds, it is probably unlikely.
The Chiefs have Rebels, bye, Hurricanes, Bulls, Highlanders, Reds and Hurricanes. At worst they will probably lose three of those matches, which means that to gain two wins worth of ground, a chasing team would have to only lose one from the final seven.
It’s not impossible, but it’s unlikely, especially if the Chiefs only lose two. It’s impossible if the Chiefs lose only one.
So we can safely assume that the Chiefs will very likely finish outright second, with the same sort of margin they have now on the chasing pack – five or six points.
Here’s where it gets messy. Due to the conference system, where each conference winner is guaranteed a top three spot, if the Chiefs finish second, they are guaranteed to drop to fourth spot for the finals, a stunning blow for a team which is easily top two and only one point off first.
In this scenario, the Chiefs would then have to play a bruising qualifier against the Bulls, nowhere near as good as the week off they should have had. This would be gifted to the suddenly-top-2 Brumbies, a team who were six comp points worse than the Chiefs at season’s end.
In any case it’s a poisoned chalice, because a win against the Bulls simply guarantees that they get to play the minor premiers in the Hurricanes in the semi. Most semi-final calculations provide an advantage to the top two teams, but not in this case. It actually conspires to see the top two teams meet in the semi, thereby guaranteeing that only one will make the final.
It does this because while the top two teams are having the first week off, the qualifiers are being played. Their semi-final opponents are decided by rank – the top team gets the lowest ranked qualifier-winner, the second team gets the next lowest ranked qualifier-winner.
Ol’ Sonny Bill Will for the Chiefs. (AFP PHOTO/ STR)
The scenario looks like this:
Chiefs pushed out of top two and end up fourth. Hurricanes and Brumbies have a week off.
The qualifiers:
Stormers versus Highlanders at home – Stormers win.
Chiefs versus Bulls at Hamilton – Chiefs win.
The semis:
Hurricanes versus Chiefs in Wellington – Hurricanes win.
Brumbies versus Stormers in Canberra – Brumbies win.
The final:
Hurricanes versus Brumbies in Wellington.
Ridiculous. The final was played a week early. And it could be worse. If the Chiefs actually beat the competition-leading Hurricanes in the semi, they still do not get a home final. This would go to the winner of the Stormers and Brumbies, because they were both higher on the table.
The qualifiers:
Stormers versus Highlanders at home – Stormers win.
Chiefs versus Bulls at Hamilton – Chiefs win.
The semis:
Hurricanes versus Chiefs in Wellington – Chiefs win.
Brumbies versus Stormers in Canberra – Brumbies win.
The final:
Brumbies versus Chiefs in Canberra.
The bad news keeps coming. If the Highlanders upset the Stormers away in their qualifier, it still doesn’t help the poor old Chiefs.
The Highlanders are then the lowest-ranked winner, and so the winning Chiefs have to travel and play an away game against the Brumbies in Canberra for the semi.
At no stage do they get a home semi. And the only way they get a home final, despite being easily the second best team out there, is if the sixth place Highlanders beat the first placed Hurricanes.
Luckily, the previous three years of the conference system (2012-2014) have mostly played out the way organisers had prayed they would, that is, for the conference leaders to be deserving finalists in their own right anyway.
The only anomaly was in 2012, when the Reds won an underwhelming Australian conference and leapfrogged into third spot after finishing sixth. It mattered not, they were summarily dispatched the following week when the Sharks put 30 points on them.
Teams leaping into the top three isn’t the problem, because they will likely be found out in the finals. But when good teams are pushed out of the top three through no fault of their own, we have a problem Houston – and this is the scenario we are likely to see this year if the Chiefs keep performing.
To recap, the Chiefs could finish outright second by a margin of more than a bonus point win. Despite this they are then relegated to fourth place; lose a week off that by all rights they should have; get forced to play the comp leaders in a semi even though they have earned the right to avoid that match-up until the final; then if they win, get forced to play an away final which is not even in their own country, having to cede that home ground to a team that was at least six points adrift of them at season’s end.
Unfair doesn’t even begin to describe it.
The good news is that the system doesn’t need an overhaul. A little tweak will do it. Instead of guaranteeing the conference leaders a top three spot, give them a five point bonus at season’s end.
This has the desired effect of promoting a team from each conference towards the finals and evenly distributing finals games across countries. But it also puts a natural limit on the advantage given, and rewards teams who can open up significant table margins like the Chiefs have done.
If this system was in place this year, the order of the final six significantly, would not change.
The Brumbies would leap to 36 points, but still be shaded by the Chiefs on 37. The Hurricanes and Chiefs would remain top two.
The qualifiers:
The Brumbies versus Highlanders at home – Brumbies win.
The Stormers play the Bulls at Newlands – Stormers win.
The semis:
Hurricanes play Stormers in Wellington – Hurricanes win.
Chiefs play Brumbies in Hamilton – Chiefs win.
The final:
Hurricanes versus Chiefs in Wellington.
An all New Zealand final after having the two best teams all year. Now who could argue with that?