Is the current Super Rugby system unfair?

"New Zealand proposed the model in use now and SANZAR and each of the member unions took it to market in 2015." http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/union-news/super-rugby-cashedup-european-clubs-eye-southern-hemsiphere-talent-while-super-rugby-architects-plot-reboot-20160902-gr772m.html Some people believe what they what to believe

Now with only the Finals left. I suspect that it could be beter scheduled. The Chiefs,Highlanders,Crusaders and Sharks looked exhausted from travel. Not counting the Stormers vs Chiefs game. But Canes vs Chiefs. I believe the top 8 were there on merrit. A question mark might be raised over the Stormers,but in the end I believe they suffered most not playing Kiwi teams. And they were good during the Chiefs game. However...the Brumbies I felt should not have been there. The Tahs should have..and even above the Tahs the Blues should have taken the 8th spot with the Tahs taking the Sharks spot. One can then argue the Stormers vs Brumbies..yet I still feel the Stormers would have been better. Then again,the Brumbies did face Kiwi sides... If on merrit alone those 8 were on top. With Blues and Tahs replacing the Sharks and Brumbies. And the Top 4 on points hosting the Quarters and so forth. It would allready have made a huge difference. Would seem allot more fair with 3 quarters being played in NZ and one in Sa. Add Nuetral reffs in that mix and a weekend Bye before the Semi's. Same with the Final. The current format is then still used. But the auto conference leader bs is gone as well as the wildcard bs spots. Everyone gets there on merrit. Whether you are playing whoever you are during the season. It is at least a bit more pallatable. Its not perfect. But would go a long way in restoring some faith in the Format. It still doesnt solve the NZ canabilization effect ,considering if the Blues olayed in any 1 of the Africa conferences they would be in the top 8... I don't have the answers for that. Only that the previous formats in the past were better scheduled,with less travel. And can work within the current expantion setup.

Lost when it counts.

Sharks were so hopeless this year that they beat both NZ finalists from last year, who are again in the 2016 semi's..... And could've easily won all 5 the games vs NZ teams were that close up until the final whistle ;-) Well they have thrashed the Canes mid season, but then caught a thrashing last week.

Drafts are viable in many places partly because free agency in practice does not let players live where they really prefer to live either. It's unlikely that a player's home team will be their best fit when their home team is one of 15 or 30 teams. They end up going to far off cities anyway, and a draft makes little difference to the majority of players, so players associations will agree to drafts where they see it will help out the league and increase their pay in the end. I take your point about the difficulty of introducing a traditional draft to super rugby. It is more unfair to players due to the differences in the countries involved. There are also multiple national players associations involved, and more interested parties controlling the league, so it's unlikely to happen. It might be possible to run a draft differently for super rugby - let teams rank players, and players rank teams and then try to match them with an algorithm. If a player really doesn't want to play for some particular teams, they can leave them unranked. It' also might be possible to give players the right to ask for a trade if allocated to a team they don't want to play for. The team that picked them would be compensated, and at least then they'd have resources to replace the drafted player. There must be ways to do something useful. Super Rugby is a strange thing. The league spans multiple countries, has mostly a free agency thing within sub-sections of it, but not competition wide due to the importance and control of national teams and bodies. It functions as a development league for national teams rather than as a commercial professional league in its own right. However, if it becomes much less commercially viable than it is due to not arranging itself as a professional league it will fail as a development league also due to lack of top players. You can have big differences in ability in leagues when there are multiple teams from each city. It actually enables the league to service the markets better - some people want to follow a team that mostly wins, other personalities are suited to being ecstatic with the occasional win over a major team. However, when you mostly have one team per city, you need to balance the teams or else you end up with only a few cities with dominant teams, and the rest appealing to a minority of potential fans that like the occasional win. With the current number of teams spread over the cities involved, it is essential to balance the league somehow. This will fix problems with the conferences, and also make conferences unnecessary because each country will end up with similar amounts of finals over the years anyway. Conferences alone will just not do it. Salary caps is an obvious thing. Capping player rankings sounds interesting, but how do you rank players? National bodies letting their players play anywhere in super rugby to qualify for the national team, as you mention, also might be important. An alternative might be to combine Super Rugby, the NRC, ITM, and Curry Cups and end up with multiple teams per city. Promotion/relegation between Super Rugby and the national comps was tried in the early days by NZ and SA, but not in a way in which the number of teams per country was allowed to vary to balance out the league, and not in a way in which the teams in the lower comps could get an occasional chance to beat the super rugby teams.

Both hopeless this year , so really doesn't matter.

I should've had a ;-) for that last line about Schalk.... Lol

Yep I agree. It is unfair that teams with a better record can't host their quarter final

No mate it doesn't really. If the Jaguars topped their conference (as expected based on World Cup form from the Pumas), and the Sunwolves played every game like the Japanese team played against the Boks... Then there'd be NO quarter final in SA. Another thing on the flip side, if the two SA conference have 4 of the top teams then 1 of them would "unfairly" have to miss out as only 3 can go through based on the current format. Not really fair is it? Yet 4 out of 5 NZ teams have gone through this year... and rightly so btw.

Good call Canadiankiwi

Kiwi - how different really was the Sharks and Lions conference in comparison to the NZ conference? L&S played 5 games vs NZ teams NZ play 6 games vs NZ L&S did not play Reds, Rebels or Force which the NZ teams did, but did play Sunwolves x1; Cheetahs x 1 (who often beat both the Sharks & Lions); NZ & L&S played Kings & Jags. L&S played them twice. The Tahs & Brumbies weren't crash hot either, L&S did not have the opportunity to play them.

Each NZ team played 6 games against NZ teams. Lions & Sharks (and Jags & Kings) played 5 games against NZ teams. Not much difference Kirky, so how do the NZ teams "belt the hell out of each other" when there's only 1 additional game against an NZ team? And some may argue playing the Stormers or Bulls is physically tougher, even if they win. Lions & Sharks also did not benefit in playing against the Force, Reds or Rebels, heck even the Brumbies & Tahs weren't that great. Sharks have never ever lost to the Force or Rebels, and the Reds were not great this year. Another point, everyone knows that the Lions are (were) a bunch of no names of South African rugby, yet they have to the top by a combination of reasons, primarily because of their coach, Ackerman. Schalk Burger is no honorary Kiwi bud!!! However he'd be polite in his response if a Kiwi suggested it....

You lost me when you suggested the Stormers would give the Sharks a flogging.... Sharks beat the Stormers :-)

Jaguares playing with New Zealand? That's absurd. They are travelling enough already.

I am not a huge fan of the conferences either and agree that an amicable draw could be derived based on travel, seeding and grudge matches.. The inconvenient truth is that Fox Sports Need at least one of each country to be in the finals. If they told the public the truth, they would have a tantrum about how unfair the system is and that teams should be judged on performance, not location. Conferences bury this. As to the "Draft" I have a moral issue with a draft, It feels a little bit like slavery. I would hate to be forced to live in Argentina, SA or anywhere that has cold and miserable winter. It also messes with international eligibility. Former Reds and current Sunwolves #8 Ed Quirke would be a devastating member of the Wallabies Squad. I would Propose that it shouldn't matter which super rugby team you play for, you would nominate a "Country of Origin". The Salary Cap is one thing to explore. I like the idea of player rankings and a threshold total for the overall tally for the "23" team. I also like the idea of adding an "Islander" team that Gives Fijii, Samoa and Tonga a "Home" team. Drop an SA Team.

This is like medieval Christian scholars arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It misses the point. Super Rugby isn't about fairness, nor even show-casing the best rugby possible. It is about TV viewership figures, advertising sales for that audience: it is driven by money. The current format guarantees at least one team from each market is in the QF round, which means that each market has something to play for in the final few rounds of each season. Furthermore, if you understand the TV viewership figures, you will understand that the majority of the money is measured in rands, not Aussie or NZ dollars. Get that straight and get over it. (PS Of course a conference system will never be totally fair. Even a full round robin system will have some unfairness in how the travel schedules work out. It's angels dancing on a pin. Ultimately, these things don't matter.)

It's all about Money. If you pulled all of the Aussies out of Europe, you would get 2 complete, full strength super rugby teams. I don't think the Kiwis nor the Safas have the same level of talent loss.

2 x Byes

Whatever way you look at the current Super Competition, it's abhorrent, repugnant, call it what you will, but it's a jack up to appease the multitudes in South Africa ~ seemingly the wealthy ones! It is grossly unfair and is and won't achieve anything but make the New Zealand teams stronger than they are already where they've always been, top of the heap since time immemorial, and there doesn't appear any reason under the current jacked up Super scenario that it will change any time soon. The Kiwi teams will belt the hell out of each other as they do according to the Super draw at present and as we all should've noticed, they are all but one at the top of the heap possibly because of the intense competition among themselves while subsidising a distinctly unfair drawn Conference system. It seems rather odd that the bulk of the ''better'' South African players seem to be one way or another tied up with the Lions side which lends us to the view that is a contrived club within and, all that means is the Lions are the only side that appear to have been designed to have the best chance of winning the whole thing. Considering they played the majority of their pool matches against ordinary also ran teams on their home turf 13 times and the last 9 in Joburg' we could all be excused for thinking it is nothing more than a jack up. The Highlanders played rubbish against the Brumbies but we all know that they are the playing through Champs and will be a far better side than the one that thrashed the Brumbies and Van Rensburg and co. won't be going through any holes against them like they did the other day against the Crusaders who were off their feet tired, so the Lions will very likely come to a sudden halt this weekend as overall, any of the New Zealand teams are better than anything the South Africans have, ~ I could be proved wrong but I don't think so. One of the sad ironies of this mickey mouse Conference setup is when you see one of the finest and fairest that ever pulled on a Springbok jersey and a true gentleman of the game (an honorary Kiwi) no less in Schalk Burger, absolutely rubbish the system as played this Season, then perhaps the smart ones who devised it may take a different line next Season.

@ canadiankiwi ur arguement is based on the composition of the tournament and not the structure. boring games result becoz of the rubbish teams like Farce and Kings and Reds ... at the end of the day , ur coming back to the primary issue of super 18 - the competition is 3 teams ( imo it is 6 ) too many !!! when u say the 1/4 are good - yes i agree. but why are they good? becoz top quality teams are playing them (though brumbies this year were kind of rubbish) so we have to see the crux of the matter - that super rugger is not super anymore !!! go back to super 12 :)