Get used to it folks, the Super Rugby format is here to stay

Super tough draw for my little baby Stormers

Big travel factor for the Jaguares there. I'd go 5 NZ teams plus introduce a Pacific Islands team, 5 Oz teams plus Sunwolves, 5 SA teams plus Jaguares. Top 2 from each conference progress with standings and playoffs based on points earned during regular season.

Franchises should take SANZAR to court, they're wasting millions of dollars on a worthless campaign, if they have more points then the other franchises who have less points and get to host finals and miss the cut because of it.

Yeah, passing the buck sounding familiar? If you think this convoluted mess is all thanks to SARU, you are as clueless as SANZAAR

Ideally I'd actually prefer the Irish and Scottish squads instead of the Welsh and Italian squads. Would be alround better for balance. Four conferences of 6 split into two divisions.

Where was that reported? I read there were two kiwi CEOs who thought that was a good answer but I didn't give it any weight.

Wasn't thinking a merger, can't see that happening and certainly not all at once. But could perhaps see a team feeling disenfranchised (esp. Welsh/Irish) or wanting to try something different and/or people/teams with bigger pictures (Racing/Boudjellal) creating a team specifically to compete in SR. Thin edge of the wedge, and see if anyone breaks ranks? Also, the only way SA might find out whether Europe is really a viable option for the future...?

Please someone put the whole F-----G Super rugby thing out to pasture, time for the code to learn to walk on its own two feet in Aus. -- Comment from The Roar's iPhone app.

Agreed

It is a sad state of affairs when the general rugby fan opinion is ignored and so many believe the comp is not fair . Even a small change would have been better than no change such as final points on the table have more importance to playoff positions or the strongest conference having more teams in the playoffs , anything would be better than the current format.

Haven't seen any figures from SA but the derbies are the highest rating and attended games in both NZ and Australia. Which suggests they are actually fairly popular. You suggest a standard round robin which would mean a lot more travel for every team. Conferences limit that which is necessary in a trans-continental championship. As for it never being done anywhere before. So. We constantly hear about Rugby's international nature. Why not use that. There always needs to be a first.

the opposition comes from the rugger fraternity. that is easily understood. every time they play each other - they tend to kill each other. then the week after they have to face an opponent from some other country , still sore from the home derby. also the opposition was to playing within the country more than once. nz teams wont mind playing each other once , but twice on a home n away basis is overkill - in every sense of the word. i would like to see a 15 team tournament - 5 from nz , 4 from oz , 4 from sa and then argies and japs. argies fit into sa and the japs into oz. but in the ideal world , they will be based in sa and oz respectively. ( so that is not good news for the marketers who have come up with the present format). then everyone play everyone in a home n away basis in a 2 year cycle (like 6 nations). so 14 matches for everyone (ideally 7 at home and 7 away). also travel only among 3 countries and NOT 6 like now!!! they u can have the top 8 go for a paly off . am sure it will be more competitive with the concentration of talent into a lesser number of teams. also i would increase the rosters to say 40 + 5. (current 32 + 5). so that player rotation will be possible.

market share - eyeballs. its not about the rugger or travel or format . the tournament is doomed from the time they took on far off places. no other tournament in games such as football or cricket has such diverse locations (as far as i know) all of them are regionally localized. even the football club world cup has less travel than this. countries flying or commuting big distances is palatable but clubs?

If such a merger were to occur they could actually accommodate 30 fairly if they decided to go to five, 6 team conference over two phases. The first phase would involve each conference playing one another home and away for a total of 10 games. Part of the first phase will be to sort out seeding for each team in each conference 1-6. The second phase would then see 6 pools of 5 teams playing each other once determined by their phase one seeding. In this phase each team plays one another once for a total of 4 games. All up each team will play 14 games as a minimum. From here, the team that wins each pool progresses to the finals series. Teams would be ranked 1-6 depending on their results in the second phase. Teamed ranked 1 & 2 have the week off. Three plays six and 3 plays 4. All up it would be a three week finals series. This would mean that the best 6 teams should in theory regardless of where they are from reach the finals phase. Add to that this would run a total of 18 weeks while offering 210 regular season games and 215 in total. If they wanted to be even more daring, they could move to establish a self-sustaining Americas conference and do something similar as above.

The conference system is a necessary evil in a trans-continental competition such as SR.

Indeed. One of the problems they have now are the imbalanced conferences, so it wouldn't surprise me to see a couple of the big European teams sounded out to add to the SA groups.

Its high time we stopped bending over backwards to accommodate the Saffas. The conference system is ridiculous and confusing. The competition was not ready to expand to 18 teams no matter how money driven the expansion was. Australia and New Zealand need to stand up to South Africa and threaten to form a breakaway comp with Japan and the Pacific Islands, kinda like what South Africa did before the expansion with their threat to join the northern hemisphere. It was their tv dollar driven shortsightedness that gave us this competition and its structure, so why should Australia lose any teams? They had it right with Super 15, as the old saying goes if it ain't broke don't fix it. But they tried and now South Africa are shifting the blame for their greed driven mess.

One word that Marinos has used and very little has been picked up by the media is " Expansion" Now my point being Union is a very conservative sport , since day 1 he has not ruled out expansion. Also lets face it the 3 part conference isn't working , they know it but adding a 4th with Pro12 could be answer that SR and SA are looking for also more games under SR format means more $$$ and global branding. tc I agree with you , now lets see how they screw it up!!!

Early reports coming from Europe are that officials from both SANZAAR and the PRO 12 have had talks about joining the two competitions into a single entity. Reports say that Europe would join South Africa and South America in a Western conference while New Zealand, Australia and Asia would form an Eastern one. Steve Tew said that Super Rugby must keep expanding or the NZRFU will go broke, he also said that a Trans-Tasman comp would not make enough money, so it is not an option. Personally, I think a move into Europe and eventually North America is the answer to making the Super Rugby model work, so if we keep on this path, in twenty years we might see continental conferences, which lead into a finals series. I don't think Australia and South Africa will loose any teams (but I could be wrong), but I could imagine one way of solving the problem of weak teams is by introducing a global draft. Anyway I think the problems SANZAAR are experiencing at the moment are just growing pains, not some kind of implosion.

I've seen it suggested that the current two, 4 teams SA conferences are largely at the bequest of the same broadcasters who are now displeased with it. Being SuperSport. I can understand the need to accommodate the Kings but the path they chose was ridicukous and this doubling down is bordering on stupidity.