The start of the Super Rugby season is drawing ever closer. Teams are well into their pre-season preparations as they look to their first games of the new campaign.
2016 saw the competition split into Conferences. The South African teams had two conferences, whereas the Australian and New Zealand teams were in a conference of their own.
This had an impact on the teams that each franchise played and therefore some clubs had a more difficult road to make the finals than others. For example, The Stormers did not face a New Zealand team until they played the Chiefs at Newlands.
Despite having home advantage the Waikato team beat them 60-21, a result that lead to Stormers coach Robbie Fleck to criticise the format. He claimed that the Stormers had not faced an opponent that played with the intensity and skill the Chiefs played with that day and the Stormers simply couldn’t live with them.
Compare this to the Waratahs, who did not make the finals. They played all five New Zealand teams losing four of those games but they did beat a full strength Chiefs team at home 45-25 and also went to Cape Town and beat the Stomers 32-30. I am not saying that because of these two results, the Waratahs are in any way more deserving of a spot, but it does bring the conference system into question.
With the current format, the Stormers and Brumbies both had home quarter finals against the Chiefs and Highlanders respectively (which they both lost). This happened despite the Stormers having a points total of 51 and the Brumbies 43 compared to 52 points for the Highlanders and 51 to the Chiefs.
Even the Crusaders in seventh which meant they had to travel to the red hot Lions in Johannesburg had more points than the Brumbies. As the Brumbies and Stormers topped their respective conferences they automatically gained the home field advantage in the finals. The Brumbies played four New Zealand teams losing all four of those matches and having a points total that would have them in joint seventh place if the league was just done on points. Is this a fair system?
The history of Super Rugby is, unsurprisingly, dominated by New Zealand teams. The first five tournaments were shared between the Auckland Blues (2) and Canterbury Crusaders (3) before the Brumbies beat the Sharks to take the title out of New Zealand for the first time. It wasn’t until 2007 that the Super Rugby title went to South Africa, when a superb Bulls outfit with Fourie Du Preez, Victor Matfield, Morne Steyn and Bryan Habana beat the Sharks in dramatic fashion with a last-minute try.
From 2007-2010 the Bulls won three titles with the Crusaders winning a title in 2008.
The format of the competition was each team would play each other and they were all in the same league. The top eight would make the finals and the Champion would be crowned from them.
In 2011 the Reds were victorious with 15 teams involved and the same format being adhered to before a Chiefs double 2012/13, the Waratahs in 2014, Highlanders 2015 and Hurricanes 2016 took the title.
Up until this season there was one league where the top eight would battle it out, so more often than not, the best eight teams throughout the season would be playing finals rugby.
The same cannot be said of 2016. The Blues for example ended up on 39 points. They got bonus point wins over the two top teams from the Australian conference the Brumbies and Waratahs and most of their defeats came against fellow New Zealand teams. They didn’t play the Sunwolves at all but did play the Hurricanes and the Crusaders twice.
I know the argument is, you have to beat the best at some point to win, but a team that plays the Sunwolves twice and the Kings twice have an easier task than a team that plays the Crusaders and Hurricanes twice.
I would love to see the conference system to be thrown out of the window. It is a much fairer system to have one league, where all teams play each other once and alternate the home-and-away games each season.
That way no teams can have an “easier” fixture list to make the finals. No fans miss out on seeing teams as they will get a look at them every other season. If this isn’t feasible, although I don’t see why not, then how about we just take half the teams from each conference and make a league out of them and then the other half make the other league. Then the top four from each league playoff and you get your winners from there.
One of the counter arguments to that is that potentially all five teams from one country will make it through with none from another, thus fans from that country will lose interest in the finals. Surely this will drive the players/coaches to ensure they come up with ways to beat the better teams.
At the moment some teams have enough, so called easier games, to target to give them a better chance of making the finals. This needs to be eradicated to help improve the standard of all teams and ensure it is the fairest way for teams to make the finals. No one wants to see a quarter final result that reads 21-60 in favour of the away team. People want finals games to be close affairs that can go either way.
It won’t happen in the near future if ever, but the conference system needs to go.
Republican
Guest
.......the more I read into this the more I reckon that Australia & NZ should break away from the Super comp, to form a Pacific focused one that includes the PI's and potentially Japan? Perhaps WA can join 'Forces' with Saffa, I mean WA always seem to be threatening secession anyway.
Republican
Guest
........true, blue......
bigbaz
Roar Guru
He wasn't the boss but he helped plan the fire bombing , have no clue if it's his quote or not but he was involved and led to the carpet bombing in Vietnam.
sheek
Roar Guru
McNamara was in Kennedy's administration, 1961-63. The bombing of Tokyo was considered in during the Pacific War, 1941-45. Unless there were two McNamara's, which would surprise me.....
NaBUru38
Guest
Jaguares and Sunwolves would do too many airplane miles with a full round-robin.
taylorman
Roar Guru
Well thats dumb. And can only be interpreted as dumb. No side with more wins should be higher than a side with less when table points are even. That is not the fault of bonus points that is the fault of dumb organisers. In fact its so dumb I doubt its existence. Unless the two sides are in different conferences in which case its irrelevant.
taylorman
Roar Guru
Oh yes, another coaches fault like Phipps, Mumm etc. so many of those. Yet we all still want Cheika. Weird logic going on over there. For Quades sake I hope he does well, though I just dont see that particular leopard changing his spots. Like Beale, who can also play awfully, a lot of hope seems to get plnned on some very eratic players. They remember what they can do and so easily forget how bad they can be. But good luck, look forward to it?
Tutema
Guest
With the current format, there were only 1 team (Brumbies) that didn't "fit" were they were allocated. (Ok, you could argue that Highlanders should have been above Stormers). With the rest of the teams there were almost no difference (Highlandres / Stormers aside) with what would have resulted if you ranked the teams by points (in fact Bulls were exactly 9th by points). In fact, the conference system was quite valid. Perhaps what should be reviewed if the home / away allocation for the QF / SF / F. I think that a system were you determine the first 8 by the conference system and then you rearrange the teams by points and use this new ranking to determine the home / allocation would be excellent. Of course, this is just an opinion, but, as someone else pointed out on this thread, the TOP 2 teams played the final.
ukkiwi
Roar Rookie
I like it., drop to 14. Japan has a good domestic competition filled with different nationalities. I don't think the Sunwolves inclusion is a massive plus for the growth of rugby in Japan. The Japanese league offers more to the Japanese rugby public and players than watching the Sunwolves get thrashed every week. With regard to the Jaguares, looking at the Argentine world cup/international record, it may be better for Argentine players to be spread across Europe and come together for tests like the Rugby Championship and end of year tours. It has been said on this site (can't remember by who) the Argies look like they could do with a break from each other.
Robert Campbell
Guest
I would like to see a Aus/NZ conference, with the Aussie sides playing each other twice, and then the 5 NZ once, and 3 of those sides twice, keeping the 15 games per season. SA could be in the same conference as Japan and Argentina. I just hope they do not axe any Aus teams, as this would send the game backwards.
taylorman
Roar Guru
Yep, someone's gotta pay for it...
Bakkies
Guest
The Aussie derbies killed the competition and were mostly poor quality games.
Charging Rhino
Roar Guru
And that's exactly the problem that Australia & South Africa have. They want (need) two completely different or opposite things while NZ sits in the middle. SA see enough of their teams playing each other in the Currie Cup so playing each other twice in Super Rugby is just overkill. In 2012 the Sharks and Stormers played each other 6 times in one season... 6 times!!! (Twice in SR conference, 1 playoffs. Then twice in Currie Cup round robin, the CC Final). SA brings in a lot of the cash and they want to play international opposition and have huge interest in their teams. The Australian game times are perfect too, between 11am-1pm on a Saturday. A 12 year old boy in SA who's into rugby would be able to tell you who's who in the Reds, Tahs, Brumbies, Crusaders etc. They'd know everyone and far more about the Reds than the average 12 year old living in Brisbane!! Even an 8 year old or a 28 year old. They know which team comes from which city, who the star players are, who the prop is, the 1st centre, who's the top try scorer etc etc. all while being on the other side of the world. Quade Cooper (or any Wallaby) is far more famous in South Africa than Australia! It boggles my mind really. One thing I've learnt since living in Australia is that everything is very internally focused. Not much international sport is shown or covered and focused on by the media, not even cricket! Its only Aussie Aussie Ausie. I'm not saying it's bad (or good), it's just different (in comparison to South Africa and England where I have also lived). And that's fine. But it is different. So when it comes to an international game like rugby it creates a tough environment and just doesn't work as the international appeal doesn't seem to capture Aussies interests as Aussie team is not always going to win. And in my experience because there's a country detachment there the Australian public seems to lose interest. Anyway my 2 cents.
bert
Guest
It is a money based system. SR has an unfair system, as does RL and AFL. Only soccer, which plays each team at home and away has it right
Charging Rhino
Roar Guru
Mate you lost me when you said "plays the Sunwolves twice and the Kings twice" No team did this. I agree that the format is not great and needs to change. 100% back you there. But often when these types of articles are written up nobody seems to give two hoots about writing about the Sharks, who had arguably the toughest schedule in the competition yet still made the playoffs. The played all 5 NZ teams, 3 of those games in NZ, won 2 (including giving the Champions the Canes a hiding) and pushed the other 3 teams to the brink where it was touch and go right up to the 80th minute. The only other games they lost were to the finalists the Lions, who were arguably the best or 2nd best team last year. Did not play "easy" games against the Force, Reds & Rebels (which all NZ teams played), yet played the Sunwolves and Cheetahs once (never an easy game for the Sharks anyway), and Kings twice. Anyway just something for you to ponder that everyone forgets when they moan...... It's a real pity they did not pitch up at all against the Canes in the QF, by far their worst match of the year. Unfortunately this only served to reinforce the idea that NZ teams were apparently so much better and they'd been hard done by, when the Sharks seasons' performances proved to be so different and the NZ teams schedule were not too different from the Sharks. I'm not saying they were a champion team at all, and during the season some glaring weaknesses showed, but in an accurate equal log table they would've been ranked about 5th.
davSA
Guest
Problem with your demographics Red Block is that out of 60 million people (officially) unofficially probably higher , 50 million don't care a rats ass about rugby . I would challenge anyone on an All Black Bok match day to find a single tavern or Shebeen ( literally hundreds of thousands of illegal pubs) frequented mostly by black South Africans) with a TV on showing the game.Most South Africans would be able to tell you at the drop of a hat who the captain of Man United is but would not have a clue who the Bok Rugby captain is.
Zero Gain
Guest
Nah, we don't need you and the sport will grow more with a locally focused competition. The current format is a huge failure for Australian rugby. Hasn't been any good since 2011, the last one that really counted.
Zero Gain
Guest
The non-selection is the coaches fault, not Quade's. Watch the crowd number for the first home game. I might even shout you to the game if you want to come and live the dream.
Bakkies
Guest
Toulouse went through on match points head to head against Connacht. A system only the new crowd running the competition could come up with.
Boomeranga
Guest
I agree on the derbies, but I personally don't want to see NZ players more than SA or ARG players. I like rugby for the international flavour as much as anything.