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BREAKING: Sunwolves forced to play one more year of Super Rugby before being axed

22nd March, 2019
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22nd March, 2019
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As if being axed from Super Rugby wasn’t cruel enough, the Sunwolves will be forced to play one more season in the competition before being consigned to the scrapheap.

In a statement released this afternoon (Australian time), SANZAAR confirmed the Sunwolves will compete in the 2020 Super Rugby season before reverting to a 14-team competition in 2021 under a new broadcast agreement, a move which had been expected following the news on Wednesday that the club would be cut from the competition.

It’s questionable that the Japanese club will be able to attract many high-quality players for next season given it’s now known 2020 will be their last season in Super Rugby, however SANZAAR CEO Andy Marinos said his organisation will support the Sunwolves for the next 18 months.

Speaking on why the franchise will be removed from Super Rugby, Marinos pointed to the Sunwolves’ financial situation:

“SANZAAR was advised by the Japan Rugby Football Union (JRFU) in early March that they would no longer be in a position to financially underwrite the Sunwolves future participation post-2020,” he said.

“The future of the Sunwolves will now be determined by the JRFU which has determined that Super Rugby no longer remains the best pathway for the development of players for the national team.

“However, Japan and the Asia Pacific region remain strategically important to SANZAAR. We will continue to work with the JRFU, Japan Super Rugby Association (JSRA) and other stakeholders, as we have done throughout this review process, to establish a truly professional league structure in Japan in which current and potentially new teams could participate.”

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The decision to cut the Sunwolves has been met with widespread condemnation from many rugby fans, who have slammed the decision as short-sighted and detrimental to the growth of rugby.

The fact it has been made just months before Japan host their first ever World Cup is particularly questionable, and has raised doubts as to whether hosting rugby’s premier tournament will now have as much of an effect in the country.

ARU CEO Raelene Castle said the financial realities of what it would mean to support the Sunwolves had lead to the decision being made.

“It has been a long process of work to look at competition models, to look at the financial sustainability of each of those models, to look at the integrity of those models, to look at what we think is going to be good for high performance outcomes but most importantly is to look at the financial sustainability for our Super franchises,” Castle said.

“The reality is as much as we see Japan being an incredibly important part of the future of rugby, when the JRFU withdrew their underwrite support for the Sunwolves and they couldn’t find another to guarantee that underwrite it left the SANZAAR partners in an exposed position financially and we didn’t think that was in the best interests of the Super Rugby partnership.”

Castle said the SANZAAR nations remain committed to supporting the development of the sport in Japan, even if they are no longer represented in Super Rugby.

“That’s certainly a significant driver but I think the announcement today that has been in the press release is also about recognising that whilst we don’t see them taking part in the Super Rugby competition directly, SANZAAR is very keen to work closely with Japanese rugby to make sure we work with them to help them develop the second tier professional or their own professional competition.

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“That’s where certainly New Zealand, Australia are going to be working very closely with the Japanese rugby union to bring our expertise, be that high-performance experiences or competition development experience, to be part of that competition.

“I think the closeness of the two competitions and the relationships between the national bodies is very important as we look at perhaps the Cherry Blossoms coming into either the Rugby Championship or World Nations Cup competition to ensure that they’re sustainable over that longer time.”

New Super Rugby format confirmed
If there’s one silver lining for rugby fans, it’s that 2021 will mark the end of the controversial conference system, which will be replaced by a more straightforward round-robin format and top-six finals system.

Under the 14-team competition, franchises will play every other side once in the regular season before a three-week finals series which will see the top two teams given a first-week bye. Those top two seeds will play the winners of playoffs between teams ranked third to sixth, and a grand final to follow the next week.

Teams will play 13 matches per season under the new structure, either six or seven of which would be at home. There would also be two byes per season.

However, this gives every side three fewer total games, and one or two fewer home matches, per season. Under the current format, teams have 16 home-and-away fixtures per year and two byes.

The new format will also see fewer derbies, with teams no longer playing their local rivals twice each year.

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SANZAAR’s statement today stated there will be a new Rugby Championship structure announced at a later date – which is likely to include Japan and Fiji as part of the proposed World League.

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