All the questions needing answers in Round 1 of Super Rugby Pacific

Well, here we go. The competition so many of us have long desired, catering for our teams in our part of the world, and with a long overdue injection of Pacific flair is ready for launch.

And let’s just hope that we have no more games postponed in week one!

On that, it’s an obvious shame that Moana Pasifika’s much anticipated Super Rugby Pacific debut couldn’t be played in Auckland to start with, and now can’t be played at all after a number of their squad tested positive for COVID-19 in the Queenstown bubble the New Zealand sides rushed to in the hope they might avoid cases. Fingers will remain crossed their isolation works and they can get onto the field for Round 2 next week.

And equally obviously, it’s almost certain this won’t be the last postponed game in 2022. The Queensland Reds are still coming off the back of a COVID outbreak themselves, that impacted key players and coach Brad Thorn alike.

As I’ve written in previous years, this is the best week of a new rugby season. Every team is unbeaten, and more importantly, your team has exactly the same chance of winning as does my team. Trial form is simultaneously giving good indications and completely meaningless. Everyone tries to guess an overall winner, but no-one can offer any certainty.

This pre-Round 1 week is the one in which literally anything can happen, and it’s fantastic.

But it does mean that we’re left to ask a host of questions in lieu of having a firmer hold on what’s what and on who’s where. So, here’s the questions I’m wondering about, going into a new era of Super Rugby.

What is the contingency plan for postponed games in 2022?
This is an important question, and it will only gain urgency the later in the season that games have to be postponed. There’s certainly more flexibility around rescheduling games postponed in February than there is in say, mid-April, never mind what can happen in May with finals pencilled in for June.

Will there be a point in the season where New Zealand Rugby and Rugby Australia as joint venture partners (not SANZAAR anymore, remember) have to just say a game cannot be rescheduled? And in that case, would points be shared like has happened when Super Rugby games have had to be cancelled for earthquakes and bushfires in the past, or would the team causing the issue be punished and essentially forced to forfeit?

I don’t know the answer, but I will presume that it has been discussed.

Right now, Blues coach Leon McDonald is asking similar questions, admitting he isn’t really sure when his team will face their new neighbours.

“We don’t know if it’s postponed days, weeks or months,” McDonald told New Zealand media on the weekend.

“We could be playing it midway through the next week. We have to be flexible, though starting against the Hurricanes in week two is the likely scenario.”

Hopefully we get an answer on this particular game soon. And I do like the idea of Tuesday or Wednesday night rugby, if it’s needed!

What is more likely: the trans-Tasman games being played as scheduled or not being played at all?
My gut feeling was always that these games will be played somewhere, somehow, and NZR moving the six teams to Queenstown gives us an idea of how important it is to keep their squads healthy and on the field as much as possible.

And a couple of conversations I’ve had in the last week or so give me an idea of how much work has already occurred around the inaugural Anzac weekend Super Round at AAMI Park in Melbourne in late April, which marks the first round of cross-over trans-Tasman games.

The break glass in case of emergency contingency plan would almost certainly have the six New Zealand sides remaining in Australia thereafter to complete the season, but we obviously hope things don’t come to that.

As mentioned above, we’ll quite likely have more games postponed – the next month is probably the danger period – but I think and definitely hope we’ll get through the season in full.

In a new eight-team finals series, how many smokies do we need to start thinking about?
A couple, probably! There are no conferences in 2022, but if we think back to the AU and Aotearoa comps last year, there were distinct front-runners on both tables.

The Reds and Brumbies were well out in front in AU, while the Highlanders and Hurricanes trailed the other three Kiwi sides by a margin.

So even thinking in similar terms for this year, we’re still going to need three more teams to make a run at some point in the year to qualify in those last finals spots. Whatever you think of an eight-team finals series in a 12-team competition, the fact remains there will still be eight teams in action in quarter-final week.

And it will be interesting to see how it plays out. My gut feel is that teams will be taking points off each other in each country this season more so than last year, so I suspect the table is going to be really tight in the middle.

The Fijian Drua for one of these spots? You couldn’t rule it out.

Vinaya Habosi of Fijian Drua. (Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)

Are last season’s favourites still this year’s favourites?
Probably. The Crusaders will always be a team to beat, and adding former Argentinean skipper Pablo Matera will be shown to a shrewd move within minutes on Saturday night, I’d guess. The Blues will have to deal with expectation now, having won the trans-Tasman series last year and gaining NRL star Roger Tuivasa-Sheck. Their fortunes probably rest on when (or if?) Beauden Barrett can make it back from prolonged concussion concerns.

The Reds and Brumbies have both maintained string rosters and have been the benchmark Australian sides for the last few seasons. I do think there has been significant improvements among the chasing pack, however, so the challenge for both sides will be to show that they too have found off-season improvements to make.

Does returning experience make the Waratahs twice the side of 2021, or three times?
They’ll certainly be hoping so, but you’d think it has to. You don’t add Michael Hooper, Jed Holloway, Ned Hanigan (at some point) and Ruan Smith to a well-beaten forwards pack and not see big improvements. Jamie Roberts will have an impact in midfield too, though I’m not expecting him in the No.12 or 13 just yet.

Twice as good or three times as good? I don’t know how you actually measure that, despite asking the question. Three times no wins in 2021 is still no wins, for example. But they’ll be significantly better; I think we all know that.

Is this the year the Blues finally win me over?
Probably not.

How many games will the new boys win in 2022?
I think this season might be tough going for Moana Pasifika, though we will find out once and for all if a sixth New Zealand team truly can be competitive. I do think they’ll take a scalp or two though, probably in the second half of the season once their combinations are more bedded down.

The Fijian Drua will win in this first month of the competition though, I’m quite convinced of that. Even for a team with only one actual game to their name, this squad has been together for a long time, and around half of their squad have National Rugby Championship or Global Rapid Rugby experience. So these guys certainly aren’t starting from scratch.

Could six wins be enough to sneak into the eight? Maybe…

And who is going to be the biggest surprise packets this year?
This was one of the first questions I scribbled down, but I’ve left it to the end because it’s actually really hard to answer. I’ll interested to see what you guys come up with for this one, actually.

It’s easy to say the Waratahs, for example, but if they started building wins with a significantly better squad and a new coach with a history of getting results, would it really be that surprising? We similarly expect the Hurricanes will be much improved, too.

So maybe a team going backwards might be the biggest surprise? But even then, if the Highlanders did that, given the players that departed, that might not be a surprise either. Maybe Marty Banks still having his super powers might make the men from the deep south a front runner – and that would be something!

It’s all going to be fascinating either way, and I can’t wait for Super Rugby Pacific to start this weekend.

(Photo by Mark Evans/Getty Images)

The Roar Rugby Podcast
But before that, I’m even more excited for the first episode of The Roar Rugby Podcast, which will launch across the site and wherever you get your podcasts tomorrow.

Harry Jones and I will delve into all the big talking points, all the trivialities, and all the complete madness in this bloody wonderful game of ours every week, and we can’t wait to share it with you. We’ve got a swag of guests pencilled in as well, with expert writers from The Roar already lining up, commentators and media types from either side of the Tasman, and plenty of people involved in the game because like us all, they just love it.

We can’t wait to bring it to you, and we want you involved too: hit us up with whatever quandary you want us to tackle, from either here on The Roar, or on the socials as well.

It’s going to be great, and we hope you all can get into as much as we already have.

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