this guy is an utter disgraceful cl0wn,…. so after one of his players shoulder charged a Fijan player to the head (which goes not only against the spirit of the law but also against the same letter of the law, against the wellbeing of the players and everything that the law law tries to protect) and goes unpunished, this d0rk comes blaming the Fijans (!!!!!!) for doing what precisely it’s in the laws,…. this is really incredible
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Australia should have been playing with 14 players since that early moment and the outcome of the game could have perfectly been other than the final one,…. Cheika and the wallies are very very lucky,…. a ref mistake handled them the classification and still this guy is complaining,…. and blaming the Fijans!!!!!!!
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each time his team loses this guy is a load of excuses,…. everybody is to blame except him and his boys,…. especially the refs,….. everytime the refs make a mistaken call against his team he’s the most vociferous bwin all the fans,…. he behaves like a baboon in a cage (and excuses to the baboons, very nice animals that don’t deserve the comparison) when he’s in the coaching boxes and everytime he takes a mic,….. he’s a disgrace for the sport,…. and now that he and his team have been so clearly benefited he comes with all that nonsense about Pocock, first, and now this?
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the wallabies used to be my second team behind the AB,…. now I just want them out of the tournament as soon as possible for not seeing him again

Cane yesterday was awful,… his running was completely inefficient, from his 11 runs he made just 7 meters (a little bit more than half meter per run),… didn’t have any effect on the breakdowns,…. made 3 tackles and missed 1, precisely that one missed on Crotty lead to the saders’ first try,…. drpped the ball, made horrible passes,… his loose pass to Leicht lead to a turnover that end up in the second saders’ try,….and was compltely outplayed by Todd
but everybody is singing his praises,…. almost always alluding to the “hard work” he suposedly did,…. it’s something amazing that when discussing about Cane, his defenders always point to the “hard work”, something that no one can explain, no one knows what exactly is, no one can see,…

Cane is currently the 3rd openside in NZ,… Todd should start for the AB with Savea from the bench

that was a blatant yellow card,… didn’t influence the outcome, as you said, but yellow,….

Squire hit with the shoulder and no arms and then throwed a swinging arm that hit Mo’unga’s head,… it was reckless and dangerous,… blatant yellow

“How did the Lions get an easy path?”

that’s an easy one,… this season there’ve been 5 teams outstanding in SR,…. Crusaders, Chiefs, Hurricanes, Highlanders and Lions,… these 5 teams have been clearly superior to the rest of the teams,… superior in points (there’s a gap btwin them and the rest) and superior in the game deployed,…. just twice one of the other 13 teams beat these 5 (Stormers beat Chiefs and Jaguares beat Lions)

The Crusaders, e.g., played 5 times (5 from 15 games) against one of these 5 best teams (twice canes and landers, once the chiefs)
The Lions have not play them at all,…. the lions have not play against the other 4 best teams,…. that’s to have an easy path

and they could also finish first in the conference (which very surely would mean first in the table),… if they are lucky with injuries

they have the best forward pack of the competition with 9 AB,… Moody, Franks, Crockett and Taylor in the first row, Whitelock, Romano and Barret (who can also play 6) in the second row (a hell of a second row), and Read and Todd in the loose

but they also have the best depth in the forwards with Taufua, the inform blinside last year and very unlucky not to be called to the AB (probably because of his height but I would choose him over Dixon, e.g.), with Alaalatoa (132 Kg. and proven to be up to the task) as the second tighthead, Funell another experienced hooker plus Makalio this last year’s NPC’s sensation, very strong ball carrier with his 122 kg,… and covering the backrow Pete Samu who last SR season grabbed all the opportunities he had to show his capabilities and strenght (he can play in any backrow positionj) plus Mitchell Dunshea, a NZ U20 and very Scott Barret-like player who’s been injured but has lot of potential.

and yeah, they have lack of depth in the backline,… but as I said with a bit of luck there,… their first choice backline is as good as any other with 3 AB and one ex-wallaby

9. Drummond/Enari 10. R. Mo’unga

12. R. Crotty 13. J. Goodhue

11. D. Ioane 14. S. Tamanivalu 15. I. Dagg

I would like to see Enari given an opportunity untill Drummond recovers from his ankle injury,…. he was exceptional with 19 yo in his debut NPC season,… he already has one of the best and fastests passing and if he continue his progress,… who knows,…. Drummond also has one of the best passing

If Mo’unga get injured the saders will have a problem,… but the canes with Barret, Chiefs with Cruden or landers with Sopoaga are in the same boat

Crotty and Goodhue will form one of the bests midfields,… and the signing of Tim Bateman to cover both 10 and 12 has been a good option IMO,… I would like to see here Tasman’s Alex Nankivell a very promising 19 yo center who can play both 12 and 13,… already far better than Havili or Wainui (both average players),… last season with Goodhue and Fruean injured for the whole season and Crotty gatting injured for the important games all the Saders’ problems came from the midfield formed by Havili and Fonotia when played against the NZ sides,… Fonotia is gone and Havili is still too young and he may improve

Tamanivalu, Ioane and J. Macilai are very capable wings while Dagg is the second best FB in the world and Geoge Bridge has the potential to be his succesor,… played on the wing this last NPC season but he’s a FB and could be a very good one

Crusaders 10th? really?

12 All Blacks,… best forward pack of the competition by far,… best set piece,… best pool of players,… both saders’ partners, Canterbury and Tasman, playing the NPC final,… Canterbury winning their 8 title in 9 years,… having reached the SR finals 17 times last 19 years,… I wouldn’t discard the saders that soon

talking about their centers you forgot to mention Jack Goodhue,… better than Tamanivalu and ten times better than Havili,… the whole package,… excellent defender, great game vision, always choosing the right option and strong ball carrier,… the nº13 is his,… and tamanivalu will play at wing

Richie Mo’unga had an excellent first SR season,… after another excellent NPC season (MoM in the final included) he can only improve his game,… and he has tons of potential

@john,
“Consistently the best offloader in world rugby, at all levels”

sorry but don’t think so,… if there’s at world level a reference for offloads, that’s SBW
Folau is a good offloader but not the best,.. not very prodigal either,… in the last SR season

Malakai Fekitoa 34
Damian McKenzie 28
Nemani Nadolo 26
James Lowe 26
Patrick Osborne 24
Israel Folau 24
Ben Smith 23
Samu Kerevi 23
SP Marais 22
Aaron Cruden 22

IMO a position switch btwin Folau and DHP would be better for the wallies,

@muglair
“Hate to say it but the real unforced error which conceded the try was Folau not diving on the loose ball.”

that’s not true. The errors leading to the try were those from Phipps and Kepu. Phipps’ pass was awful, as always, and Kepu’s pass (or better said, try to pass) backwards once he got the ball he knocked-on was simply unbelievable. What for was he trying to pass? anything his team could have achieved would be unvalidated by the knock-on. That’s a schoolboy mistake. He should have held the ball he already got.

once the ball was loose behind the defensive line the damage was made,… yeah, probably Folau could have put some more guts,… but Phipps and, specially, Kepu are more likely to be blamed IMO

very interesting article, congrats,… really good analisys of the restarts, lineouts and driving mauls that confirms that Whitelock and Retallick are the engine of these All Blacks,… and the best 2 locks in the world

you skipped your pills, didn’t you?

Spot on , man.

The only and small changes I would make:

– Wyatt Crockett, as the rest of the props deserves a 7, he’s the best carrying the ball and running in angle and also contributed to the scrum.

-Kieran Read. 8. Successfully took the cataincy and led with the example in the difficult moments

– Ardie Savea deserves IMO more than a 7, he made everything, to tackle, breakdowns, run with the ball, beat defenders, break lines,… and everything at a very high rate. Hansen is very right, he’s a special player, someone who can change or evolve the way of playing in a certain spot, in his case, the openside

– Liam Squire made also the difference the few time he was on the field. Very strong carrying the ball. 8

Thanx for your effort, a very good and worked article. Cannot be put more clearly the unfairness of the new format.
It would be very interesting also to compare these 2 formats with a 18 team-format where every team plays every other team once and there are no conferences which is the most fair possible.I think the diferences would be even biggers.

really?
last year the stormers classified having less points than the 7th, the saders.There was also the advantage of playing in the easiest conference against weakest teams which made easier for the stormers to get points but even without taking this into account they classified only thanx to the conference system that gave automatically one spot to each conference.
The only SA team shouldn’t have classified and lost at home by 20 points.
The year before the sharks lost by 30 in the semis and the year before the bulls lost at home their semi,….

And the next year it will be like the last one,… the best SA team (probably the stormers) wouldn’t be upper than the 8th in the log if it were a fair competition and every team played every other team once. But the conference system will give some very easy points and bonus points against teams like kings, sunwolves, cheetahs,… and will give 2 undeserved spots to the SA teams

well, if to the known absences of Carter, Slade and Taylor we add that Dagg is also injured till April, Ellis and Nadolo are going to miss the first rounds due to their stint in Japan and now the injuries to Crotty and Fruean, the saders are going to have to play with a completely new backline. The whole last season’s incumbent backline is out for one reason or another.

For the beggining of the season (and against Chiefs, no more no less) they are going to have to choose btwin Havili, Fonotia and Wainui for the midfield and McNicholl, Macilai, Fifita and Mckenzie for the outside backs with Drummond and Mo’unga as the halves pair (with Fukofuka and Volavola on the bench). No more than 30 starting caps btwin these 11.

This is not a midfield crisis, this is a backline crisis and is going to be a great handicap for the saders.

I didn’t know about this Laumapi but another to take into account to fill the void left at canes’ centers is Willis Halaholo. He’s very strong also, around 105 kg, and has been the defense crasher and breaker for Southland the last 3 seasons.

But the young with more potential of the canes is IMO Vaea Fifita. He was really impresive last ITM season. Very similar to Ioane in phisycal constitution and style of play, I hope he’s given gametime in an overloaded backrow plenty of quality with Vito, Shields, Blade Thomson, Gibbins and Ardie Savea besides Fifita.

If Samu can translate his ITM cup form with Tasman, and mainly that of the beggining of the season, to SR, the saders’ backrow is going to be impressive.
With Akira Ioane (who already has shown what is capable of at SR level and has the words AB written all over him) and Vaea Fifita (outstanding prospect, let see if he can have gametime in a quality and jam-packed canes’ backrow) were the inform and outstanding loosies of the last ITM cup.

I’m awaiting to see also Mo’unga playing at flyhalf, he has tons of potential and after 2 excellent ITM seasons it’s time to step-up. It would probably have been better to make the transition coming from the bench with someone like Slade starting but won’t be possible and he will have to take the full responsability if he’s choosen to start (but IMO he’s the one).

Another very good prospects are Goodhue and Sean Wainui at centers. Goodhue was excellent in the U20 WC showing some good skills and an excellent rugby brain even playing at wing. A pity that he’s injured for a long time and probably this won’t be his season.
Wainui is a strong center, already 102 kg with 20 years, but who reads pretty well the plays and defends excellently.

@Mchooka,
for sure, I would be thrilled and would go to watch the matches but if the team were thumped week after week I wouldn’t last more than a season. And that’s what would happen without any doubt if, e.g., next year an american side is introduced.
There aren’t enough quality players, nor in the USA nor elsewhere, to fill a competitive team and just introducing a team in the SR won´t make any miracle.

But the US rugby authorities are going through the rigth way. They have already established a profesional league of 6 teams and they are introducing rugby programmes in schools all over the country. If they succeed, and there’s no reason to think otherwise, in some years they can be breeding those professional teams with many US youngs and expanding their league, And with some more time they surely can fill some 2 or 3 very competitive team that could be included at SR. That’s IMO the right way.

Besides they gave another very important step signing Mitchell and they now have the best tactical rugby brain to provide the technical support to steer all this process the US rugby is getting involved in.
Those processes take their time, they have to build and sell a professional league of a sport that currently nobody cares about and even knows about but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see greart improvements of the USA in the next RWCs.

I don’t know too much about Japanese rugby but having already the professional league it seems that it’s in hands of the great enterprises and didn’t want to get involved in the SR competition. Well, IMO the SANZAR should have adressed this issue and have solved it before including a Japaneses team.
Anyway, I hope they can solve this problem as soon as possible in regards to get a competitive team and hope you enjoy the Super Rugby there

hey, wardad, happy new year to you and yours too. Yeah, man, taking a break, it’s not good for anyone’s mental heath to read everyday the rants of the great lunatic of that dystopian place when there’s no rugby to talk about.
My preferred are when the NZ teams play against saffas, same at test level.

@Lostintokyo

When the Super12, there were 6 matches per week, almost all of them were attractive which means followed directly or watched on TV by a good amount of people. Now with this new 18 format we have an average of 8 matches per week but no more than 4 are attractive.
If they continue adding teams the number of quality or attractive matches will continue decreasing because there are not enough rugby quality players to fill so many teams.
And if we’ll have the Super24 (at this pace probably in 10-15 years) there will be 12 matches per week but only 2 of them will be attractive. Nobody will want to watch the Waratahs putting 100 points on the Namibian Seagulls or the Chicago Freezers or even a more tight game Seagulls-Freezers.
I think that the SANZAR could obtain more money selling the 6 attractive matches of a Super12 than those 2 of the hipothetical Super24 (plus the remaining 10 garbage-matches)

hey, rooi,
happy new year, mate, how are you doing?

agreed that SANZAR have made a complete mess. They should have never allowed the inclusion of teams that are so clearly not up to the SR level.
The case of the Kings is beyond any doubt. It’s a joke of a franchise, economically insolvent, with a team well below par made of the other SA teams’ rejections and which is going to be thumped week after week. Its inclusion obey only to political reasons.
The Sunwolves is not such a drastical failure but I don’t think they will be at the required level for being competitive. They’ll very proibably loose all their matches except that against the kings and perhaps they could also win one of those against cheetahs. This is not going to gain any audience for SANZAR in Japan, besides they play some of the matches in Singapore which won’t help to this aim, the TV, the reason behind their inclusion.

This is going to be a big failure but won’t change SANZAR bosses minds. They are obifuscated with the growth (probably a reflection of the current society that pursue an impossible ilimitated growth in a finite planet). They want growth and growth, growth at whatever cost, more and more teams without realizing that this growth implies necesarily the watered of the competition.
And what makes attractive any league is the competitiveness. The more the competition btwin the teams the more atttractive is to watch. Nobody wants to watch a team thrased every week, people want to see both teams fighting for the win.
The Super12 was the perfect example of this, where all the matches, or almost, were very hard battled and atttractive to watch for every rugby supporter. But I’m afraid we will never see those days again, the growth is the priority.

The inclusion of such a weak teams (plus the inclusion of a very strong one, the strongest of the comp) is going to alter the competition making it more unfair. Unfair in terms of the toughness of each teamss schedule.
And there are going to be big diferences regarding this issue, being the 2 extremes:

-Bulls and Stormers. While they don’t play against any NZ team, the toughests, they are going to play twice the very weaks Sunwolves and Cheetahs (the other SA franchises have poached all their good players except de Jager) and once the joke Kings. This means 21-25 points in the bag before playing.
– The NZ teams. They play 6 matches against other kiwi teams, 5 times against the 5 aussie teams and they have only one easybeat, the joke Kings.

To compensate this unfairness they have made another one, 5 teams of the Australasian group go to the QF while only 3 of the SA do. But if they hadn’t do this last unfairness the disadvatage of the NZ teams would have been enormous.
If the competition had been without conferences playing each of the 18 teams once against the other 17 teams the 8 teams that IMO would have reached the finals would have been:

– Jaguares
– 2 aussies: (Brumbies and Waratahs)
– 4 kiwis
– 1 South African

At most SA could have 2 teams poured into the QF (at the expense surely of a kiwi team) which IMO paliate to some degree the unfairness.

thanks for the info. I made some research and found that he’s expected to be playing around the first weeks of April.

“On Dagg’s form of 2015 it’s probably not a big loss.”
well, or you didn’t watch the Super Rugby games he played or you are very wrongly remembering. He was in an excellent form, in the form of his life comparable in my view whith his form in his second year with the landers or his first with saders.
And the stats are there to prove it. in 4 matches and a half (had to leave his first game before halftime) he scored 2 tries, gave 1 assist, run 526 metres, made 8 clean breaks and beat 15 defenders.
If he had played the whole season at this pace his numbers would have been more than outstanding being at the top in all the parameters.

“if he takes off after the 2016 season” it would be a huge loss for the AB and the NZ rugby. He’s still one of the 3 best FB in the world with Smith and Folau and the best tactical kicker in the world. If I was Hansen and Ben Smith get injured I would like to have Dagg playing in NZ

I don’t know from where did you get those 245 hrs.
The Jaguares are going to travel:
– twice to SA (4 trips or journeys). One to play the Cheetahs and the Sharks and the other to play Lions and Kings.
Each journey are 12 hrs. so they will have 48 hrs of flight. The most logical is to rent a charter for going directly and sell the remaining seats to supportes to spend 15 days in SA but if they cannot do it they will have to go through Brazil which means around 2,5 hrs per journey, another 10hrs.In overall 48 or 58 hrs.
– Once to NZ. 14 hrs. to play the Blues, canes and saders
– From NZ to Japan. 14 hrs
– From Japan to Argentina. 32 hrs. This last travel Argentina-NZ-Japan-Argentina will take 4 weeks and 60 flight hrs.

So, if I’m not doing the calculation completely wrong, the jaguares will have to travel 108 or 118 hrs.
And the other teams also have to travel, in a range of around 40-60 hrs, depending on in which conference the teams are.Except Stormers and Bulls that have to travel:
-Once to Singapore. 12 hrs each trip. 24 hrs
-Once to Australia. 15 hrs each trip. 30 hrs
– Once to Argentina. 12 h. each trip 24.
In overall Bulls and Stormers will travel around 78 hrs. There’s no huge diference with the Jaguares, 30 hrs more of flight in 6 months.

But, yeah, after the SR the players will have to travel for the RC and the EOYT whith which they are going to finish the year exhausted and their performance in the EOYT could be serously limited but this is another story

The Kings are a joke of a team and their inclusion is beyond any comprehension. If a team is not ready to compete at this level, and this goes also for the Sunwolves, let them out untill they are ready. This is going to be a complete failure. The SANZAR is not going to gain any audience in Japan with a team that is going to lose every match except that against the Kings. And the inclusion of both teams is going to adulterate the competition.

Without any doubt the Jaguares is going to sweep the South African group (both SA conferences). They are a test side with 22 of the RWC squad plus another 6-8 internationals (young prospects that didn’t make the RWC squad but have already palyed tests).
But according to what we saw the last autumn the line-up listed need some corrections:
– At 4 Guido Petti was the incumbent and Alemanno came from the bench in almost all the matches.
– At 6 Pablo Matera started almost all the matches including the QF and the SF
– At 7 Fernandez-Lobbe was the incumbent but he’s still at Toulon. Facundo Isa was the loosie coming from the bench and he’s before Leguizamon and Ortega-Desio in the picking order.
– At 13 Matias Moroni started 4 of the RWC matches (though Bosch was probably the incumbent but he’s not in the team)

IMO this conference will finish:
1. Jaguares
2. Lions
3. Sharks
4. Kings

What are you talking about, man?

“It was off the back of a couple of huge victories that they started to string a succession of wins together to launch their run for the NZ conference. ”
And? what this has to do with having inflated or not the scoring records?

“However they hadn’t beaten any team ranked above them”
wrong, very wrong, the saders last year beat the landers, canes and brumbies

“when they played their Kiwi rivals they found it much tougher to score tries unlike their opposition.”
again very wrong, when the saders played against canes both teams scored 6 tries, against the landers, the saders scored 5 for 6 of the landers, against the blues, the saders scored 8 tries against 3 of the aucklanders and only against the chiefs they haave a clear negative count after losing both matches with them but this only means that last year the chiefs were superior to them, period.

“When you don’t score 4 try bonus points in most of your games and then get handed a few gimmes, it will always inflate the records and compare them favourably to teams who are regularly scoring 4 try bonus points.”
I choose the canes to compare with coz they were the max try scorers.
The canes scored 4 try bonus points 9 times, against Force, Rebels, Reds, Sharks, Highlanders, Waratahs (though they lost), Crusaders and Blues twice. From these 9 times twice were against top 6 teams.
The saders scored 8 times, against Cheetahs, Sharks, Reds, Lions, Hurricanes, Brumbies and Blues twice.
They put more than 4 tries twice on top 6 teams.
I would say that both teams have very similar numbers, almost identical, and the rest of the teams are far from them so it will be interesting to know from where did you obtain your above conclusion