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Radical Super Rugby proposal

General Tah

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http://www.foxsports.com.au/rugby/r...d/news-story/c79e93b17610602b6b58610f00ea9034



South Africa have long flirted with the idea of playing their club rugby in Europe, which fits better with their timezone.

Australia and New Zealand should look to the Americas and the Pacific.

There could be two teams coming out of Argentina â€" one from the country (Cordoba, Mendoza or Tucuman) â€" and a Buenos Aires-based team.

You’d have one or two Pacific teams, maybe two out of Asia and one each from the United States and Canada.

World Rugby is going to have to sponsor the Pacific teams because they can’t do it on their own, they can’t get their heads around it administratively.

But that has to happen because otherwise the Pacific Islands are just going to keep on getting raided.

Most of these Samoan, Fijian and Tongan players only go overseas because of money.


Cant half tell Marto is sick of being held over a barrel by SA.

Thoughts?
 
Last August, when there was a rumour about Japan pulling out, Pichot was asked about the possibility of having a second SR franchise from Argentina. He said we do not have the players nor the resources (Source, in spanish).
 
Can't see SR investing in Pacific Island teams ever, SR just wants to expand its income, they won't be prepared to put up the money for Pacific Island teams who have no infrastructure, no income through viewership because of the populations and having to front up with large salaries to retain players for the franchise they would already have to create and support out off its own pocket.

It will never happen sadly (Pacific Island teams), unless a private investor wants to create the teams on their own, but I highly doubt there's very many rich people in the Islands truly invested into Rugby to front their own money which they would only lose and never get back.

The option to replace them (Pacific Island) with a team from USA is some what viable, them and Canada could combine player resources. Not sure where that other team in Asia you're talking about could come from though.

1 more NZ team, possibly Hawkes Bay combined with Bay of Plenty and another Australian team, perhaps having to divide the Tahs into two teams, or keeping the Tahs (county) and making a Sydney City team or create a Central Coast team.


Also losing SA to Europe would be a disaster for SR income, SA have a huge population and huge viewership. Not many Aussies watch rugby and NZ only has a population of 4m which about a quarter of that is Asian/Indian and not interested. Can't see it ever happening.
 
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SA teams can **** off, frankly... we have too many games as it is.
 
Any change needs to make sense from a sport perspective and from a bussiness perspective.

I think cutting South Africa loose doesn't make sense from a sport perspective. Also Argentina is going to be pretty upset at effectively doubling most of their trips.

I think setting up a second Argentina team doesn't make sense from a bussiness perspective, and I've been made to believe that a Pacific Islands teams also doesn't.

One from Canada and one from USA? I don't see it. Sports wise, maybe one from Canada + USA + Uruguay

Maybe an "Americas" team, with a USA/Canada/Uruguay + some Argentina roster would? But where would they be based? Financially, you'd put them in USA, but the travel times would be huge.

In a world with teleportation, no time zones and no financial issues, I could see five teams that could be somewhat competitive assuming a couple of years for development -we shouldn't forget that before the Jaguares there was Pampas XV- (Argentina x 2, Americas, Japan, Pacific Islanders).

But these are things that can't be put aside.
 
Unfortunately the Pacific Islands are not economically sustainable for SR
 
Are they thinking an Americas multi national franchise hosted in Brazil?.
 
Would it not make more sense for SA rugby in general if they were looking to pull away from SR (which I don't see happening) to simply put more money into their domestic competitions?

adding maybe another four franchises to their 6 at the minute even expanding with a professional side from Namibia or perhaps Kenya etc. That way having a purely African competition.
 
Would it not make more sense for SA rugby in general if they were looking to pull away from SR (which I don't see happening) to simply put more money into their domestic competitions?

adding maybe another four franchises to their 6 at the minute even expanding with a professional side from Namibia or perhaps Kenya etc. That way having a purely African competition.

They literally just did this now:D. They have a weird qualification tournament happening now with all 14 provincial/regional teams and a Namibian team with three teams qualifying from that and the 6 super rugby teams making the numbers. The proper tournament will be nine teams. Each team will play each other once, instead of home and away. It will be interesting to see how it is received here because fans were quite keen on the past format and there are concerns that it will now be watered down. I don't think it needs much more added to financing though, I don't think its an issue for us. We have good attendance for the currie cup (about the same as the Aviva Premiership) and has a good viewership as well.

As for South Africa leaving Super Rugby, it will never happen. The tournament needs our money and SA Aus and NZ value playing each other. Plus the potential logistics and issues with trying to join up with a Northern league at this point where we have a good thing going doesn't make sense.
 
What would the viability of strengthening Namibia be like? Could they conceivably do well in this competition or even one day hold a super league franchise?
 
Namibia has a population of 2 million - the effort required to turn them into something resembling a "power" would be enormous.
 
What would the viability of strengthening Namibia be like? Could they conceivably do well in this competition or even one day hold a super league franchise?

Namibia has a population of 2 million - the effort required to turn them into something resembling a "power" would be enormous.

Most of the top Namibian players play rugby in South Africa for the Super Rugby teams, guys like Torsten Van Jaarsveld (Hooker) plays for the Cheetahs and Renaldo Bothma (Flanker) plays for the Bulls. There isn't a major tournament in Namibia for proffessional players. They only have an amateur league. And due to the distance between towns, it makes it rather difficult to keep it going. A school friend of mine lives in Gobabis, and plays for their local club, and sometimes they have to ask local farmers just for a lift in one of their transport trucks to get to the next town to play a game.

SA rugby always tries to help the other african countries in developing their game, and there's a lot of programmes around. But it seems like the african countries mainly try to focus on 7's rugby as it takes less players to compile a team. There's a tournament every year just before the World 7's series starts, where SA invite the other countries to play as a warm-up for our 7's team before the Series starts.
 
I have an even more radical proposal. How about?

1. 18 teams (the ones we have now).
2. No conferences.
3. Full Round-Robin - every team plays every other team once.
4. Two teams have a bye each week in the middle 9 weeks
5. Top 8 are into the playoffs regardless of where they come from
6. Playoffs as follows
QF - 1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6, 4 v 5
SF & F - Highest placed winners home v lowest placed winners

Its basically Super 12/14 on steroids. Total time for competition 21 weeks, one more than current, so start a week early and shorten pre-season by 1 week
 
I have an even more radical proposal. How about?

1. 18 teams (the ones we have now).
2. No conferences.
3. Full Round-Robin - every team plays every other team once.
4. Two teams have a bye each week in the middle 9 weeks
5. Top 8 are into the playoffs regardless of where they come from
6. Playoffs as follows
QF - 1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6, 4 v 5
SF & F - Highest placed winners home v lowest placed winners

Its basically Super 12/14 on steroids. Total time for competition 21 weeks, one more than current, so start a week early and shorten pre-season by 1 week

Utopia Cooky, Utopia...

But that won't work as the conference teams want home and away derbies...
 
Yeah wouldn't work logistically at all.


It logistically worked from 1996 to 2005 with 12 teams and from 2006 to 2010 with 14 teams.
 
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SA teams can **** off, frankly... we have too many games as it is.

Ennit,

How would they even fit in, anyway? None of the leagues would want them, and there's no room in the Euro competitions.
It'd require a complete restructure for no reason.
 
What about a format similar to the Heineken cup or whatever it's called these day. 4/5 teams per pool, play each other twice, once home once away. The top 2 progress and the bottom 2 are out. I'm sure it would make the competition shorter, SA teams can then go and compete in the CC and NZ in the ITM, I'm sure the supporters would love seeing better quality comps with returning players.
 
The problem with a Heineken cup type format is Argentina don't have a viable domestic comp yet. I wonder whether Aussie's one could make up for the loss of games/revenue a change in format would effect. I am sure the ITM and Currie Cups would be sufficient for NZ and SA but even then probably only just would be my assumption.

I think we've gone too far to back out now. The only way forward I see is going even bigger and splitting into a two tier competition. I'd add more teams to make the bottom tier viable and have a 12 team top tier. Top 6 from the top tier and top 2 from the lower tier go through to play-offs played in QFs, SFs and a grand final. Each tier should IMO be a regular round robin with a draw determining which teams you play at home and which away.

As is I'd have:

Highlanders, Hurricanes, Chiefs, Crusaders, Stormers, Bulls, Lions, Sharks, Reds, Brumbies, Waratahs and Rebels in the top tier with

Jaguares, Blues, Force, Kings, Cheetahs, Sunwolves and 4 others in the bottom tier. Maybe PI teams, 2nd teams from Argentina or Japan or even the USA or Canada while we've broken our NH cherry with Japan's inclusion.

Sure, top 2 from the bottom tier going on to finals might seem very generous but I feel there needs to be a link between the two tiers for the sake of tournament coherency so that fans of a team in the bottom tier would still have a reason to watch the top tier games or visa versa and its difficult to say who might step up or not in any year. The Jaguares for instance might be hurting this year but they might just as easily go from strength to strength next year (or even this year still). We'll also see more strength vs strength matches at least more regularly.
 
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