'Super Rugby' 2021
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@Nepia said in 'Super Rugby' 2021:
@rotated said in 'Super Rugby' 2021:
You last paragraph pretty much summarizes what the Crusaders did with Ta$man in the late 00s where the likes of Brad Thorn, Ali Williams, Chris Jack and Ben Franks all going on their books.
Yeah, the Hurricanes punish the Magpies by making us keep Ben May on our books ... and we also got Ben Franks forced on us one year too.
Karma.
When Steve Tew tried to get rid of Northland and Ta$man, a small handful of teams couldn't wait to get their greedy, carcass-picking hands on our best players.
We kicked every one of those teams' arses last year and we're far from finished with that!
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@Winger said in 'Super Rugby' 2021:
@shark said in 'Super Rugby' 2021:
@Winger said in 'Super Rugby' 2021:
It would need some thought. But at present its creating the opposite effect. Where its encouraging the best players to move to the best team. And that teams stays as the best team.
NZR need to come up with a (financial?) system to ensure the best players are evenly distributed between the 5 teams
You can't 'ensure' distribution. Market forces can dictate it, but the moment NZR tries to 'ensure' it, guys will get fucked off, and fuck off.
A true salary cap based on NZR money given to the franchise plus the amount the weakest franchise is able to secure themselves as a total, would be the best way, but that's full of holes as pointed out in several posts.
The current system is idiotic. If NZR keep it super rugby will continue its decline. Regardless of what else is done.
The decline has nothing to do with which NZ team or teams are strong. For fucks sake the only two poor years the Crusaders have had are 1996 and 2001. Going by your rationale they must be the peak years of SR. But no, the Crusaders have dominated and had a large quantity of All Blacks throughout the vast majority of SR. They've won the last three on the trot during a period of decline for SR, sure, but they also won three in a row 20 years ago when there was no talk of SR being in decline. So don't try and say one team with an inordinate amount of All Blacks is the or even a reason for a decline in SR. LUDICROUS.
The biggest reason IMHO for the drop off in interest is the general lack of depth in NZ squads across the board. And particularly the way 2020 started. Each comp post RWC there is big drop off in depth and it takes years to rebuild. Longer than four years. So every four years the general level of depth drops away again, and again. Witness the names of replacement players these days compared to even ten years ago. Half the guys that come in are virtual unknowns at provincial level let alone franchise level. Including the Crusaders. Who'd heard of George Bower last year?? Spreading All Blacks evenly doesn't do anything for competition depth.
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@Chris-B said in 'Super Rugby' 2021:
@Nepia said in 'Super Rugby' 2021:
@rotated said in 'Super Rugby' 2021:
You last paragraph pretty much summarizes what the Crusaders did with Ta$man in the late 00s where the likes of Brad Thorn, Ali Williams, Chris Jack and Ben Franks all going on their books.
Yeah, the Hurricanes punish the Magpies by making us keep Ben May on our books ... and we also got Ben Franks forced on us one year too.
Karma.
When Steve Tew tried to get rid of Northland and Ta$man, a small handful of teams couldn't wait to get their greedy, carcass-picking hands on our best players.
We kicked every one of those teams' arses last year and we're far from finished with that!
Why have a go at us - we didn't want your two Bens!
You been following the Ranfurly Shield thread, @Bovidae is posting a series of articles about the history of the Shield. I think the next one is about how invitational chequebook baabaas 15s aren't eligible to compete for it.
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@shark said in 'Super Rugby' 2021:
Each comp post RWC there is big drop off in depth and it takes years to rebuild. Longer than four years. So every four years the general level of depth drops away again, and again. Witness the names of replacement players these days compared to even ten years ago. Half the guys that come in are virtual unknowns at provincial level let alone franchise level. Including the Crusaders. Who'd heard of George Bower last year??
That's because provincial rugby isn't the feeder to SR. School rugby is.
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@Winger said in 'Super Rugby' 2021:
Accept it.
You might love your team winning year after year (it would bore me as it does now NZ v Aust for eg.) but its not good for the competition. Even more so in SA and Aust than NZ
That's nonsensical. You're blaming the decline in SR on the contracting system and the ability of the Crusaders to attract, promote, and hold onto more premium players than anyone else. But that's been the case for 20+ years.
Can you at least try and make some kind of convincing argument??
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Super Rugby fell back a lot when the Crusaders weren't dominating. Crusaders didn't win it between 2008 and 2017 and it regressed a lot in that time. I think you can argue that New Zealand's dominance has been bad for the competition. That was partly Australia and South Africa's fault for introducing teams which just weren't competitive.
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@Machpants Yep that's another good point. And now we have depth further exposed by sabbaticals, late starts to the season from star players and mandatory rest weeks. It's little wonder viewership and interest levels are on the wane.
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@Machpants I think that was their own error. They made the abs become everything. Now the club game is completely disenfranchised
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I would like to see an NZ Super-6 this year. 5x current franchises plus get a best of the rest/PI team going.
Can't for the life of me see why the hell they want to have just five teams, therefore meaning one bye per round. Three games per week is a clearly better product to sell.If the Aussies can get their 4 teams, plus the Force, plus maybe the Fijian Drua or Sunwolves to make up their 6. Each country can play their Super-6 with a cross-over 1v2 semi into a grand final for the newly minted Triple-T (Trans Ta$man Trophy). That would be the extent of playing games with Austraya.
As for the NPC - the Chiefs region had a sort of round robin with the teams from within their region this year (I think this year). Going forward - maybe this has to be the answer for everyone (minimises travel, reduce costs, replicates what happens at schoolboy level)
Blues region - Northland, Harbour, Auckland (could the Akld union be split into East & West for this?)
Chiefs - Counties, Waikato, BOP, Taranaki
Hurricanes - Manawatu, Hawkes Bay, Wellington (can WGTN be split North/South)
South Island - Ta$man, Canterbury, Otago, Southland
Quarters between 1 & 2 from across the pools (randomly drawn, but in such a way you wouldn't play a team from your pool in quarters)
Semis & Final. -
@westcoastie said in 'Super Rugby' 2021:
I would like to see an NZ Super-6 this year. 5x current franchises plus get a best of the rest/PI team going.
Can't for the life of me see why the hell they want to have just five teams, therefore meaning one bye per round. Three games per week is a clearly better product to sell.Yeah - the logical thing would be to turn the National Provincial Champions into the 6th team (with priority on their players) and then let them also choose a player from each franchise to bolster their ranks.
Hmmm Aaron Smith, Richie Mo'unga...Hurricanes....who the fuck do we want from the Hurricanes...?
Or maybe Ta$man bolstered by all the non-contracted returnees - Sam Whitelock et al.
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A suggestion that the best Top League clubs could be involved in any future SR competition.
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