Super Rugby - The Future
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@Canes4life i always like the top five structure with a reward of a week off for 1st place
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@Bovidae said in Super Rugby 2024:
The best compromise would be to use the McIntyre final eight system where finishing in the top 4 still has an advantage in the event of an early upset.
Now that would be pretty cool to have actually.
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An interesting Big Sky idea
A radical merger for Super Rugby to revive itself
The revamped Super Rugby Pacific competition, now in its third year, is still trying to capture imagination and relevance post-South Africa split.
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@Machpants the strong Super Rugby teams will dominate the Japanese teams though so I guess there has to be some thinking around how best to spread talent so we aren't getting more one-sided fixtures than we already are. I can see the upside to it.
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every sporting competition has shit teams in it. What administrators aim for is that those teams have, in the eyes of their fans anyway, a chance to win on any given weekend, and that bad teams can develop in to good teams.
The AFL have got it pretty much right. The NRL a bit less so but with the odd exception, teams have gone up and down the ladder.
For whatever reason Super rugby has not.
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@mariner4life i think its lots of things, but a big thing in the fan engagement, AFL and NRL started as local club comps and so there are all these local rivalries and derbies with teams just down the road...they make it the expected thing to go to games even if your team is shit...because its not about watching "the best" footie...its about backing your team...so its a double edged sword with rugbys concentration on only the best quality is acceptable
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Super Rugby is like 30 years old now, there are dudes with families who don't know anything but.
I think a problem with fan engagement, certainly in regional areas, is, who do you support? Us guys of a certain age generally follow the teams we were handed at the start with the break up of the provinces. Those lines got blurred when the drafts all got shafted off. Why the fuck would someone kid in Tauranga support a team based in Hamilton today? And why travel to go watch them play?
It's fine if you live in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington etc, you get a team to go watch. Everyone else? why bother to get really involved for 5 months?
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on the equalisation question, a thought occurred. Is it difficult for teams to climb the ladder as they only get the players for half a year? Then they all go back to their provinces (or America) who have varying standards or facilities, or they go to their main job, the ABs.
It must be incredibly difficult to develop a culture and a system and get wholesale buy-in when you lose access to your guys for half the year. Worse still if they go back to half a dozen provinces, rather than a couple.
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@mariner4life said in Super Rugby 2024:
on the equalisation question, a thought occurred. Is it difficult for teams to climb the ladder as they only get the players for half a year? Then they all go back to their provinces (or America) who have varying standards or facilities, or they go to their main job, the ABs.
It must be incredibly difficult to develop a culture and a system and get wholesale buy-in when you lose access to your guys for half the year. Worse still if they go back to half a dozen provinces, rather than a couple.
Culture and just general cohesion from playing together.
Having a dozen games at a high level is great, but in amateur days guys like Tim Horan and Jason Little played preaseason + 20-odd club games + finals + preseason + State + Test footy.
Players in Australia who don't get Wallaby duty go back to cowshed rugby in Sydney or Brisbane. Local stalwarts can talk it up all they want, but it isn't distant from full amateur rugby. Worse in Perth or Melbourne, and everyone in Canberra is playing for silver.
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there is also cost of living, season ticket for my football team in the UK is like 500 quid....for 46 league games plus whatever cup comps there are...a swans membership is less than $300 for 11 home games and you get a whole bag of merch as well as tickets....and theyve spent decades establishing that as the norm....i think a highlander was over $300 for 6 games....its just so expensive
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@mariner4life said in Super Rugby 2024:
For whatever reason Super rugby has not.
Central contracting affects this too. If you're an AB, you get your salary paid by NZR. So sitting in the 23 or even the wider squad is no bones - the franchise isn't paying you. Leads to stockpiling players.
And of course, you get the vicious circle where playing for a successful franchise makes you more likely to get picked for the ABs, which means $$$ - so good players want to go and play there. NFL has salary caps for a reason - it equalises competition.
And this daylights the question about what Super is. It's built to be a feeder for the ABs, not a standalone comp. People are now trying to get it independent and meaningful, but I fear that ship has largely sailed.
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@nzzp said in Super Rugby 2024:
People are now trying to get it independent and meaningful, but I fear that ship has largely sailed.
yeah....im getting close to giving up...if it dies it dies
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@mariner4life said in Super Rugby 2024:
Is it difficult for teams to climb the ladder as they only get the players for half a year? Then they all go back to their provinces (or America) who have varying standards or facilities, or they go to their main job, the ABs.
It must be incredibly difficult to develop a culture and a system and get wholesale buy-in when you lose access to your guys for half the year. Worse still if they go back to half a dozen provinces, rather than a couple.
Well said. Super Rugby has to work itself around the All Blacks season when it should be a standalone competition that runs concurrently to it.
The franchises could become streamlined (like the SA clubs back when they played in Super Rugby) as when the Super season finished effectively the same teams continued in the Curry Cup, so there's alignment and continuity with the same coaching group and mostly the same squad of players as well.
I think we will eventually have to modernized competiton running the full length of the rugby season (the current 6-8 home games a year isn't sustainable) February through to the end of October.
Same as NH the later half of the season would probably feature a European Champions/Challenge Cup equivalent with Super teams divided into pools with the JRL teams and you have predetermined venue (like Tokyo national stadium) for the final - ultimately needs to be centred and focused around their market to generate maximum revenue.
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I understand why the season is the length it is, there is a small metter of $s. NZ has a pop of 6 mill, there is no way we can have squads big enough to play through test rugby, it just doesn't add up, same as Aus. In rugby we are both blessed and cursed that test rugby is top of the pile!
I am happy with length anyway, because I still enjoy club rugby and NPC anyway. Ok some might one comp going for a long time, I personally like a number of comps!! -
@Dan54 and thats possibly one of the biggest issues, the fanbase disagrees on what they want from competitions, i fall into the camp of one longer comp (or at least the same teams playing in different comps like a champions league) where teams can have dips in form without screwing their season, i cant think of other sports where the fan disagree on the shape of the comp....the comp they follow just is...and normally has been for a long time
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@Kiwiwomble Yep mate, I not suggesting I right or wrong, just I kind of like the sprint thing. The way rugby is structured and having tests as the ceiling, we don't have any alternative I believe. Market isn't big enough to run squads big enough to play through test season etc, only way to change it things in reality is to not have mid year tests, and I would rather have them than a longer super season.
And in general test comps (the most popular) are even shorter and allow even less for dip in form etc.
). The best compromise would be to use the McIntyre final eight system where finishing in the top 4 still has an advantage in the event of an early upset.
