Super Rugby 2022
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The latest changes to the New Zealand border, announced by the Government yesterday, have forced New Zealand Rugby to completely remodel Super Rugby Pacific's draw. Liam Napier reports.
Super Rugby Pacific's inaugural season has been overhauled in the wake of ongoing Covid challenges and border changes, with local derbies in New Zealand and Australia set to feature through to April.
New Zealand Rugby had little choice but to completely remodel Super Rugby Pacific's draw by frontloading local derbies, with the five Australian teams and new entrants the Fijian Drua unable to enter the country without undergoing MIQ.
The only other alternative was to base all 12 teams in Australia but as cases of the Covid-19 Omicron variant soar in Sydney (over 3000 on Wednesday) in particular, that was an increasingly risky prospect for New Zealand players who would have little assurance about when they could return home.
The Herald understands the rejigged draw – set to be revealed in full on Thursday – will see Moana Pasifika host the Blues in the opening match at Mt Smart Stadium on Friday, February 18.
Moana Pasifika, in their debut season, were originally scheduled to play the Brumbies at Mt Smart, while the Blues were to host the Drua in their opening game at Eden Park.
A series of derbies against New Zealand teams promises to provide an immediately brutal examination for Moana Pasifika, who will have five weeks to prepare their inaugural squad.
The start of Super Rugby Pacific will effectively mirror this year's Aotearoa and Australian domestic competitions, with Moana Pasifika joining the five established New Zealand teams and the Drua linking with the Australian sides.
Local derbies will feature through to the weekend of April 22, at which point organisers remain hopeful the Covid landscape improves enough to allow transtasman travel.
New Zealand's border is slated to open to vaccinated non-Kiwis at the end of April, but as Omicron cases rise in Australia the goalposts on travel constantly shift.
The latest change arrived on Tuesday when the Government announced plans to allow fully vaccinated Kiwis and residents to enter the country from Australia, without requiring managed isolation, had been pushed back from mid-January until at least the end of February.
Despite the increasingly uncertain landscape, April 22-24 is scheduled to kickstart the transtasman component of the Super Rugby Pacific draw with the 'super round' where the 12 teams will play all matches in Melbourne over one weekend. That was originally supposed to be played in round two, at the end of February.
Five rounds of transtasman matches are scheduled to follow the weekend in Melbourne, culminating in quarter-finals, semifinals and the finale on June 18.
At this point, though, there are no guarantees Super Rugby Pacific's maiden season will contain any transtasman element - such is the havoc Covid continues to wreak on all sporting codes.
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call the whole thing off, what's the point?
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@mariner4life Easy on the black pills, doomer.
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@bovidae said in Super Rugby 2022:
The Aust teams might have more issues playing each other unless they all relocate to Qld.
Wouldn't it be better if we got a local region to host one of the Australian teams? They could do MIQ once, then have the whole competition in NZ.
Drua: Northland
Force: BOP
Melbourne: Hawkes Bay
Queensland: Ta$man
NSW: Taranaki
Brumbies: Southland -
@bovidae said in Super Rugby 2022:
The Aust teams might have more issues playing each other unless they all relocate to Qld.
You mean NSW and Victoria. The only two States open for business. Qld is going to shit its pants shortly.
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@antipodean said in Super Rugby 2022:
@bovidae said in Super Rugby 2022:
The Aust teams might have more issues playing each other unless they all relocate to Qld.
You mean NSW and Victoria. The only two States open for business.
Except for sport.
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@bovidae said in Super Rugby 2022:
@antipodean said in Super Rugby 2022:
@bovidae said in Super Rugby 2022:
The Aust teams might have more issues playing each other unless they all relocate to Qld.
You mean NSW and Victoria. The only two States open for business.
Except for sport.
And you think that would be different in Qld?
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@antipodean said in Super Rugby 2022:
And you think that would be different in Qld?
Based on Qld successfully holding sports fixtures this year, and the relative number of covid cases in each state, I would say yes.
Back to the SR competition, the Chiefs can only be playing the Hurricanes in the 1st round. The Crusaders are already playing the Highlanders, and the Blues will play MP instead of the Drua.
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Ignore what I said, as they changed the SRA draw completely.
The competition will kick off with Moana Pasifika hosting the Blues at Mt Smart Stadium and the NSW Waratahs hosting the Fijian Drua on Australian soil. While a Super Saturday start in New Zealand sees the Gallagher Chiefs hosting the Highlanders at 4.35pm in Hamilton and the Crusaders welcoming the Hurricanes to Christchurch at 7.05pm.
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This post is deleted!
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@bovidae said in Super Rugby 2022:
Ignore what I said, as they changed the SRA draw completely.
The competition will kick off with Moana Pasifika hosting the Blues at Mt Smart Stadium and the NSW Waratahs hosting the Fijian Drua on Australian soil. While a Super Saturday start in New Zealand sees the Gallagher Chiefs hosting the Highlanders at 4.35pm in Hamilton and the Crusaders welcoming the Hurricanes to Christchurch at 7.05pm.
I hate this stupid compromise they'd made to reduce derby games. If they added just 2 more matches all NZ teams play each other twice (home & away).
Instead we have a truncated half-baked version to appease NZR, because apparently the NZ derbies are too physical, and Fozzie doesn't like a massive All Black's casualty ward.
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Using Crusaders for example, draw should look like this:
Rd 1: Crusaders vs Hurricanes.
Rd 2: Highlanders v Crusaders.
Rd 3: Moana Pasifika v Crusaders.
Rd 4: Crusaders v Chiefs.
Rd 5: Blues vs Crusaders.
Rd 6: Chiefs v Crusaders.
Rd 7: Crusaders v Highlanders.
Rd 8: Hurricanes v Crusaders.
Rd 9: Crusaders v Blues.
Rd 10: Crusaders vs Moana Pasifika.
Week off (all teams).
NZ vs Aussie teams.
(16 games overall, instead of 14)
Finals round.
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@kiwi_expat said in Super Rugby 2022:
@bovidae said in Super Rugby 2022:
Ignore what I said, as they changed the SRA draw completely.
The competition will kick off with Moana Pasifika hosting the Blues at Mt Smart Stadium and the NSW Waratahs hosting the Fijian Drua on Australian soil. While a Super Saturday start in New Zealand sees the Gallagher Chiefs hosting the Highlanders at 4.35pm in Hamilton and the Crusaders welcoming the Hurricanes to Christchurch at 7.05pm.
I hate this stupid compromise they'd made to reduce derby games. If they added just 2 more matches all NZ teams play each other twice (home & away).
Instead we have a truncated half-baked version to appease NZR, because apparently the NZ derbies are too physical, and Fozzie doesn't like a massive All Black's casualty ward.
NZR is stuck between rock and a hard place. If they went down the path of 2 x nz derbies then people complain that the comp is unbalanced as the nz teams have to play each other twice but the aus teams get to play each other twice.
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@kiwi_expat said in Super Rugby 2022:
Using Crusaders for example, draw should look like this:
Rd 1: Crusaders vs Hurricanes.
Rd 2: Highlanders v Crusaders.
Rd 3: Moana Pasifika v Crusaders.
Rd 4: Crusaders v Chiefs.
Rd 5: Blues vs Crusaders.
Rd 6: Chiefs v Crusaders.
Rd 7: Crusaders v Highlanders.
Rd 8: Hurricanes v Crusaders.
Rd 9: Crusaders v Blues.
Rd 10: Crusaders vs Moana Pasifika.
Week off (all teams).
NZ vs Aussie teams.
(16 games overall, instead of 14)
Finals round.
So using the Blues vs Crusaders as the doomed game, round 5 is when this will all be called off?
Revealed: NZ Rugby forced to make major Super Rugby changes
DHL Super Rugby Pacific
