Super Rugby - The Future
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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. -
@Dan54 yeah, and i dont KNOW im right either...i just cant help feeling running two comps just has to be more expensive, maybe not in player salaries as we know its semi pro but all the admin, travel, support staff and splitting the sponsorship dollar...all gut feel but anecdotally i feel people (and sponsors) would be more invested (and hand over their hard earned dollar) if the comp was bigger and more meaningful
as for the test window being smaller...yeah...but thats what its it...its meant to be this show piece of the best...club/franchise level is supposed to be about developing the international players and engaging with the fans (IMO)...the local connection
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if you ask a large amount of people of a certain vintage (ie the demographics of this forum) they'll point to somewhere about 1997 as the pinnacle. Super 12 was new and exciting and awesome. ABs played the NPC in front of big crowds and it was awesome. The ABs won heaps, the Tri Nations was new and awesome. So how did they fit it all? I had a quick look
in 1997 the season was broken up like this
Super 12 Feb 28 to May 24th
3 AB tests (Fiji and Argentina x2) in June
3N July 19 to August 23
NPC August 15 to October 26 (9 teams)
AB Tour 4 tests in November (12 tests for the year)In 2022, the season was
Super Rugby February 18 to June 18
3 AB tests in July (Ireland)
Rugby Championship August 6 to September 24
NPC August 5 to Oct 22
AB 4 tests in November (13 for the year)Effectively we have just stretched the same number of games out, and completely removed the top 35-40 players in the country from any tier 2 rugby for half the season (and spread the talent across more teams)
I grabbed one random player, and Andrew Mehrtens played 23 games in 1997 (7 Super Games, 6 tests and all 10 NPC games). In 2022 Ardie Savea played 22 games, 11 Super Rugby and 11 tests.I don't really have a point, other than it is interesting that we have the same basic structure 27 years later, but interpreted differently.
Would take a little more investigation, but i wonder that the difference a year looks like for an AB squad player now as opposed to 97? -
@mariner4life interesting
I pulled up 2019 Super for comparison as it didn't have any Covid hangovers. Started 15 Feb through to 6 July. It's just too long. That, and round robin no longer matters when 8/12 qualify for playoffs.
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"2022 Ardie Savea played 22 games, 11 Super Rugby and 11 tests"
i think thats what bugs me, and i know it doesnt bother other so no worries if thats you...just doesnt feel right if internationals are supposed to be but guys are playing just as many all black games as clubs games, i feel it should be a showpiece, something special rather than their main job and the clubs games fit in around
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@Kiwiwomble said in Super Rugby 2024:
"2022 Ardie Savea played 22 games, 11 Super Rugby and 11 tests"
i think thats what bugs me, and i know it doesnt bother other so no worries if thats you...just doesnt feel right if internationals are supposed to be but guys are playing just as many all black games as clubs games, i feel it should be a showpiece, something special rather than their main job and the clubs games fit in around
throw in AB enforced rest periods for Super Games
and the perception (more like reality) that for core test players Super Rugby form means very little, and you have the issue in a nutshell. If the system itself doesn't take itself seriously, why should we?
I know i harp on about the NRL a lot, but could you imagine the league media if say, Nathan Cleary took a couple of games off to freshen himself up for Origin, or was allowed to cruise as long as he was primed for finals? But rugby fans are fed a constant diet of "well, he has bigger fish to fry later in the year"
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@Kiwiwomble said in Super Rugby 2024:
"2022 Ardie Savea played 22 games, 11 Super Rugby and 11 tests"
And I guess that ratio is why the top level players feel burned out at the end of every season, it's just a lot of very high intensity test match rugby, all the time.
