ODT Online rugby contributor Jeff Cheshire explains why the Super 15 is a flawed competition.
Too many teams, not enough depth
The Australian Conference especially has become extremely diluted. Adding more teams there has meant that an already thinly-spread talent base is being spread even thinner. Consequently we are seeing many of their teams being filled out with New Zealanders who were not good enough to make New Zealand teams. They have performed okay this year, but one has to ask how much the upcoming Lions tour has had to do with that. In any other year would they be so competitive?
Even South Africa and New Zealand struggle to cover the five teams with quality players. The fifth South African team has been perennial strugglers almost every year, while the fourth has tended to be not a lot better. In New Zealand too there has generally been one team that has lagged a fair way behind the other four.
While someone is always going to get last, when these teams are so far off the others, or are diluting the talent of the others, is it making for a lower quality competition? The Super 12 had a good balance and should never have been messed with.
Not playing every team
This has always seemed like a ridiculous one. How on earth does it make for a better competition when you make it longer, have every team playing four others twice, but not play two at all? It can have a huge effect on the overall outcome. If one team was to miss playing the bottom two teams, while another was to miss the top two, it is clear that one is at a huge advantage over the other.
If you really must have 15 teams, why not just drop the conference idea and just play every team once? That way everyone is on a level playing field. An extra game in South Africa every second year does not seem like a huge deal if teams are travelling all that way anyway.
Imagine what someone who did not know the sport would think when you told them that you played some teams twice and others not at all. Really makes you wonder.
Do we really need a final?
Do we really need to have a final at the end of it all? Would it not be a better idea to simply award the trophy to the team on top of the table at the end of the season? Surely after a long, gruelling season it would be a far better reflection of who was the top team for the season.
Many leagues around the world employ this method successfully, most notably the English Premier League, Of course though, it would rely on playing every team the same number of times.
The trouble with a final is that it can end up so stacked against the visiting team that it is not always a fair contest. Sure you play all season to get the home ground advantage, but that does not mean the travelling team should be so tired by the time it comes to the final that they can barely put up a challenge.
This is what happened to the Sharks last year, having to travel to Australia, back to South Africa and then all the way back across the Indian Ocean again to New Zealand, in three weeks. It made the final something of a non-event.
Break in the middle of the competition
This one really needs to be fixed too. The reasoning for the three week break in the middle of Super Rugby is to allow for the traditional June tests. This is all well and good, but it acts as a momentum killer and to go three weeks without rugby can be detrimental to the chemistry of a team that is playing good rugby just before the playoffs.
While it does offer the vast majority of the players to rest and recover from the niggles, the top players are still playing and come back to their teams even more tired and potentially carrying injuries they did not have prior to leaving. In this, the top teams and those with more internationals are being disadvantaged.
The June tests are a great initiative and should continue, but something really needs to be done about this break.
Not all four-try bonus points are equal
The four try bonus point is a great way to encourage teams to play open rugby and promotes try scoring. However, this too needs to be looked at as who is more likely to get these tries is far from a level playing field.
To fit in with the television preferences for timing, New Zealand games tend to be played at night time, while a lot of South African games are played during the afternoon. Playing at night presents a whole host of other challenges, with a more slippery ball and generally softer field, which are far harder to score tries on than on the hard, fast, dry tracks that come with playing during the day.
If South African teams are getting to play in these better conditions on a more regular basis, this means that they are at more of an advantage when it comes to getting four try bonus points. When it comes to the final table, these bonus points can be crucial and it seems somewhat unfair that teams from one conference have the chances of obtaining them than teams from another.
