Super Rugby - The Future
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@zedsdeadbaby said in Super Rugby - The Future:
The South African teams are viewed with some serious rose tinted glasses by not only South Africans but NZers.
They were quite poor in the closing years of the competition as we knew it (Lions aside I guess), with the overseas selection rule hurting their franchises as well as just generally not being as good as the NZ sides.
That may well be true but I do believe they added a harder edge to our forwards that we don't get only playing the Aussie forwards. At the end of the day most of those Saffa teams had big guys in the forwards who loved to win collisions.
While we've won games against Ireland we've struggled against France ( top team ) and South Africa. Looking at how easily the Lions are winning collisions against the Aussie teams there are question marks around whether or not Super Rugby is adequately preparing our forwards to win collisions against big strong players.
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@zedsdeadbaby said in Super Rugby - The Future:
The South African teams are viewed with some serious rose tinted glasses by not only South Africans but NZers.
They were quite poor in the closing years of the competition as we knew it (Lions aside I guess), with the overseas selection rule hurting their franchises as well as just generally not being as good as the NZ sides.
Just like some players. The less they play, the better they get!
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@Bones said in Super Rugby - The Future:
There is some serious getting ahead of ourselves with the lions up against mostly second string and/or thrown together club sides. I would 100% back the ABs to be at least as dominant, most likely more.
Well the Lions is also a touring side and so far a series of scratch sides. People complain about Razor making a few changes while those guys are using heavy rotation and casually creaming it.
When we've gone overseas to play France and South Africa it hasn't gone well for us even putting out our best team which has combinations under their belt.
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@Crazy-Horse said in Super Rugby - The Future:
@zedsdeadbaby said in Super Rugby - The Future:
The South African teams are viewed with some serious rose tinted glasses by not only South Africans but NZers.
They were quite poor in the closing years of the competition as we knew it (Lions aside I guess), with the overseas selection rule hurting their franchises as well as just generally not being as good as the NZ sides.
Just like some players. The less they play, the better they get!
It's true haha. The SA teams sucked by the time they left. Only one of their sides ever won it too (Bulls 2007, 2009, 2010).
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@brodean said in Super Rugby - The Future:
@zedsdeadbaby said in Super Rugby - The Future:
The South African teams are viewed with some serious rose tinted glasses by not only South Africans but NZers.
They were quite poor in the closing years of the competition as we knew it (Lions aside I guess), with the overseas selection rule hurting their franchises as well as just generally not being as good as the NZ sides.
That may well be true but I do believe they added a harder edge to our forwards that we don't get only playing the Aussie forwards. At the end of the day most of those Saffa teams had big guys in the forwards who loved to win collisions.
While we've won games against Ireland we've struggled against France ( top team ) and South Africa. Looking at how easily the Lions are winning collisions against the Aussie teams there are question marks around whether or not Super Rugby is adequately preparing our forwards to win collisions against big strong players.
We've struggled against France because they're the best in the world. Have we really struggled against South Africa? The ledger is fairly even in recent years - they've won a couple of tight ones but usually with an advantage (in South Africa, against 14 men etc).
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@brodean said in Super Rugby - The Future:
@Bones said in Super Rugby - The Future:
There is some serious getting ahead of ourselves with the lions up against mostly second string and/or thrown together club sides. I would 100% back the ABs to be at least as dominant, most likely more.
Well the Lions is also a touring side and so far a series of scratch sides. People complain about Razor making a few changes while those guys are using heavy rotation and casually creaming it.
When we've gone overseas to play France and South Africa it hasn't gone well for us even putting out our best team which has combinations under their belt.
I find it extremely disingenuous to disregard some very important facts in your statement.
The lions are the cream of the crop, of four highly regarded test nations, again including plenty of combinations, with plenty of experience together at test level already. It's not comparable at all.
They're playing twice a week. That's twice as many games.
They're playing depleted club sides.
Sure, they're "touring" - I wouldn't be surprised if their fans outnumbered the home fans though. It would be laughable to suggest that for ABs in SA or Europe.
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@Bones said in Super Rugby - The Future:
@Nepia don't forget Super Rugby doesn't prepare players for international rugby if I conveniently ignore many in form SR players delivering at test time.
Apparently it's a lesser competition to the Top 14, URC, and English Prem too.
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@WoodysRFC said in Super Rugby - The Future:
@Bones said in Super Rugby - The Future:
@Nepia don't forget Super Rugby doesn't prepare players for international rugby if I conveniently ignore many in form SR players delivering at test time.
Apparently it's a lesser competition to the Top 14, URC, and English Prem too.
If we put aside games in those competitions where there are large winning margins, games in SR where there are large winning margins illustrate this point succinctly.
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@WoodysRFC said in Super Rugby - The Future:
@Bones said in Super Rugby - The Future:
@Nepia don't forget Super Rugby doesn't prepare players for international rugby if I conveniently ignore many in form SR players delivering at test time.
Apparently it's a lesser competition to the Top 14, URC, and English Prem too.
Here's the thing.
It probably is.
It's not necessarily the quality, but also the variation we are missing. -
@gt12 said in Super Rugby - The Future:
@WoodysRFC said in Super Rugby - The Future:
@Bones said in Super Rugby - The Future:
@Nepia don't forget Super Rugby doesn't prepare players for international rugby if I conveniently ignore many in form SR players delivering at test time.
Apparently it's a lesser competition to the Top 14, URC, and English Prem too.
Here's the thing.
It probably is.
It's not necessarily the quality, but also the variation we are missing.Variation meaning?
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@Mr-Fish said in Super Rugby - The Future:
@sparky said in Super Rugby - The Future:
Somehow linking up with North American and Japanese competitions is the only way I can see Super Rugby surviving in the medium term. International interest in the competition since the South Africans left is virtually zero.
Was there much international interest in Super Rugby before South Africa left...?
Maybe due to a few games being played in the timezone as Europe, but that wouldn't be the case just because of NA/Japan joining the competition...
Son who lived in Italy used to watch games with mates all the time, and even used to watch NPC games live over there. Actually has another mate laughed, he was driving trucks in USA and said he stopped outside on town at a truck stop, and found a couple of fellas sitting in a truck watching super, realsied they were all on over there and used to watch all the time.
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What we've lacked since the South African sides left - and the Jaguares, Sunwolves and Pacific franchises joined - is a viable meaning or context to the competition.
Previously it was the best domestic sides from the three powerhouses (and most successful nations) of professional rugby. The team that won (and, importantly, its fans) could claim to be the best domestic side in the world. That meant something; either side of the equator.
With South African leaving and far-flung franchises joining (and not ignoring the recent downfall of the Wallabies) we now have a competition that crowns a champion of no real relevance or significance.
The old Super 12/14/15 had true sporting context. Yes, there were mismatches and games played at odd times for various sets of viewers but it always progressed to a tangible context at season's end.
People complained about about those viewing times being the downfall of the old Super 12/14/15. I've seen the current ratings and still Kiwi fans won't watch anything outside of 4:30pm and 7:05pm kickoffs - even when NZ sides are involved.. And I'd imagine the equivalent is true of Aussie viewers.
So if no one is watching un-appealing kick-offs in a Pacific-only comp then then South African 3am kick-offs aren't the issue no matter what the alignment of sides within Super Rugby.
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@Nepia said in Super Rugby - The Future:
We've had three years of "Super is shit because the Saffas aren't here", now we've got a page of the thread full of the "Saffas were shit".
My point was the Saffa forwards made our forwards and the Aussie forwards harder regardless of the overall quality of their teams. That's not saying SRP is shit.
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@WoodysRFC said in Super Rugby - The Future:
@gt12 said in Super Rugby - The Future:
@WoodysRFC said in Super Rugby - The Future:
@Bones said in Super Rugby - The Future:
@Nepia don't forget Super Rugby doesn't prepare players for international rugby if I conveniently ignore many in form SR players delivering at test time.
Apparently it's a lesser competition to the Top 14, URC, and English Prem too.
Here's the thing.
It probably is.
It's not necessarily the quality, but also the variation we are missing.Variation meaning?
For starters, we miss the best domestic sides from the current b2b WC.
As they play in their own manner, we miss the variation in strategy and approach from the SA sides.
Altogether, it lessens the competition - we are just a little competition representing two small countries, one of whom hardly matters are the moment.
About 5 years ago Super rugby represented the southern hemisphere, even one Argie side mattered.
That's gone and that's why they should have done more to keep the SA sides.I see that @Wurzel has got here ahead of me on some of this.
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@gt12 said in Super Rugby - The Future:
About 5 years ago Super rugby represented the southern hemisphere, even one Argie side mattered.
I'd go so far as to say, the periods when Super is strong correlate with All Black/southern hemisphere dominance.
It's been brutally mismanaged. We got to 18 sides remember, and then the bottom fell out. We're now at 11 and possibly 10, and they are marginally sustainable. There is no doubt in my mind the quality of Super over the last 10 years has been in decline (possibly this year excepted).
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@nzzp said in Super Rugby - The Future:
@gt12 said in Super Rugby - The Future:
About 5 years ago Super rugby represented the southern hemisphere, even one Argie side mattered.
I'd go so far as to say, the periods when Super is strong correlate with All Black/southern hemisphere dominance.
It's been brutally mismanaged. We got to 18 sides remember, and then the bottom fell out. We're now at 11 and possibly 10, and they are marginally sustainable. There is no doubt in my mind the quality of Super over the last 10 years has been in decline (possibly this year excepted).
There were still 3 SH sides in the RWC semis mind you.
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@Kiwiwomble When we lived in SA we could watch the NZ games in the morning, then any Aus match and that would fold in to the home games in SA. It was a whole day's viewing if you wished.
