Super Rugby 2026
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@Kiwiwomble said in Super Rugby 2026:
@African-Monkey said in Super Rugby 2026:
@sparky said in Super Rugby 2026:
@frugby said in Super Rugby 2026:
@Duluth said in Super Rugby 2026:
@frugby said in Super Rugby 2026:
I think there should be more teams and the larger ones should be broken up. There should be more opportunities for players to play close to their home.. that makes for a more tribal competition with more interest.
I find this quite fascinating. Have recently been in the UK, and the sheer density of population/football teams in London is incredible, and it goes back to your first point.
What's really impressive in England at the moment is some sides in the National League, Nation League North/South and the Isthmian League (the 5th, 6th and 7th tier) pulling in paying crowds of over 5000.
Take a bow supporters of Carlisle, Notts County, Oldham Athletic, York City, Southend United, Torquay United and Dulwich Hamlet
You live therw, would you say it's a flow on efect with so many locals being priced out of going to premier league games now?
i would say thats definitely a part....but the standard is also much better, when wimbledon came through the leagues we only went semi pro in championship south i think and didnt go full pro until promotion to the league (this was only 2010), now i believe theyre full pro right through the championship
@antipodean said in Super Rugby 2026:
@Dan54 said in Super Rugby 2026:
@African-Monkey said in Super Rugby 2026:
@frugby said in Super Rugby 2026:
@Duluth said in Super Rugby 2026:
@frugby said in Super Rugby 2026:
I think there should be more teams and the larger ones should be broken up. There should be more opportunities for players to play close to their home.. that makes for a more tribal competition with more interest.
I find this quite fascinating. Have recently been in the UK, and the sheer density of population/football teams in London is incredible, and it goes back to your first point.
Why is it, that Auckland, a city of 1.5m, struggles to support two Super Rugby teams, given rugby is our national game?
Sydney is about 2x as big and they support 9 NRL teams.
Is it better to look at the population of rugby fans as opposed to actual population?
I think a ranking of average crowd size for the 14 NPC sides + the 5 Super Rugby sides would be interesting.
Auckland also has The Wahs and Auckland FC to compete with, and with a cost of living crisis, rugby is bring squeezed out by rival codes. Compare that with the population of the Canterbury region which is about 700,000 currently and growing and has ONE professinal sports team. Lets see how they cope once they eventually get a league team down the track. There's no competition currently in the South Island and the crowds down there are still pathetic most of the time.
Sydney is also not 2 times as big, it has a population of 5.5 mil.
Yep bang on AM, it's pretty different when you look Sydney has population of whole of NZ .
Problem is getting that 5.5 mill to stadiums involves a fair bit of travelling.
Brisbane las about double pop of Auckland doesn't it, and has one of each code , I think, with a couple of teams in surrounding cities? My main take is travel and of course w got a lot of people who these days quite enjoy the convenience of sitting on couches?If you count the Goldy and Sunshine Coast (and you should) then Brisbane is over 3.5 million
And while there's been rationalisation in this millennium, if your region/ suburb had a NRL team, you had a stadium which was "reasonably" well serviced by public transport. Or certainly better than driving which is an act of self loathing.
Australia is also much more willing to waste taxpayer funds on infrastructure.
The other issue is while Australians generally support winners, my experience is there's a considerable discrepancy between codes when their team sucks. Rugby appears to be the worst- "fans" stop attending when their team sucks and are amazingly ignorant of the laws.
i remember being shocked when i first came over and their was a mid season mid table game between Richmond and Carlton...ie both having average to shit seasons and very little to play for....90k people
Yeah it's quite funny in Perth. The Eagles are obviously going through a massive rebuild and their fans have been mocked for not getting behind their side in tough times......I went to their last game of the season against the Swans and they still got 37,000, and their fans have been described as fairweather fans lol as they only won 1 game all season.
Imagine the state of NZ super rugby crowds if one of our teams were on a run like the Eagles are currently on!
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Useful info:
Confirmed Super Rugby Pacific preseason fixtures
Friday 23 January
Western Force vs Queensland Reds – Scotch College, PerthFriday 30 January
Western Force vs ACT Brumbies – Scotch College, Perth
Crusaders vs Highlanders – Fraser Park, Timaru
Blues vs Hurricanes – Sacred Heart College, Auckland
Chiefs vs Fijian Drua – Sir Gordon Tietjens field, Blake Park, TaurangaSaturday 31 January
Queensland Reds vs NSW Waratahs – Ballymore Stadium, BrisbaneThursday 5 February
ACT Brumbies vs NSW Waratahs – Marist College, CanberraFriday, 6 February
Highlanders vs Moana Pasifika – Queenstown Events Centre
Blues vs Crusaders – Takapuna Rugby Club, Onewa Domain, AucklandSaturday, 7 February
Hurricanes vs Chiefs – Jerry Collins Stadium, Porirua, Wellington -
Some pertinent comments from someone who was on the inside. Bums on seats is the only way a SR team makes money from matches. And the salary cap is a sham as I've mentioned previously.
https://www.rugbypass.com/news/former-hurricanes-ceo-avan-lee-opens-up/
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Could almost feel his pain . . . haha.
I was aware that the SR clubs could give their players a pay boost on top of the NZR money.
But not aware of how much of a factor it was.
Sounds like it is a big factor.And I'll admit I am very definitely one who checks the weather forecast.
Raining . . . nah.
I'll leave my decision right down to the estimate of the time it takes to get there.
And when I cut it too fine; sometimes I miss the start. -
@Bovidae said in Super Rugby 2026:
Some pertinent comments from someone who was on the inside. Bums on seats is the only way a SR team makes money from matches. And the salary cap is a sham as I've mentioned previously.
https://www.rugbypass.com/news/former-hurricanes-ceo-avan-lee-opens-up/
Even if the majority of what he says is true, a CEO who was in charge of a fiscally failing organisation (which didn't have to pay the players) might need to have some of his comments taken with a grain of salt.
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Chiefs have a deep squad, but there's some poor defenders in there. Leroy Carter and Wallace Sititi in particular (in the 2nd SA game they were both pathetic). Ratima badly out of form. Can Vaa'i become a good player again? Parker is such a provincial plodder.
They should win, but I can't see them performing in the playoffs.
Huge year for Tupaea.
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@Duluth said in Super Rugby 2026:
@Tim said in Super Rugby 2026:
@Bovidae said in Super Rugby 2026:
Feb 6: Blues vs Crusaders – Takapuna Rugby Club, Onewa Domain, Auckland
Might be a fun afternoon on the Shore.
Good excuse for a TSF catch up
A question: Does the Poenamo Hotel still have a bar?
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@taniwharugby said in Super Rugby 2026:
@canefan its going back a couple of years, but when the Drua played here in Whangarei, the Drua fans were great, signing, dancing, was a great atmosphere, but NZ grounds seem to prefer to play shitty music and kept playing it over the top of the crowd creating that faux ambience.
This needs to be emphasised and repeated.
Not just NZ and not just rugby. Classic examples at Suncorp in recent years (won't bore with specifics).
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@booboo said in Super Rugby 2026:
@taniwharugby said in Super Rugby 2026:
@canefan its going back a couple of years, but when the Drua played here in Whangarei, the Drua fans were great, signing, dancing, was a great atmosphere, but NZ grounds seem to prefer to play shitty music and kept playing it over the top of the crowd creating that faux ambience.
This needs to be emphasised and repeated.
Not just NZ and not just rugby. Classic examples at Suncorp in recent years (won't bore with specifics).
Amen, hasn't stopped according to mates over there. I think when they do it, they trying to stop you discussing game during breaks?I will say the Naki have got it right, just loud enough so kids in crowd can jump around etc, but you can still talk to person next to you.
But on this year, as this is what we discussing, should we actually be sending messages to super clubs, after a game, send an email to them and perhaps we should give them examples of how it pissed us off at game. I just thought of that as for a few years I have moaned--to mates and in a forum like this, but not to the people who running the thing, as someone who goes I sure they not coming into forums to read what a couple of dozen posters say. -
@Tim said in Super Rugby 2026:
Chiefs have a deep squad, but there's some poor defenders in there. Leroy Carter and Wallace Sititi in particular (in the 2nd SA game they were both pathetic). Ratima badly out of form. Can Vaa'i become a good player again? Parker is such a provincial plodder.
They should win, but I can't see them performing in the playoffs.
Huge year for Tupaea.
Love your work. You tried, seems the chiefs tiddlers aren't hungry.
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@cgrant said in Super Rugby 2026:
@canefan said in Super Rugby 2026:
Pro rugby league is an infinitely more exciting watch than Pro rugby union right now.
That's your opinion, not mine.
Obviously each to their own opinion, but I do find that opinion odd considering how good the actual rugby, as in the matches, were in Super and NPC was last year. The test rugby was a less enjoyable watch.
League for me finished with a bang with the Pacific Championship win, but my eternal pessimism about the Warriors meant that even when they were flying high early in the season I just assumed how it fizzled out would be how it fizzled out.
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@Nepia said in Super Rugby 2026:
@cgrant said in Super Rugby 2026:
@canefan said in Super Rugby 2026:
Pro rugby league is an infinitely more exciting watch than Pro rugby union right now.
That's your opinion, not mine.
Obviously each to their own opinion, but I do find that opinion odd considering how good the actual rugby, as in the matches, were in Super and NPC was last year. The test rugby was a less enjoyable watch.
League for me finished with a bang with the Pacific Championship win, but my eternal pessimism about the Warriors meant that even when they were flying high early in the season I just assumed how it fizzled out would be how it fizzled out.
Rugby, and other sport, journos in this country are more likely to criticise rugby, and league journos in both NZ and Aus are more than happy to sell their product so it becomes accepted as fact.
It was usual to criticise Super Rugby early season several years back when it was a slow start so that when it was good it wasn't acceptable to say so.
I'll also throw in that I do not find League a particularly entertaining spectacle. Feel free to enjoy if that is your bag though.
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@booboo said in Super Rugby 2026:
@Nepia said in Super Rugby 2026:
@cgrant said in Super Rugby 2026:
@canefan said in Super Rugby 2026:
Pro rugby league is an infinitely more exciting watch than Pro rugby union right now.
That's your opinion, not mine.
Obviously each to their own opinion, but I do find that opinion odd considering how good the actual rugby, as in the matches, were in Super and NPC was last year. The test rugby was a less enjoyable watch.
League for me finished with a bang with the Pacific Championship win, but my eternal pessimism about the Warriors meant that even when they were flying high early in the season I just assumed how it fizzled out would be how it fizzled out.
Rugby, and other sport, journos in this country are more likely to criticise rugby, and league journos in both NZ and Aus are more than happy to sell their product so it becomes accepted as fact.
It was usual to criticise Super Rugby early season several years back when it was a slow start so that when it was good it wasn't acceptable to say so.
I'll also throw in that I do not find League a particularly entertaining spectacle. Feel free to enjoy if that is your bag though.
I am a league fan too, but yes, it is seen as the cool thing to do in NZ to bag Super Rugby and hype up the NRL, even if you got some awesome Super Rugby games and dire NRL games. Ironically, and not trying to cause offence to Wahs fans, but man, they can be one of the worst teams to watch in the comp a lot of the time, but hey, credit to their promotion for getting people on board.
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Super/NPC rugby is the only pro rugby i'll actually take the time to watch nawadays.
Although that game in Pretoria last night got my attention.
I still follow international rugby, but a lot of that is absolutely dire; extra disappointingly the very big games seem to be the most dire.
Still watch the locals tho; saw some cracking games from the amateurs last season; very entertaining.As for the league v union thing.
A good game of union will shit all over a good game of league . . . BUT . . . you get a lot less good games of union, than you do of league.
League is a little more simple than union; and that seems to ensure that every game is going to be, at a minimum, a half-decent spectacle.
You cant say that about union, a lot of games can be complete shite.
At times a close score line is the only thing making it interesting.Just on top of that, the guys I know who have played both legaue and union (I never played league) generally say that they actually prefer to play union.
Even the shite games of union can be fun, if you are actually playing.
But playing and spectating are lots different.
