Super Rugby 2022

Kiwiwomble

id say soccer/football is ahead of rugby, just the fact greater melbourne can field three professional teams suggests so

lets not forget AFL has the VFL so there is another comp below attracting people on a saturday ave and finally Cricket is up there at the top, maybe not in direct competition for crowds but for sponsorship moneys etc

Kiwiwomble

I feel I should post something in defense of derpus, i get where he's coming from, being around a club in Melbourne for the first time this year, the aussie guys didn't know who was playing in SRTt finals, there was more interest in the club games...and this is from guys that literally bleed rugby every week...there is a huge disconnect between aussie rugby fans and the super game

most notably for me was our club games being played at the same time as the 5pm super games...rugby vic/ra literally making it impossible for rugby fans to watch super rugby games

Derpus

@canefan the last attempt at a national comp was a relative success from a player development perspective but it got tanked by SRU infighting and Rupert only a few years in.

There is plenty to hate the main one being nothing for us to celebrate and therefore be interested in. Who wants to watch a comp in which no one from your entire country has a realistic chance of winning?

They could have done anything - one chance in the last 30 years where they could have done something with a bit of vision and we just end up with more of the same.

Granted, i'm keen to see what Fiji can bring (though that was clearly an NZRU initiative).

canefan

@kiwiwomble said in Super Rugby 2022:

I feel I should post something in defense of derpus, i get where he's coming from, being around a club in Melbourne for the first time this year, the aussie guys didn't know who was playing in SRTt finals, there was more interest in the club games...and this is from guys that literally bleed rugby every week...there is a huge disconnect between aussie rugby fans and the super game

most notably for me was our club games being played at the same time as the 5pm super games...rugby vic/ra literally making it impossible for rugby fans to watch super rugby games

That doesn't make any sense does it? Surely the comps could be organised to play on different days or different times? Melbourne is tough. My 10 year old nephew likes the Storm and the Wallabies. But he loves his footy team

Billy Tell

Hmmmm. 12 teams and 8 make the playoffs.

Kruse

@billy-tell said in Super Rugby 2022:

Hmmmm. 12 teams and 8 make the playoffs.

Australia pretty much guaranteed 3 spots in the playoffs, and Derpus still unhappy.

Derpus

@kruse Isnt just me though. No one in Australia will care about this competition. Why are you so intent on playing TT if you are also intent on ensuring it will have minimal appeal here?

canefan

@derpus said in Super Rugby 2022:

@canefan the last attempt at a national comp was a relative success from a player development perspective but it got tanked by SRU infighting and Rupert only a few years in.

There is plenty to hate the main one being nothing for us to celebrate and therefore be interested in. Who wants to watch a comp in which no one from your entire country has a realistic chance of winning?

They could have done anything - one chance in the last 30 years where they could have done something with a bit of vision and we just end up with more of the same.

Granted, i'm keen to see what Fiji can bring (though that was clearly an NZRU initiative).

That's internal problems mate, which I can totally sympathise with. But the key to success at Super level has to be the strong national comp you describe, instead of the strategy RA has used over the years splurging huge money on league converts. Who do I remember as Aussie GOATs in my lifetime? Lynagh, Farr Jones and Campese would stand out from the amateur era, but in the pro era Gregan, Larkham, Eales, Smith among others immediately spring to mind. Not a leagie amongst them. The administration has to take a hard look at themselves and get shit done to prioritise their grass roots comp.

I do agree, Super Rugby has lost its way of late. But it is, along with TRC, part of the foundation that has allowed NZ Oz and SA to win the lion's share of RWCs and dominate world rugby for the last 30 years

KiwiMurph

I can understand @Derpus point but it's not that easy to figure out an alternative for RA in the short term.

RA needs volume of games (something this comp provides - 7 home games each).

SRAU simply does not have enough games on it's own.

Also bear in mind - in this format only 3 teams do you play twice - in other words the home games are mostly going to be a once every 2 years experience.

Running two or three rounds of domestic comps playing the same 4 opponents every year is going to wear very thin very quick.

Kruse

@derpus said in Super Rugby 2022:

Why are you so intent on playing TT if you are also intent on ensuring it will have minimal appeal here?

Pretty difficult to argue with that... because it's made up.

We could go through all this, yet again... but we've all seen what happens when that path is followed... and I simply do not have the time or inclination to once again be drawn into appearing the second fool.

But, just for giggles - why don't you outline your utopia for Australian Rugby?

If I was to have a guess, it would look something like South African Rugby in 2020?
An all-domestic competition... an australian team wins. Yay - crowd interest. In... 2/5 of the country?
Zero international rugby - Wallabies go unbeaten. Yay... great result... proof the system is working.
But then the World Cup rolls around... yeah, nah... we'll pass, thanks - that's just an overblown festival, let's stick with what's working.

nostrildamus

I'm wondering if I'm living in a glassbowl. The RWC has such appeal and interest (David Beckham even prefers it to football==soccer) but club and provincial rugby and in Australia even national/international rugby is struggling.
For the Aussies I suggest you just need to bring back the biffo and shady, inarticulate but completely offensive warehouse brawlers with a giant mo or two. Seems to go down well.

Derpus

@kruse my utopia is a proper domestic competition, with a champions cup tacked on if there absolutely has to be TT content.

The lack of a proper domestic competition is the number 1 reason we have fallen behind NZ and SA. Committing to this 'same ol' shit' comp just further embeds the terrible structures we have in place.

Kruse

@derpus said in Super Rugby 2022:

@kruse my utopia is a proper domestic competition, with a champions cup tacked on if there absolutely has to be TT content.

The lack of a proper domestic competition is the number 1 reason we have fallen behind NZ and SA. Committing to this 'same ol' shit' comp just further embeds the terrible structures we have in place.

Okay - yeah, an Aus domestic competition - I think everybody's on board with that.

Whether that feed into a subsequent SANZAAR level "Champions Cup", or sits outside of something like... "Super Rugby" - exactly like NZ and SA are doing, who you apparently want to catch up with... is a completely different question.
And - there doesn't HAVE to be TT content... but do you think the Wallabies are going to keep-up/improve without it?

So when it's verbalised as "Super Rugby is shit, Bledisloe is shit, we shouldn't be playing anybody else cause we can't win - so, umm... it's shit, because... people will turn off..." - well, there's going to be pushback.

Derpus

@kruse Fair enough. Doesn't really change the fact that, from an Australian perspective, SR is shit and we do play too many Bledisloe's.

I never said we shouldn't play anyone else. I said we play NZ too much.

I don't understand why its a fait accompli that if we don't get fucking reamed by NZ teams week in week out we can never improve.

Nepia

@derpus said in Super Rugby 2022:

@kruse my utopia is a proper domestic competition, with a champions cup tacked on if there absolutely has to be TT content.

The lack of a proper domestic competition is the number 1 reason we have fallen behind NZ and SA. Committing to this 'same ol' shit' comp just further embeds the terrible structures we have in place.

You've never had a proper domestic competition and the period when you were ahead of NZ was peak Super rugby. The previous period to that was peak South Pacific Championship.

KiwiMurph

RA and NZR have confirmed the formation of Super Rugby Pacific after months of discussions and speculation.

The 12-team tournament will see Fijian Drua and Moana Pasifika join the five Australian and five New Zealand sides, set to kick off on 18 February 2022.

Teams will play each other once across the 14-week regular season, along with playing three teams twice, with an added focus on delivering more local derbies following the success of Super Rugby AU and Aotearoa.

The final series will see the top eight teams battle it out, with quarters, semis and final as follows:

Quarterfinals – 1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6 and 4 v 5 with the top ranked team hosting
Semi-Finals – top ranked quarter-final winner hosts against lowest ranked quarter-final winner & 2nd highest ranked quarterfinal winner hosts 3rd highest ranked quarterfinal winner
Final – top ranked semi-final winner hosts the other semi-final winner

https://www.rugby.com.au/news/super-rugby-pacific-new-format-teams-structure-2021829