S18 on its way

[No4918]

Looks like the S18 will be a short lived experiment.

 

[PaarlBok]

Watson try to get sponsors from the Force area.

https://soundcloud.com/algoafm/dmb-interview-tony-mckeever-ep-rugby-sponsorship

 

[Teh Other Dave]

Jesus motherfucking Christ.

The prep for the next Super Season is like a bad episode of The Thick of It.

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With more invective.

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

SARU to the rescue:

http://www.planetrugby.com/news/saru-take-control-of-kings/

Doesn't actually say what "taking control" means in real terms but I guess they first need to establish how dire the Kings situation is & if they're salvageable.

SARU themselves have to bear some responsibility for this shambles as IMO they should never have pushed for the Kings return to Super Rugby without first ensuring they were viable.

 

[TOCC]

If it's anything like when the ARU took over the QRU/NSWRU then they will exchange financial support for administrative control of the Kings. It's the best possible outcome for the team IMO


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[Lindommer]

TRAVEL IN SUPER RUGBY

This article is a glance at the extensive travel Super teams do to compete in the southern hemisphere rugby competition. A secondary reason for the article is to throw some light on our Saffer brothers' claims of being hard done by due to the amount of travel they do.

Firstly, a quick check of the distances between Super Rugby cities show them to be enormous. If Zenit St Petersburg travel to the far east to play Luch Vladivostok in a Russian soccer match (they don't in regular competition as they're in different leagues but they might for cup fixtures) the distance is 6,543km. Michael Cockerill from SBS was rabbitting on recently about the huge distances A-League soccer teams travel when Wellington Phoenix played in Perth, a mere 5,264km. From Cape Town to Auckland it's 11,786km without adding in a CT to Johannesburg connecting flight.

Secondly, most of the Australasian teams have to make two trips to their ANZAC brothers each year, ie, four flights across the Tasman Sea annually. I've checked the draws for 2013 and 2014 and all the Australian and New Zealand teams made two trips to the other country, apart from the Reds, Rebels and Canes in 2014; no Saffer side had to make four trips across the Tasman in those years. It was particularly galling for the Force in 2014 as they travelled twice to New Zealand all the way from Perth TO PLAY THE CLAN AND THE SADERS! Only 312km apart on the South Island after landing in Christchurch 11 weeks earlier. Accept a metaphorical kick up the clacker, SANZAR.

Thirdly, I've picked three teams to tally up their distances travelled in 2014: the Stormers, Force and Clan. Their respective draws and travel schedules look like this:

Stormers: Lions/Canes/Saders/Chiefs/Brumbies/Reds/Tahs/Lions/Cheetahs/Clan/Bulls/Force/Cheetahs/Sharks/Bulls/Sharks
Cape Town>Jo'burg>CT>Jo'burg>Sydney>Christchurch>Auckland>Hamilton>Auckland>Sydney>Canberra>Sydney>Brisbane>Sydney>Jo'burg>CT>Bloemfontein>CT>Jo'burg>Pretoria>Jo'burg> CT>Durban>CT

Force:Tahs/Brumbies/Rebels/Clan/Chiefs/Reds/Tahs/Rebels/Bulls/Cheetahs/Stormers/Lions/Saders/Blues/Reds/Brumbies Perth>Sydney>Perth>Sydney>Christchurch>Dunedin>Chch>Sydney>Perth>Brisbane>Perth>Melbourne>Perth>Jo'burg>Bloemfontein>Cape Town>Jo'burg>Perth>Sydney>Chch>Sydney>Perth>Canberra

Clan: Blues/Chiefs/Force/Canes/Blues/Rebels/Bulls/Sharks/Stormers/Lions/Canes/Saders/Reds/Chiefs/Tahs/Saders Dunedin>Christchurch>Auckland>Hamilton>Auckland>Chch>Dunedin>Chch>Auckland>Chch>Dunedin>Chch>Sydney>Jo'burg>Durban>Cape Town>Jo'burg>Sydney>Chch>Dunedin>Chch> Wellington>Chch>Dunedin>Chch>Brisbane>Chch>Dunedin>Chch>Sydney>Chch>Dunedin>Chch

The travel for these three teams in 2014 is approximately 41,755km for the Stormers, 63,990km for the Force and 46,790km for the Clan. Please keep in mind I'm not a travel agent, if any of the flight details are incorrect the errors are mine. Away fixtures are in italics. Also, I've used the colloquial terms, Canes/Clan/Saders/Tahs, for the sake of brevity.

My major point here on the travel issue for Super Rugby is simple: it's horrendous. And only going to get worse. Johannesburg to Singapore's 8,680km, that's if there're direct flights. Perth to Buenos Aires is 12,603km, the Force'll have to play there one day.

Let's look at alternative travel distances in the northern hemisphere. From Toulouse to Paris is 589km, Bath to Newcastle is 404km by air and 495 by road. Now for the biggie, Milan to Glasgow in the Pro12, a whopping 1,491km! I haven't looked at the numbers between Japanese cities as they're even smaller. Apart from the km travelled time away from home and family is significantly more onerous for the players and coaching/managerial staff in Super Rugby. And there's talk of including a west coast team from America in future plans. Madness. It's not in the least surprising players start to think of the NH or Japan after a few years looking at luggage carousels at Sydney or Johannesburg or Christchurch while checking their mobiles for texts about the latest night's sleeping problems for their new-born babies. I've thought about moving our SH land masses closer together to alleviate these travel issues (isn't Australia drifting towards Africa at about 1cm per year?, can we hurry this up) but couldn't come up with a viable plan to put to the various governments. Or believable.....

The way forward for Super Rugby has to be a much more mature conference system with minimal travel in the rounds prior to the finals. On this point our NZ and Saffer brothers are correct in their criticism of Australian rugby and its failure to develop a third tier of competition. I've always thought canning the ARC after one year in 2007 was a huge strategic error by JON, that's six years of development and progress not done.

I'll put together a similar article on the travel numbers for a coupla sides in the new 2016 competition.


Comments please.

 

[Highlander35]

Biggest Road trip in 2015/16 European Rugby was Galway to Krasnoyarsk, the best part of 8000km. But yes, that's a one off. It's one of the biggest advantages of Europe. Players physical welfare is compromised by the sheer number of games, with a French side theoretically capable of playing 36 total games (26 H&A games, 3 playoffs, 6 pool games, 3 finals), but mentally, the comparitive lack of travel, combined with having much greater time with family must be much more beneficial. And the sheer size of European squads (regularly low 40s at absolute minimum, plus generally 5-10 academy players physically able to play for rotation and injury purposes), means the actual likelihood of playing more than 25 odd games is quite low.

The other thing is this. The theoretical advantage of Super Rugby, is that the best players from the best rugby nations play a within a small number of teams against a wide variety of styles at a very high standard, best preparing these players for international selection. In the absence of regular cross conference games (there's an additional interconference game per team now, going from 8 domestic games to 6 and 8 international ones to 9), I don't think there's enough incentive for the Saffas or the Kiwis to continue, and both of them have the Currie Cup and the NPC to restructure and fall back on if so required.

Who knows though. Certainly not an easy puzzle to solve. Lets see firstly what the new season beings, and to a lesser extent, what the full cycle brings, before making sweeping changes.

 

[kiap]

In the absence of regular cross conference games (there's an additional interconference game per team now, going from 8 domestic games to 6 and 8 international ones to 9), I don't think there's enough incentive for the Saffas or the Kiwis to continue,

It's the opposite. The Kiwis and Saffers wanted fewer Supe derbies.

Something that's clearly not wanted, though, is to have games after midnight. The distinction between domestic and international isn't the main criterion. What matters more is watchable versus unwatchable.

That's why the ARU and NZRU were happy enough to ditch a couple of domestic derbies and play Trans-Tasman games instead. They're just as good as, and in some aspects better than, the domestic clashes. And in suitable timeslots.

 

[dru]

Distances travelled might skew to the Saffers if you did time travelling rather than distance? I have travelled very little in South Africa but did find connections time consuming.

I'd like to see inter-conference games as a mini tournament. Ie All Aussie teams travel to RSA at the same time and the mini tournament runs 2, 3, or 4 weeks as appropriate. Each team "buddies" at the facility of a local team (that they are not playibg).

So each country gets two mini tournaments at home and then one each to the other countries.

Too much of a brain-fart?

 

[Omar Comin']

I think the travel is manageable in a 15 week competition. Super rugby players certainly travel much less, and spend less time away from home than tennis players do for example. The international travel is just part of their job. And the 18 team format is clearly a bridge format towards further expansion that will allow more geographically sensible conferences in future.

Keep in mind that the ARU went into the recent SANZAR negotiations with a preference for 2 closed conferences (ANZ and South Africa/Argentina) that didn't meet until the finals. But this was apparently knocked back by every other significant stakeholder - the NZRU, SARU and all the broadcasters.

I agree with Kiap's point that the biggest issue is games after midnight. But each Australian team will actually play less of these now. A max of 2 per season, but some years just 1 (when they play away in either Japan or Argentina). The fans in Argentina have it toughest - the Jaguars 4 games in New Zealand this year will be on in the middle of the night for them.

 

[liquor box]

I think the travel is manageable in a 15 week competition. Super rugby players certainly travel much less, and spend less time away from home than tennis players do for example. The international travel is just part of their job. And the 18 team format is clearly a bridge format towards further expansion that will allow more geographically sensible conferences in future.

Keep in mind that the ARU went into the recent SANZAR negotiations with a preference for 2 closed conferences (ANZ and South Africa/Argentina) that didn't meet until the finals. But this was apparently knocked back by every other significant stakeholder - the NZRU, SARU and all the broadcasters.

I agree with Kiap's point that the biggest issue is games after midnight. But each Australian team will actually play less of these now. A max of 2 per season, but some years just 1 (when they play away in either Japan or Argentina). The fans in Argentina have it toughest - the Jaguars 4 games in New Zealand this year will be on in the middle of the night for them.

I dont think Tennis players have as many bruises that require healing. I dont know too much about the healing process but think I read somewhere that flights affect the healing process.

I think it is the cabin pressure that does it.

 

[wamberal]

Tennis players also tend to stay put in one place for a while. Plus they control their own schedules, do not have to fit in with a team environment, schedules, rules, etc etc.



And the better ones travel in far better style, have personal staff, and much better living conditions when they are competing.



They can pick and choose, to some extent, which tournaments to play in.

 

[TOCC]

Travel is no doubt fatiguing, but manageable depending on squad depth.

Pumas probably have the worst schedule, also during the June Test series their entire squad will be pulling on their Pumas jerseys and playing test matches. Whilst for other Super Rugby teams, the majority of the squad will be recovering/training.


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[Omar Comin']

Tennis players also tend to stay put in one place for a while. Plus they control their own schedules, do not have to fit in with a team environment, schedules, rules, etc etc.

And the better ones travel in far better style, have personal staff, and much better living conditions when they are competing.

They can pick and choose, to some extent, which tournaments to play in.

The vast majority of them are clinging onto professionalism by playing as many tournaments as possible all over the world in order to obtain or maintain high enough rankings to enter more lucrative tournaments. They can't afford full time coaches or physical therapists etc. It's a massive grind and to me at least it seems a lot tougher than what our rugby players go through. The team environment has a lot of benefits as well. For one, there is a lot less pressure on you. Having everything organised for you and paid for is another big plus. As well as the support and camaraderie.

 

[TOCC]

Rugby is also a team sport and player fatigue can be managed within the squad, players can be rested from games or pulled off early in a match, they can sit out training and have other players fill in for them. Tennis is an individual sport, there's a lot of pressure on the one person.


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[Lindommer]

After agreeing to expand Super Rugby to 18 teams from the 2016 season I thought it might be interesting to look at who came where and what happened after previous expansions.

Below is a spreadsheet of all teams who competed from the initial season in 1996 up until last year. I've listed them in strict table order and highlighted both finalists and those who finished on the bottom of the various years' tables. There're also some figures showing percentage of finalists and cellar dwellers from the three SANZAR countries.

Some observations:

• When Australia concentrated its players in three franchises there wasn't one Oz side in the bottom two for the entirety of the Super 12.
• During Super 12 Australia provided the same number of finalists (11) as SAf although the Saffers had 10 more slots.
• After the two extra teams were added in 2006 Australia had the same number of cellar dwellers during Super 14 as the Saffers (7) but fewer finalists (7v3). It can be argued the expansion was considerably more difficult for Oz than SAf.
• Australia has found its expansion to five teams to be particularly difficult. All three competing countries now have the same number of slots but our number of finalists is only one more than SAf while we have the most cellar dwellers.

The record of all teams' performances in Super Rugby so far leads me to make the following conclusions:

• The overall excellence of the New Zealand teams must be acknowledged. Most finalists (41) compared to 26 from SAf and 23 from Australia. But, significantly, the Kiwis have had the fewest cellar dwellers (8) against SAf's 27 and Oz's 15.
• It is difficult to see how Super Rugby could be expanded in New Zealand due to its demographics. There isn't another city large enough to support an acceptable stadium and one could argue there won't be the crowds wanting to attend. To me (and other interested observers) rugby in New Zealand looks to have reached saturation point. And I also can't see how a Pacific Islander team could, somehow, be shoe-horned into NZ.
• We have a lot of work to do in Australia to bring our two newest franchises up to speed. Neither have featured in a finals series, the Force's seventh in 2014 has been as good as it gets. Although I will say the Force have the hardest road to hoe of any Super side due to their geographical isolation. Which makes SANZAR's woeful scheduling of their NZ trips in 2014 even more reprehensible.
• Our Saffer brothers have bleated loudly about their onerous burdens on the travel front; it doesn't stack up. I challenge any Saffer supporter to do the sums and prove their teams do more km than Australian and New Zealand sides.
• Putting the travel issue to one side it's difficult to see how entering another Super side from SAf can be justified. The Kings were worse than woeful in their sole appearance in 2013. The Cheetahs have fared little better with only one finals appearance (although there were two during the joint venture with the Lions) contrasted to nine cellar dweller performances as the Cheetahs or Cats during their 19 years. During those 19 years they've finished in the top half only three times. The Lions have fared only marginally better than their feline friends, they've never played in a finals series as a standalone side while languishing in the bottom half of the table for all but one year of their existence.

Someone has to come last in every competition. Fact. But they must be at least competitive. Witness the Rugby World Cups: there have been no 100 point thrashings of the minnows during the last two RWCs and we now see one of those minnows defeat a traditional power and past winner. Competitions need time to mature; I, for one, would like to see the 15 team Super Rugby continue for another ten years during which time a lot of work was done to sort out the structural problems. This aimless and confusing expansion to Japan and another Saffer side doesn't fill me with much confidence, the draw's a dog's breakfast while the pandering to the SAf government with its sixth side and Japanese away matches in Singapore smacks of a horse designed by a committee.

 

[PaarlBok]

Started this thread in 2013, maybe time to open S22 on its way.

 

[kiap]

Started this thread in 2013, maybe time to open S22 on its way.

To paraphrase George Gregan ... do it after four more years, bru.

20 teams in 2020

(sounds like a cricket tournament)

 

[TOCC]

NFL is 32 teams across 8 divisions and 2 conferences, makes Super Rugby look simple in comparison.




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[PaarlBok]

To paraphrase George Gregan ... do it after four more years, bru.

20 teams in 2020

(sounds like a cricket tournament)

They have to add one per conferense. 18+4=22