Super Rugby will always lack the drama of the Top14 because you don't have two teams dropping out every year, and the interest in who is being relegated can be more intriguing than the fight to win the comp.
If your Super team is near the bottom in the second half of the season there's not nearly as much interest as for a Top14 fan if their team is in that position - every game is like life or death.
It's the same in the EP but you don't have famous English clubs, like Biarritz and Perpignan in France, being relegated, so often.
I'm of two minds about that. It certainly adds ready-made drama, but when relegation really starts to matter, it's winter and the pitches are heavy, and those "win or be relegated" games can become slogs.
You don't want to see a team like Harlequins decide since it could mean they drop a division they'll just shut down their off-loading game, because without that, they don't offer much (at least this season). The threat of relegation creates inherent drama, but also hamstrings the teams at the bottom of the table, and makes mid-level teams question their tactics against bottom-dwellers, lest they lose to a relegationable side.
I think I'd prefer something like relegation happening every two or three years, or making sure there are play-off games with the D2 teams that are trying to rise up. Anything to keep them from shutting the rugby down.
On balance I think I prefer relegation, but I'd prefer it to be tweak to promote better play.
The standard of the Pro12 is not as high as the EP or T14 but I enjoy watching Munster, Leinster and Ulster play especially against each other.
But when Ireland, Wales and Scotland put their players into camp for test matches the standard of play in the Pro12, is ordinary; so I usually give it a miss in those weeks.
Partly that's to do league depth, and partly that's to do with team depth. The Italian sides are still finding their feet, and it may take another five years before they're regularly mid-table competitors. The Welsh have their own internal political house they keep burning down, so it's no wonder their best players keep flying off to the T14 and the EP and leaving the regions thin. And Scotland hobbled itself years ago when it got rid of the borderlands and decided to focus all of the rugby in places where soccer reigns supreme and most people never even see a rugby game. Watching Edinburgh play in a cavernous Murrayfield is just... sad.
By the time the internationals come around, there isn't enough depth in those clubs to really field a solid team -- and the Welsh sides are also playing in the LV Cup. It may just take some seasoning and maturity for that to come around; Glasgow's certainly making a good go of it. But if the Irish sides keep performing well, we might see the English and French decide the ERC is unfair and the PRO12 needs to be tweaked to allow more Scottish and Italian sides in and fewer sides from across the Irish Sea.
And there is nothing like the ERC (old Heineken Cup) in this neck of the woods. High drama every week for six weeks in the pool games - every one a must win.
Yep. I'd say level of competition in the
I Can't Believe It's Not the Heineken Cup ERC is somewhere between Super Rugby and Test-level. Teams really seem to step it up come European competition, and it's exciting as hell. Very few games are treated as gimme games, even when they could be. That said, I'd say the leagues in Europe are a step below Super Rugby, except maybe the clashes at the top of the tables for play-off positions. Outside of Leinster, Munster and Glasgow, you rarely see consistently scything running rugby in games that matter and don't. The T14 and EP tend to promote power over skill, and they can afford to do that with more money than everyone and rosters 40 deep littered with South Africans.
