We’re about half way between the Super Rugby Super Weekend and the Six Nations Super Saturday.But one is super, the other not so much. How might SRP make their Super Weekend live up to the title?
Not-So-Super-Weekend
If we set aside the results and some of the rugby, I think it’s fair to say that the Super Weekend was anything but super. Attendances were poor, tickets were expensive – the two are probably related – and as a spectacle it fell rather flat.
Super Saturday
I don’t know for sure what’s going to happen at Super Saturday, the rugby may be terrible and as I write the fourth round of matches haven’t been played so the tension we’ll have in the games isn’t clear. If Wales beat France and Scotland beat Italy, the tension in that match is lowered, but if Wales go on to beat Italy, and France beat England, the Lily White Boys will end up in fifth place which is good (unless you’re Keith). Assuming Ireland beat England with a bonus point, they’ll have sewn up the title, but they’ll still need to beat Scotland to win the Grand Slam and Triple Crown, and be the first back-to-back slam winners in the Six Nations era. Other results lead to other degrees of tension. And regardless of that, all the matches will be sold out.
You can never, in advance, know what the quality of the rugby will be like. And a big crowd doesn’t always make for a good atmosphere, but it usually helps. If it’s a good game, a big crowd makes it better, always. If it’s a bad game, a big crowd will always respond to those moments of skill, shock or outrage and make them more meaningful, make it more fun. Rugby really doesn’t do 0-0 draws after all, and if you have matches in deep mud and driving rain, the crowd will respond to the dropped passes, the players sliding in the mud and so forth, and those moments of skill despite the conditions.
The Six Nations isn’t perfect, and it has benefits that Super Rugby Pacific doesn’t, but it might be instructive to look at the two, compare them, and see what SRP might learn to improve their version.
The Six Nations saves Super Saturday for the final round. If you’re a Kiwi and you believe the only thing that matters is winning, then this year there’s hardly any tension. But that really misses the history and passion for the sport and the Six Nations. If France beat Wales and Scotland beat Italy then that winner takes all shoot out for the wooden spoon is important to them both. Being Welsh I still remember that moment of Capuozzo magic that had Italy beat us two years ago. As a rugby tragic I can say it was magnificent rugby. As a proud Cymraes it still hurts and I want to grind his pixie face in the ground of the Principality Stadium. France v England might not matter for the title, but any clash between France and England is always important. Can Les Bleus raise their game for the final match and defeat l’ancien ennemi? Can Scotland build and stop the Irish juggernaut? Back-to-back slams are extremely difficult, but the Irish are really good. So each of these matches has something riding on it. And even though I’m supposedly completely neutral in one of those games, I have feelings about it. I have an Italian friend who clearly has the wrong opinion about Wales v Italy, but like me has feelings about the other two matches. She really only watches the men’s and women’s Six Nations plus the World Cup, but she’s engaged.
That last point is something SRP can’t really replicate, but wants to try and generate, at least for its Super Weekend. As I’m finishing this I’m watching a PWR match, and most people in the UK couldn’t tell you what those initials mean. If you told them Gloucester-Harpbury were playing Harlequins you might get a few more people with a clue. But in pubs and homes, in these days on trains and in cars, people who don’t consume any other rugby will watch and listen to the Six Nations. More people watch it, because it’s annual and has long-standing rivalries, than watch the World Cup in most years. If SRP makes the Super Weekend actually seem super, and meaningful, it might start to build those rivalries and traditions, and attract the audience. Surely that’s the point?
Making Super Weekend Matter
The SRP Super Weekend is so early it really doesn’t matter. Sure, Hoss will shout about the Tahs beating Crusaders, and so he should. But this is week two. Of fifteen. Even if the Crusaders miss out on the quarter finals (honestly, who sees that happening?) I will laugh at Hoss if he claims it’s all down to this defeat. Last year you had to lose nine games or more to miss out.
So what how could SRP make the Super Weekend actually super?
Let’s start with the simplest one. It’s not working where it is in the calendar. So let’s move it to somewhere near the end. Weekend 13, 14 or 15. I’m not sure which weekend has the most tension – you’re looking at finishing top two, top four and top eight for the easiest route in the semis, quarters and just making the quarterfinals. I think quite a lot of that is sorted out before the final weekend, so maybe week 13 is good because there’s still quite a bit of movement?
Making the crowd matter
Then we have where it geographically. I’m going to, hopefully wrongly, assume that the Rebels go under and that will mean Melbourne is not the automatic choice. But I don’t know enough about contracts, Australian cities and so on to suggest where else to go. It would make sense to me to rotate it around the cities with the Super Rugby franchises, but what do I know. It would also make sense to avoid the huge stadia. People are not turning up to see the product. But if you take it to smaller stadia, the same size crowds look more impressive. I’m not sure what the biggest crowd was at the weekend but the number I can find is just over 10,000. In a 30,000 seater stadium, that’s 1/3 full. If you stay in Melbourne, Lakeside Stadium has a capacity of 12,000, easily enough for 10,000+ and it would look really full. It says it’s a football venue; Lille where France drew with Italy a couple of weeks ago is a football stadium (much bigger than 12,000 capacity, the Stade Pierre-Mauroy has a capacity of over 50,000, and it was rocking) so you can play in football stadia. I don’t know what the prices would be, where that is in relation to the travel centres, the local obvious rugby fans and the like, but I bet you’d get a better atmosphere. Even for whatever the worst attended game was, say that’s only 3,000 people, the stadium would still look busy because it’s 1/4 full. Lakeside might not be the best bet – it was based on the idea of staying in Melbourne and five minutes on the internet. I’m not bound to the idea of staying in Melbourne, it just made the search simple.
Putting it all together
I don’t think the idea of a Super Weekend is terrible. I do think the current format is failing almost everyone terribly. Maybe just moving it towards the end of the season is enough, so the games matter more. But moving it to smaller venues until it builds up a fan base too, I think that will help too. If you know there’s a risk you can’t get the ticket you want, you create buzz about getting your tickets early – that’s always good, and getting fans in to (almost) fill the stadium and make some noise always makes it look better on tv too.
Update
Saturday’s results mean that all the matches next weekend have the potential for some meaning. The first match is a wooden spoon decider – regardless of the Wales v France result, Wales can still overhaul Italy to finish fifth with a win, possibly a bonus point win to make it clearer. If Scotland bounce back better to beat Ireland and deny them a bonus point then in the final match, England win with a bonus point (or there’s a huge victory in both games) they can win. But if Ireland get a draw or a win, it’s all over.
