The great Super 15 swindle

As we approach the business end of the inaugural Super 15, there will be much stocktaking on both sides of the Indian Ocean. The tournament itself can be won by the four teams that make up the semi-finals but regardless of where the trophy ends up, the Australians will be the ones most pleased by this first year.

When the discussions were being held as to what to do with the Super 14 before it became the Super 15, it was the head of the Australian Rugby Union (ARU), John O’Neill, who aggressively lobbied for the extra team to be given to Australia. It was also O’Neill and ARU which were keen for the current conference-based system. Australia now has its own domestic competition (with the lame title of “minor premiership”) when it didn’t have one before. South Africa and New Zealand have always had their own domestic competitions, and inadvertently through the Trojan horse that is the Super 15, Australia’s Tri-Nations partners have unwittingly played straight into ARU’s hands. Have they created a monster?

SA Rugby and the New Zealand Rugby Union might argue that it is in their interest for Australia to have a consistent stream of high-quality rugby (with high quality being loosely used) to appeal to the local market. But judging by the results on the field this year, all they have done is made it harder for teams not from Australia to make the “finals series” (more on that later) while their Australian counterparts certainly have an easier time of it in their own conference. The Melbourne Rebels, while they did win three games this year, predictably finished last on the overall log. It is indicative of the paucity of rugby talent available in Australia that of their five teams, three of them finished in the bottom four. What Super 15 has effectively done is thinned the player base in Down Under again — a base that was already stretched when the Force joined Super Rugby — creating a conference that doesn’t measure up in terms of skill in comparison to South Africa and New Zealand.

Many scribes in the media world will slowly be emerging from their slumber to say “I told you so” to the rugby bosses in New Zealand and South Africa, with the viewership figures backing up their argument. While figures in Australia have risen 28% in comparison to last year (not surprising considering that the Australian public now has more local matches to watch), figures in New Zealand are flat. Sanzar would point out that in South Africa from week 11 onwards viewership figures surpassed two million every weekend. But considering that South Africa boasts the largest TV market in Sanzar, by some margin, and that fixtures like the Stormers-Bulls and Bulls-Sharks respectively are guaranteed high viewership figures with those three franchises being the best supported in the country, the more you look at it the more it seems that Australia, led by O’Neill, has deftly managed to swindle its Sanzar partners before their very eyes.

Even the rugby itself has suffered under the burden of a longer competition, with injury rates this season being appalling. I wrote a post early on in the competition that injuries were going to prove a massive problem for the respective franchises. As the competition has progressed the body count has continued to tick along. If that weren’t enough, next year the competition is going to stretch even further with a “Test-window” (read money-spinner) sandwiched in the middle of the competition. Sanzar might point at viewership figures but it’s at the stadiums where the tedium of week-in, week-out rugby is dulling the interest of home fans.

Sure, some stadiums like Newlands, Loftus and, of late, Suncorp will boast high crowds (lifting the average across the board), but if you looked at Eden Park and the small ground in Nelson over the weekend, neither were full, and if you add Coca Cola Park (the definition of a graveyard for the last few seasons), the Sydney Football Stadium, Canberra Stadium and Westpac Stadium to the list, fans are voting with their feet in regards to what they think about the new tournament format.

The extended “finals series” also proved to be an anti-climax, with both the Waratahs and the Sharks suffering the effects of travel and injury when losing to the Blues and Crusaders respectively. The Sharks especially looked like they were sleep walking in the second half in Nelson, which isn’t surprising considering they only arrived the day before and had to endure a travel hell because of the ash cloud from Chile, which played havoc with air travel to and from New Zealand. Even the winning teams only really picked up the quality of play in the second half, as all four sides made numerous handling errors that were rare earlier in the competition.

So, it is with almost a sigh of relief that we have reached the semi-final stage where the Crusaders have the toughest task of all. They have to travel to Cape Town and if they win, will have to fly to either Brisbane (most likely) or New Zealand to face the Blues. With both sides also wearing the effects of their wins over the weekend, we could be in for two very undercooked semi-finals. Hopefully that won’t happen, especially since the Crusaders deserve a medal for how they have played this year while not having a homeground, but if the Stormers and Reds run away with it, no one who follows rugby union in Southern Hemisphere will be surprised.

Sanzar claimed that the new format would bring added excitement for fans and a more intriguing contest. Instead, what we have is a bloated tournament with one team to many and four weeks too long. The rugby in the first half of the season wasn’t bad, as I said in posts around that time, but since then it has been more difficult to get excited about more of the same, especially the “derbies”.

With South Africans being very familiar with the fire and brimstone of provincial passion as seen in the Currie Cup, the South African conference is almost like a bastard sibling that has all the elements of the original but without any of the passion of provincial blood-letting. Instead, all it flies is the flag of professionalism. Do the Stormers really see themselves as South African champions or was it rather a case of finishing on top of the conference? Something tells me they would prefer a Currie Cup title in Cape Town instead of the boring trophy Schalk Burger received at the conclusion of the round-robin phase.

Alas, we are stuck with this format for the next four years, and with reported expansions planned down the line and the Southern Kings entry into the tournament being a political hot potato here in South African rugby circles, we are just going to have to sit through it. The question now is whether or not we can watch it all without falling asleep on the couch. Sometimes I wish we were back in the days of the Super 12, where the players didn’t have to worry so much about burn out and when every match was filled with high-class opposition. Look how far we have come. Or is it how far we have fallen behind?