TWO SOUTH AFRICAN teams and one from Australia will be axed from the revamped 2018 Super Rugby competition, governing body SANZAAR said on Sunday.
The current 18-team competition will be streamlined to a three conference, 15-team format with five teams from New Zealand, four from Australia, four from South Africa, and one each from Japan and Argentina, SANZAAR said.
SANZAAR has left it to the national rugby unions involved to announce the teams to be cut, although Australia’s Western Force and South Africa’s Southern Kings and Central Cheetahs are widely regarded as the most vulnerable franchises.
The drastic restructure comes amid financial losses and widespread fan discontent over the confusing and unbalanced competition.
With games played in cities straddling 15 time zones, travel schedules can be intense, while the quality of play has been criticised and the tournament is deemed hard for fans to follow.
Argentina’s Jaguares and the Sunwolves of Japan, admitted last year along with the Kings, will stay in the revamped 15-team Super Rugby tournament.
SANZAAR said that the Sunwolves will play in the Australian conference in 2018.
This restructuring by SANZAAR represents a crucial step in its strategic planning process that has included a comprehensive assessment of the economic and sporting environment under which its tournaments (Super Rugby and The Rugby Championship) are currently operating,” SANZAAR said in a statement.
“This assessment highlighted a need to adjust and strengthen Super Rugby in the short-term to ensure a robust and sustainable tournament meets the requirements of all stakeholders in terms of high performance pathways, game development, commercial revenue and fan engagement.”
SANZAAR CEO Andy Marinos added: “This has been a long and complex piece of work and we make no apology for that.
Super Rugby is unique in world rugby in that it is played in six countries across 15 time zones and has numerous stakeholders.”
The Australian Rugby Union said it will address the Super Rugby competition restructure at a media conference in Sydney on Monday.
Jurie Roux, CEO of SA Rugby said: “Fans, media and broadcasters have spoken and we have listened to them.
The 18-team Super Rugby competition has not worked and we had to face up to that hard fact.
“From a South African rugby high performance perspective we’ve had to acknowledge that the dilution of talent and resources across six franchises — at a time when rand weakness has led to more departures to Europe and Japan — has seriously affected our ability to compete across the board.”
New Zealand Rugby CEO Steve Tew welcomed SANZAAR’s restructure as “an important response to the current environment”.
“From a New Zealand perspective, the strength of all teams is essential to ensure that New Zealand clubs can be successful on and off the field, while providing a fantastic platform for the best players in the world to be on display,” he said.
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Battled nobly but missed a crucial kick to tie the game which cost dearly, but good to watch in comparison to Leinster.
@Martin McKenna: I don’t how long more it will take to realise that we have big problems at ten countless times these kicks have cost us games. Hopefully Deegan can step up because if they want to be challenging the big teams on a consistant basis you need a reliable goal kicker and someone who can control the game a lot better.
Better by Connacht, although we did overplay at times, there was a general purpose and incision to it. McKeown at 8 and TOH on wing were massive. Bundee had a poor game by his standards. We just cannot close out game at moment but a marked improvement on last week.
Best performance of the season so far and should have secured a draw after scoring the 4th try. The back row were fantastic and Butler looks like a class signing. Farrell was very good again as was TOH and caused the Scarlets a lot of problems in defence. Hopefully we can build on this performance now because we’ve been very poor so far and have a good crack at Ulster next week.
I’m lovin the way Keane has Connacht playin. Can’t wait to see them play Leinster of the park later in the season
Connacht look like a well coached side with a discernible game plan. Tom Farrell’s game has come on a ton since he left Leinster which raises a few questions as to why this is so.
@Tom Reilly: Are you talking about the same Connacht that have lost four out of the last five games? Okaaaayyyyy.
Kelleher, Farrel and McKeon ran a combined 290m and beat 16 defenders between them! Outrageous stats
Beirne made the big difference in the end. He was responsible for a couple of big turnovers and a try out of nothing. Kinda crazy how he slipped through the cracks at Leinster given that they’ve been short on quality second rows for a few years. A lot of the Welsh fans are saying they wish he could play for Wales, hopefully he has a big future back here.
As for the game, it was one of those strange loses were I came out feeling pretty positive, maybe because I had written Connacht off against the champions after the bad start to the season. A few guys stood up, McKeon had a huge game, O’Halloran was his usual excellent self, but for me Tom Farrell has been a revelation. I thought he looked pormising when he joined last season, but I think we might have a real gem there. He always seems to have an offloading option, but he’s clever about when he does it, he’s got decent footwork before contact and he’s strong.
The most disappointing things were the place kicking and losing the LBP. Carty has a lot of good qualities, but we need someone who can kick to tie up a game with a few mins left. Really disappointing to go from a possible 3 match point draw to just a try bonus point.
Great game. Connacht getting there.
Sloppy just before halftime to concede the try was a turning point.
Looks like the highly rated defence coach we got from from Edinburgh has alot to answer for??? Too many soft trys and missed tackles
What a difference a week makes. Mckeon was chronic last week and this week he was fantastic. However caolin blade is just pants. He cant even tackle.
@Brian Jones: McKeon didn’t play last week?
@Elton Heffernan: He came off the bench and gave away two braindead penalties.
Keane is still getting to know our best squad, the second half of the cardiff match and this performance show some offense improvement but our defense is poor, the new defense coach needs to get to grips ,expecting a big performance v munster,