Argentina to join Super Rugby

[nickdnz]

Sanzar has confirmed that a team from Argentina will be included in an expanded Super Rugby tournament from 2016.

A scheduled meeting of Sanzar's executive committee took place in Sydney on Thursday where the future of Super Rugby was on the agenda.
'Today's meeting was another important step in deciding the future of Super Rugby,' said CEO Greg Peters. 'Encouraging progress was made and we now have a preferred model that involves six teams from South Africa and a new team from Argentina.
'The model will now be taken to the national unions for approval before Sanzar presents its final position to broadcasters and fans in due course.'
Argentina's franchise could be similar to the Pampas XV, who used to play in the Vodacom Cup and won the 2011 tournament. The Argentina Rugby Union will also be hoping that some of their overseas-based players will return home to play Super Rugby.

http://www.sarugbymag.co.za/blog/details/argentina-to-join-super-rugby-party

 

[TRF_heineken]

Preferred Model that involves 6 teams from SA and a new team from Argentina...

So it's going to be the Super 17???

 

[snoopy snoopy dog dog]

At a time when European rugby is ****ting on the little guy by reducing the size of the Heineken Cup, Sanzar should be commended for growing the sport by including Argentina at their top level of club/provincial rugby.

 

[Icemn]

mmmm... so they will be fielding the entire Argentinian national team???

 

[Jaguares]

Good news for the Argentine rugby and a great responsibility. To keep growing!

Preferred Model that involves 6 teams from SA and a new team from Argentina...

So it's going to be the Super 17???

I prefer to call just "Super Rugby", the tournament has been renamed so many times (Super 12, Super 14...) that it's best to call it by that name.

mmmm... so they will be fielding the entire Argentinian national team???

What's the problem with that?

 

[SuperEagle]

A lot of the Argentinian players are based in Europe. It will be interesting to see if the lure of Super Rugby is enough to tempt some of their stars back home

 

[Kiwiwomble]

disappointed to be honest, would rather have seen two Argie teams or a Japanese / PI / north american team

This will mean one conference being bigger than the others? 7 - 5 - 5? if Nz gets the Argie team so has to travel more as well as the already lopsided pool...i'm looking at you Aussie...then i will not be happy

 

[smartcooky]

At a time when European rugby is ****ting on the little guy by reducing the size of the Heineken Cup, Sanzar should be commended for growing the sport by including Argentina at their top level of club/provincial rugby.

disappointed to be honest, would rather have seen two Argie teams or a Japanese / PI / north american team

This will mean one conference being bigger than the others? 7 - 5 - 5? if Nz gets the Argie team so has to travel more as well as the already lopsided pool...i'm looking at you Aussie...then i will not be happy

Jabby, its impossible to have different sized conferences. More teams means more log points for teams in the bigger conferences because they play more games. This would give them a big advantage in the overall playoff seedings. There has to be another extra team to make 18 (3 x 6) to make it work.

IMO, the conference system will be dropped. Seventeen teams would mean that a full round robin is 16 rounds, with a three round "MacIntyre" top six playoff system giving a 19 round competition, the same length as the current competition.

 

[donmcdazzle]

Waste of time. Super rugby is such a crap competition now. They never should have expanded past 12 teams.

 

[Kiwiwomble]

agreed, it it changing from a premier rugby spectical into a club comp...but without the history or connection to grass roots rugby

 

[Aspry]

Finally some good news. Too bad we'll join in 2016, that's two more years of giving up summer tests.

 

[flank for days]

In my opinion the expansion of super rugby will be detrimental to the competition, there is already too many teams in super rugby and adding more would take away from the excitement of the competition.

Firstly having another SA team join is ridiculous, the depth is just not there, in 13 of the 18 super rugby competitions a SA team has taken out the wooden spoon. Really they only justify having 4 but with the recent win of the lions over the cheetahs hopefully i am proven wrong and the lions can preform respectably this year.

On the Argentinian team joining, while i would like to see them develop i do not believe that super rugby is the right place for them. Argentina is geographically away from all the current countries, and although SA is like a 12 hour flight from NZ the teams that go play more than one game there. also would the Argentinian team be competitive if they could not get there players that are currently playing in europe, or would they take their place at the bottom of the ladder.

 

[j'nuh]

At a time when European rugby is ****ting on the little guy by reducing the size of the Heineken Cup, Sanzar should be commended for growing the sport by including Argentina at their top level of club/provincial rugby.

1. The Heineken Cup is a meritocratic, elite, tournament. Accusing it of letting down the weaker sides is like accusing the Six Nations of letting down Georgia and Russia by not letting them participate. What's the point of having a two-tier Europe and then not adequately separating those teams by skill?

2. Having a big first-tier and the remaining teams in the second-tier, has left a shell of a tournament for the second-tier. There are 38 professional teams and only 14 of these form the second-tier. That's two, sometimes three, professional teams per group. There isn't interest in the tournament generally, because we aren't providing the competition for these teams. More effort needs to be put into making it an attractive tournament to win, and it starts with meaningful opposition.

3. The real disgrace of European rugby is that the Italian teams reportedly have to pay £2.5m a season for participation in the Pro12. Argue as much as you like about what Europe is doing to "the little man", but I think you need to look closer at home first.

 

[nickdnz]

I'm glad there is an Argentinian team involved. I think Argentina - providing they sign their best players - should easily be competitive in Super Rugby. More so than the Force, Rebels, Kings and Lions have tended to be at least.

The only trouble now is traveling logistics. I like a round robin as suggested by smartcookie. Down with conferences! That's the way I enjoyed it more - before the Rebels got involved.

Ultimately I'd be happier with the each country having a domestic league as the primary tournament and then a cross-conference system like the H-Cup as it allows for expansion while controlling quality - but a round robin is next best thing.

 

[FCBayernDM]

Getting rid of conferences and going back to the classic Super Rugby format is the best idea, with 17 teams you can play the season over 20 weeks so each time gets the odd by week for breaks plus an additional 4-5 weeks for the finals. That's 25 weeks max, there's still 27 weeks left for internationals and domestic competitions and of course breaks.

 

[steblin]

Love getting a team for Argentina, hopefully can really help grow the sport there and bring some of the players back home.

6th SA team? Why? Is the demand / depth of players really there? Probably not, you're either going to end up with the SA talent now spread over 6 teams instead of 5, thus weakening all the teams, or another weak squad.

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

From a northem gem view I'm glad the argues are in but really wanted a PI team. All that talent and style would be a pleasure to watch.

I dread to think of the dross the 6th SA team will produce!

 

[steblin]

I was really hoping they would go the way of leaving the original 3 nations with 5 teams, then start adding teams like Argentina, Japan, Pacific Islands etc. Encourage growth and variety, the travel could be managed.

 

[TRF_heineken]

Love getting a team for Argentina, hopefully can really help grow the sport there and bring some of the players back home.

6th SA team? Why? Is the demand / depth of players really there? Probably not, you're either going to end up with the SA talent now spread over 6 teams instead of 5, thus weakening all the teams, or another weak squad.

From a northem gem view I'm glad the argues are in but really wanted a PI team. All that talent and style would be a pleasure to watch.

I dread to think of the dross the 6th SA team will produce!

Have you guys not been following the Super Rugby the last 2 years???

SA already has a 6th team!! The Kings, who played last year in the place of the Lions.

There certainly are room for a 6th team in SA. We have the depth. And in recent years, we have had a growth of local tournaments to get more players to the top level. The Community Cup, the Varsity Cup and the Vodacom Cup. There is an expansion of players, and this has been the case and reason why the Currie Cup has been expanded to 8 teams instead of 6 for the premiership division.

While everyone wrote off the Kings (myself included), they had a great first season. Even winning while on tour, which in recent years have been a rarity for SA teams.

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

There are 58 SA players in the Top 14 alone, nevermind the Aviva and Rabodirect. That is almost double the next most which is NZ at 32 players in the Top 14. If we could get 1/8th of those players back we'd be golden. The only team who truely are in need of extra depth in quality ATM are the Lions (who beat the Cheetahs on the weekend) and Kings. Just a quick look at a 23 that we could make from ex-pats;

1 Guthro Steenkamp / Heinke van der Merwe
2 Schalk Brits / Chiliboy Ralepele
3 Brian Mujati / WP Nel
4 Bakkies Botha
5 Gerhard Mostert / Juandre Kruger
6 Francois Louw
7 Juan Smith / take your pick of a million loosies lost to us
8 CJ Stander
9 FdP / Rory Kockott
10 Morne Steyn / Ruan Pienaar
11 Bryan Habana
12 Rob Ebersohn
13 Jaque Fourie
14 JP Petersen
15 Louis Ludik / Joe Pietersen

Part of the reason why Europe can afford to poach our players is the sheer number of games played- there of which the number of teams involved is an aspect- and thus more TV minutes to sell (of course things like a larger market and stronger currencies also come into play..). With more spots on offer maybe we can hold onto more of our own talent.

And I don't want to hear about s spread of talent dulling down SA teams; last year we had 4 teams in the top 8.