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SANZAAR to cut 3 teams in 2018

I do wonder whether the courts will block the team cull, as the teams can all argue (I presume) that they have valid contracts until 2020.
 
mdaclarke said:
I do wonder whether the courts will block the team cull, as the teams can all argue (I presume) that they have valid contracts until 2020.
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The two Aussie teams take this to court and win, they could end up shooting themselves and the other three Aussie teams in the foot - we could see the end of Super Rugby in its current form. That will be no real problem for New Zealand or South Africa, as we would likely retreat back into our Provincial competitions, the Mitre10 Cup and the Currie Cup respectively, both of which would be very marketable in the absence of Super Rugby. This would be especially so if the NZRU and SARU were to get together and arrange a post season tournament such as a "Super Eight" competition involving the top four from each country, but it would leave Australia, Argentina and Japan out in the cold.
 
Super Tier 1

1 Crusaders
2 Chiefs
3 Hurricanes
4 Highlanders

5 Lions
6 Sharks
7 Stormers
8 Bulls

9 Waratahs
10 Brumbies
11 Reds
12 ? Force / Rebels or if we can go outside of Aussie Jaguares / Blues

11 games in the regular season home and away. Sure, this means a 4 week tour of Australasia for SA teams. Big deal if you ask me. It sounds better than the current format for the Stormers at least. Top 6 go on to the finals.

Promo-relegation matches to ensure the top tier is indeed the to tier. I think SA, NZ and Aus should only have 3 team assured a spot and max 5.


Tier 2

Rebels/Force/Blues/Jaguares
Rebels/Force/Blues/Jaguares
Rebels/Force/Blues/Jaguares
Cheetahs
Kings
Sunwolves

Argentina 2
Japan 2
NZ 6
3 teams between;
Singapore 1 / Fiji 1 / Tonga 1 / Samoa 1 / combined PI XV (I wouldn't know if viable?) / Uruguay 1 / Africa 1 (Kenya, Namibia, Madagascar or Zimbabwe- whichever is most viable)

Similar 11 round robin series with top 2 getting to play promo-relegation matches as a curtain raiser for the top tier finals series.

The Round Robin format does away with conferences and the need to have a symmetrical numbers of teams from each nation.
 
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I know it doesn't matter what I think, but if I had a time machine I'd have gone back and stopped the expansion at 14. I think there is an argument for saying the tournament was at it's best as Super 12 and they should go back to the original 12.
 
They could have also had tri nations games in Perth and Melbourne every yeat for a few years before the new teams started, build some excitement
 
Jabby said:
They could have also had tri nations games in Perth and Melbourne every yeat for a few years before the new teams started, build some excitement
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It is the ARU, their heads are up the bums. I mean, NRL hosts State of Origin in Melbourne FFS...and they are looking towards Perth hosting in the future.
 
Jabby said:
They could have also had tri nations games in Perth and Melbourne every yeat for a few years before the new teams started, build some excitement
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I've been to the last couple of Bledisloes they held in Melbourne. The last one had poorish attendance, but what I'd really love to see is the Springboks in Melbourne. They are always scheduled for either Perth or Brisbane.
Argentina would also be nice to have down here, but again, always Perth or an obscure game on the Gold Coast or Townsville.
 
TRF_stormer2010 said:
Super Tier 1

1 Crusaders
2 Chiefs
3 Hurricanes
4 Highlanders
[...]
12 ? Force / Rebels or if we can go outside of Aussie Jaguares / Blues

11 games in the regular season home and away. Sure, this means a 4 week tour of Australasia for SA teams. Big deal if you ask me. It sounds better than the current format for the Stormers at least. Top 6 go on to the finals.

Promo-relegation matches to ensure the top tier is indeed the to tier. I think SA, NZ and Aus should only have 3 team assured a spot and max 5.


Tier 2

Rebels/Force/Blues/Jaguares
[...]

Similar 11 round robin series with top 2 getting to play promo-relegation matches as a curtain raiser for the top tier finals series.

The Round Robin format does away with conferences and the need to have a symmetrical numbers of teams from each nation.
Click to expand...

Any 2nd tier in a format with no cross-tier matches except a promo-relegation match or two... would just be an expensive joke.

Dividing the competition into two tiers has a lot of merit, where developing teams can have a larger percentage of winnable games but still be part of Super Rugby and be challenged against the best every 3rd or 4th game, but nor if all they do is criss cross the globe to face various flavours of 2nd rate sides.

Having a top tier of Super 12, that seems good so far. 11 elite games, sure. There's still scope to add 4 or 5 cross-tier games, but for atlantic teams only 1 of them can be away vs pacific... (or max 4 away atlantic-pacific regardless of tier - the tier 2 teams can do the travelling for cross-tier atlantic-pacific games, and host closer cross-tier games instead)

The lower tier doesn't need to look the same. In fact, it should involve less travel. To be sustainable, it probably needs minimum 6 cross-tier games, and then 3 or 4 other "cross-conference" games.

Option 1 - 8 team 2nd tier. 6 cross-tier games (which is only 4 each for the Super 12) - and managed so max 3 are atlantic-pacific. With max 3 other atlantic-pacific games you play min 5 other tier 2 teams even if there are only 3 tier 2 atlantic teams. With a 3-3-2 conference system you get an even 7 tier 2 games each (the small conference plays everyone once, the other conferences skip 2 of each other and have a return leg of derbies). Grand total of 13 games in a season, not too bad.
Option 2 - 10 team 2nd tier. 6 cross-tier games (5 each for the Super 12). With the same restrictions as option 1 pacific teams are still guaranteed min 7 tier 2 opponents. If there are only 3 or 4 atlantic tier 2 teams they will need a return leg of derbies (grand total of 13 or 15 games). pacific teams can either leave it at a 13 game season, or divide into 2 conferences of 3 or 4 and have a return leg raising their season to 15 or 16 games. In theory it will work, but only if you can find 4 new financially viable teams including 2 from the atlantic. Probably not realistic.
Option 3 - 6 team 2nd tier. 8 cross-tier games (4 each for the Super 12). Apart from that you just have a tier 2 round robin. You might get 2 atlantic tier 2 teams with 4 games vs pacific tier 2, but then only 2 of their cross-tier games will be vs pacific, so it still works. Grand total 13 games a season, or 14/15/16 if you add return legs within the atlantic and pacific groups. This one really seems the best to me (without the return legs).

Regardless of the differences between those options, they all feel a bit contrived and sound like a horrible complicated conference system, and yes, teams end up being judged based on different opponents. But it's a massive improvement on the current format:
- For the Super 12, while the 4 (or 5) tier 2 teams they each play will be different, it's a difference between 1 or 2 almost at random of the Rebels/Force/Blues/Jaguares instead of Cheetahs/Kings/Sunwolves/Argentina-2. It's nowhere near the same level of disadvantage as a difference between *all 4* of the Chiefs/Crusaders/Highlanders/Hurricanes instead of the Force/Reds/Rebels/Waratahs.
- The Super 12 will all be on the same table
- For the 2nd tier (Super 18 / Super 20 / Super 22) there's more of a difference - for option 1 or 2 the difference is probably 2 or occasionally 3 of EITHER the Chiefs/Crusaders/Highlanders/Hurricanes/Lions/Sharks instead of the Brumbies/Bulls/Jaguares/Reds/Stormers/Waratahs OR a slightly better instead of worse tier 2 cross-conference game. Again, this will be largely at random - some go your way, some go against you - nothing like the current Africa 1 vs Africa 2. Also the difference between a team a level above you and a team 2 levels above you is considerably less of an advantage than the difference with playing a team a level *below* you.
- The main irritant will be in options 1 and 2 when e.g. the Jaguares get promoted and an austalasian team gets relegated, and then the 2nd tier has an odd number of atlantic vs pacific teams. Instead of tier 2 conferences of 4-4 or 5-5, it becomes 3-3-2 or 4-3-3, and the format gets slightly different for both sizes of conference. In defence of this - Only 3 teams will end up in tier 2 who otherwise have a future, odd-sized conferences will only happen approx every 2nd season, and the actual teams in each conference will be quite fluid anyway with promotion/relegation and possibly turnover of franchises ranked 19-20 / 19-22. You can't expect a 2nd tier to be stable, it's a place where teams should expect to develop significantly from one season to the next - quality of the opposition should be more important.
- Across every option and format, as long as the total number of pacific teams (Aus/NZ/Japan/Islands/western North America) is only 4 more than the number of atlantic teams (South America/Africa) (i.e. 7-11 like now, or 8-12 or 9-13), then it's possible to organize so that no team has more than 4 away games to the other side, and usually no tier 2 teams has more than 3 (not in option 3).



There's a lot of detail, and I've only done this all sort of back of the envelope, but the main point is that having 4 cross-conference games won't hurt the Super 12, and those 48 games can make a 2nd tier competition at least imaginable.
 
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How would people feel about cross-division games that didn't count for competition points?

So if the competition was divided into two tiers (for arguments sake, let's say 9 teams in each division), you play every team in your division once, with semis and a final. Scattered throughout the season you also have a number of cross-over matches which don't yield points (or, potentially, only yield points for the team in division 2). Top teams can rest some players, but may also use them to get guys up to match fitness.

Thoughts?

All completely hypothetical, of course. It would mean that you would still have enticing derby matches for the Blues, for example, but the competition isn't lopsided.
 
If we were going to go towards friendlies, we should see if any NH teams are interested.

I wouldn't have a problem with it, as long as the top division teams still make an honest attempt to win those games. That's probably more likely to be the case in the first half of the season.

Another way of doing this is having separate competitions (one per division, and then e.g. a cup between the 5 NZ teams). A handful of matches count towards both, and then some only count towards the NZ cup and others only towards the division. It's essentially the same thing as friendlies, but a bit harder for teams to justify completely giving up on those games.
 
I'm old school with this stuff

If we go to friendlies teams won't field full strength squads and people will loose interest in the meaningless games

We want more games that actually mean something to raise interest not less

And as for inter conference games...get better and win promotion if you want to play against the better teams

Iv said before in previous years when the landers haven't done well...you could see after loosing five or six the players just seamed to write off the other games...little commitment.

Some people were probably thinking we're still Playing all the big teams so it's all good

Stuff that, we'll see some commitment when they have promotion or relegation to play for

Inter conference games are just more PC "here's a participation medal" rubbish...your in the second div and not good enough to play in the top but rather than improving we'll just give you the the same big games the top teams get

It just over compliments things and waters down all the meaning
 
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I find it odd that since apparently the conference system based on geography is confusing that people are pushing for a conference system based off of past performance.
 
It's not the geography part that is confusing, for me anyway, it's the you play these guys but not these guys etc, it's the top of the Aussie conference getting a guaranteed finals spot with similar or even less points than the bottom nz one or teams making the play offs without having to face some of the top teams due to a lucky draw
 
Jabby said:
It's not the geography part that is confusing, for me anyway, it's the you play these guys but not these guys etc, it's the top of the Aussie conference getting a guaranteed finals spot with similar or even less points than the bottom nz one or teams making the play offs without having to face some of the top teams due to a lucky draw
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It's still some teams playing others and not others. If you do away with inter tier games that makes sense. All this will do is formaliza which teams don't have a chance to win the ***le (we already know which teams are good enough before anyway) and limiting the amount of games with local travel.

What would be the point of the regular season if Australian teams weren't rewarded for winning their division?
 
I'd sooner see a proper conference system rather than the half arsed one we have now.

1. Keep all 18 teams.
South Africa Conference - 6 teams
New Zealand Conference - 5 NZ teams plus the Jaguares
Australia Coinference - 5 teams plus the Sunwolves

2. Regular season format - 11 Weeks - 90 matches
The teams play round robin home and away within their own Conference only. That is 10 rounds plus a bye week; two teams at a time in the middle of the Round Robin) No bonus points.

3. Post season format - 7 weeks - 28 matches
The top three teams from each conference go to the Super Round. They carry over their table points and match points differences from the matches they played against the other two qualifiers from their own Conference. The Super Round is a round robin but the teams only play the opponents from the other two conferences. That is 6 rounds, one team has a bye each week

4. Playoffs - two weeks - three matches
Top 4 regardless of country, seeding by table points - 1 v 4 and 2 v 3

Total 19 weeks and 121 matches. (14 less than the current system but with more local derbies)

While every team still doesn't play every other team, at least the reason for this would be meaningful... you have to earn the right to play the overseas teams by qualifying for the Super Round
 
Come on guys. We all know that a 2 tiers systems won't work due to the financials problems to keep the second tier going.
Actually the financial problems to keep the best players in the only one current tier is what triggered all this expansion.

Also, I "proper" conference systems (as Smartcooky descrived) isn't the solution. Because, what NZ's and SA's teams are looking for in this competition is to play each other's teams, not their own teams. They already have their own tournaments for that.

Maybe an option is to split the teams in two groups, with teams of each country in both. Defining each year which team is in each group in order to keep them as balanced as possible.
Using the current teams as an example:
Group 1: Lions, Jaguares, Bulls, Kings, Chiefs, Hurricanes, Brumbies, Reds, Rebels.
Group 2: Stormers, Sharks, Cheetahs, Sunwolves, Crusaders, Highlanders, Blues, Waratahs, Force.

Each team play all the others within his group once. An then the best 3/4 of each group go to the finals (that can be knock-out or a new group).
If the amount of matches for each team is not enough (particularly for those who don't get to the finnals), additional matches within the same country can be added, at the end or the start of the season, to define the groups distribution for the next time.

From here, any additional expansion should be handle in pair of teams.
 
Brigantine said:
Another table.

I took all the results from the 2016 regular season and 2017 season so far, the ELO methodology World Rugby uses, and ran Super Rugby ELO rankings.

All teams start on 30 points at the beginning of 2016, there is a handicap for home advantage but it doesn't apply when the Chiefs or Sunwolves host games in Fiji or Singapore (or when the Blues host a game in Samoa).
Bonus points have no effect, but as per WRR there is a 1.5x weighting when the winning margin is 15+.
I also ran a version including the 2016 finals with double weighting (like how WRR have double weighting at RWCs), but this version ignores the 2016 finals completely.

<img src="http://www.therugbyforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5055&d=1493614984" alt="SR ELO Rankings 2017 week 10 v2" height="400" width="247">
Click to expand...
smartcooky said:
Kevin Lassen's Super Rugby ranking system at "Pick&Go" yields remarkably similar results... the same top 8 in a different order.


Click to expand...

Well that's that then. The teams that should be dropped are the Kings, Cheetahs, and Reds.

- - - Updated - - -

smartcooky said:
I'd sooner see a proper conference system rather than the half arsed one we have now.

1. Keep all 18 teams.
South Africa Conference - 6 teams
New Zealand Conference - 5 NZ teams plus the Jaguares
Australia Coinference - 5 teams plus the Sunwolves

2. Regular season format - 11 Weeks - 90 matches
The teams play round robin home and away within their own Conference only. That is 10 rounds plus a bye week; two teams at a time in the middle of the Round Robin) No bonus points.

3. Post season format - 7 weeks - 28 matches
The top three teams from each conference go to the Super Round. They carry over their table points and match points differences from the matches they played against the other two qualifiers from their own Conference. The Super Round is a round robin but the teams only play the opponents from the other two conferences. That is 6 rounds, one team has a bye each week

4. Playoffs - two weeks - three matches
Top 4 regardless of country, seeding by table points - 1 v 4 and 2 v 3

Total 19 weeks and 121 matches. (14 less than the current system but with more local derbies)

While every team still doesn't play every other team, at least the reason for this would be meaningful... you have to earn the right to play the overseas teams by qualifying for the Super Round
Click to expand...

Sounds good. There's even the option of running a 2nd tier post season in the same format, where the Highlanders wipe the floor with the rest and run up a 300+ point PD.

Or otherwise you change from conferences to pools, with a South African pool, and then Australasia 1 (with the Force, Sunwolves, and 2 from each side of the Tasman) and Australasia 2 (with the Jaguares, 3 from NZ, and 2 from Eastern Aus)
 
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Has probably already been said...

Round robin. Makes every game an event. Take some of the brutal wear and tear out of the season by removing the home and away derbies. Each season you alternate home and away vs. a given opponent. Top three teams get a bye in the first round of playoffs, bottom 6 eliminated.

If a format takes longer than that to explain, it's convoluted.
 
Radsy said:
Has probably already been said...

Round robin. Makes every game an event. Take some of the brutal wear and tear out of the season by removing the home and away derbies. Each season you alternate home and away vs. a given opponent. Top three teams get a bye in the first round of playoffs, bottom 6 eliminated.

If a format takes longer than that to explain, it's convoluted.
Click to expand...

Agreed.
But only the top two teams get a bye in the first round of the playoffs.
Keep it simple keep it vibrant.

- - - Updated - - -

Can someone please post a discussion thread for round 11
 
Radsy said:
Has probably already been said...

Round robin. Makes every game an event. Take some of the brutal wear and tear out of the season by removing the home and away derbies. Each season you alternate home and away vs. a given opponent. Top three teams get a bye in the first round of playoffs, bottom 6 eliminated.

If a format takes longer than that to explain, it's convoluted.
Click to expand...

This can't work with 18 teams because 17 rounds plus two bye rounds for each team is 19 weeks, plus a three week playoff makes the competition 22 weeks long. The final cannot be beyond the end of June in the new WR season, which means Super Rugby would have have to start in the third week of January, bringing the start of pre-season back to about Boxing Day, only two weeks after the end of the EOYT.

SARU, the NZRU and I am guessing the ARU and UAR would never buy into a schedule like this, and the RPA would not allow it anyway so its moot!
 

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