Thoughts on the S15 season ( structure and teams)

[Amobokoboko]

Hi guys,

A wee bit early to start this topic but I just wanted to have your feedback on the current season.
How do/ did you (dis)like the new structure and how did your team(s) preform.
Especially as there was lots of discussion about it before the season started.

I will start first

Structure:

I really liked the fact that there were byes, an ideal moment for teams to put things straight and recover from injuries. Unfortunately it did cost some teams their momentum. I wasn't a big fan of the fact that teams from the same conference had to face each other twice. The Blues, Crusaders, Highlanders and Canes aren't a gift for the Chiefs.

Regarding the play offs, I do have my doubts about the system. The first week the number 1 and 2 team will have a bye and then they will face number 4 and 3. ( Like it happened in the past) As mentioned earlier it's a good moment for the leaders of the tables to have a little break but the other four teams might encounter some injuries. On the other hand it does keep the competition exacting until the last round as there are 3 teams for 2 play offs spots.

Teams:

Chiefs: as usual very slow starters, they lost some games early in the season that they should have won. Later they did win some though games e.g. Stormers. And they did give the bulls and Crusaders a good fight. Unfortunately the team suffered some big injuries: Donald, Mils, Tana etc...
Stand out players for me this season were Messam, Lee, Waldrom and Kahui.

With all the transfer rumors going on I do expect a bit more of them for next season. Hopefully they can win their last game.

Cheetahs: after meeting our Dutch friend Ezequiel, I decided to keep a close eye on the SA teams. The only teams I could connect with were the Cheetahs and Lions. Lions brought some good footie but lacked depth.

The Cheetahs were suffering from a massive injury plague with a first victim named Juan Smith. But for some odd reason this meant that the other player shad to stand up and they brought some brilliant rugby. The win over the Crusaders, Tahs, Brumbies, Lions and Rebels was the best they did since a long time. Other games against higher ranked teams ended very close.

Stand out player for me were: Pretorius, Ebersohn brothers, Oosthyuzen, Straus, Viljoen and Steenkamp. Last but not least I'm really curious for next season.

Off track: Why did the Canes had such a mediocre season? An almost complete AB's backline.

 

[smartcooky]

I like the structure of Super Rugby. The only drawback IMO is that they only play four of the five teams in the other conferences.

I hear complaints (particularly from some of the media) that the season is "too long" and is "dragging on". Poppycock I say.

Super Rugby has only THREE extra matches per team over what they had in Super 14, that makes 16 round robin matches. It is short by comparison with the Aviva Premiership and the Magners League (22 rounds + two weeks of playoffs), and the Top 14 (26 rounds plus 3 weeks of playoffs). In top of that, they have between 6 and 9 weeks of Heineken Cup/Amlin Challenge Cup matches as well.

There have also been complaints about injuries to players, yet the statistics show that the number and severity of injuries is about on a par with previous seasons.

What the powers that be have to get their head around is squad sizes. Super Rugby squads are too small. The NH Club sides are able to get through their long seasons because they have larger squads, and they rotate their players. For example, in the Aviva Premiership, Leicester Tigers has 48 players on their books, and 42 of them have played this season. The reality of professional rugby is that coaches simply cannot put their best 15/22 out week after week after week and expect them to remain at the top of their game. Lack of sufficient rest and recovery time over a long season will increase the chances of picking up an injury. Current Super Rugby squads are set at about 32, and IMO, they need to increase this to at least 36-40 players.

Coaches MUST take opportunities to rest players during the season. Its no good just playing the same players every week until they start to get injured then bringing in the "depth" players. Coaches next year will have to take preemptive measures and rest players before they pick up injuries. Squad management is going to be key in the future; it is something we are just beginning to learn here, and the NH are well ahead of us in this regard.

 

[Larksea]

I think this comp has been great my one major gripe has been with the way the refs are controlling the game. Early on we as we have seen in the past the refs made a big effort to speed the game up and give the advantage to the attacking team but as the season has gone on that advantage once again lies with the defending team and the ball is slower and we are seeing more attacking teams penalised. The result is a slower game and kicking is becoming more popular again. The scrums have also been a bit of a lottery.

I'll be happy if Stuart Dickenson retires as well. Next we just clone Mark Lawrence and Glen Jackson.

 

[nickdnz]

Haven't minded the format but it will be good to play all of the teams again. I also agree with smartcookie about squad sizes, and it's not a new issue for this season. It gets to the point where the top players spend half of their time injured rather than rested (although how much this season is resting and how much is injuries I'm not sure).

In terms of what went wrong in the Hurricanes season, it's a long and annoying diotribe. It's not all bad, as they are currently sitting 9th on the table out of 15 teams, with a worse possible finish as 11th in a conference that is clearly the most even. Despite that, there are many things wrong. The first being that the Hurricanes have been dominated up front for most of the season with the only three forwards whom have actually impressed me being Lam, Broadhurst and Vito. Our scrum is alright and our lineout has been good at times but we get killed at the breakdown. Lam has been good around the field making huge tackles but we clearly miss players like Scott Walrom or the injured Lowe. I think John Schwalger hasn't had a too bad season, but our front row has been generally pretty poor.

Another issue is the captaincy, which is Hammett being an idiot. After keeping Hore as captain for most of the season, he'd put him on the bench during crunch time for the Hurricanes for Dane Coles. Coles is a talented runner, but not much of a grafter and the Hurricanes tend to look lost without Hore on the field. Hammett apparently wants to make Vito captain next season which is a good move, but it looks like it'll be a sinking ship.

Injuries to Hosea Gear, Conrad Smith, Aaron Cruden, Piri Weepi and Cory Jane means that I don't think we've had our first choice backline starting all season, with Weepu, Gear, Jane and Smith all taking 3-4 weeks out at a time. Basically the backs have not got anytime to gain momentum which is pretty unlucky when playing in a franchise which relies so heavily on the backs.

The other issue is the off-field drama, obviously Hammett sacking Ma'a Nonu and Andrew Hore was not a spir of the moment decision, which indicated that there has been quite abit of trouble in the All Blacks camp for a while. Some of it seems to be the attitude of Hammett wanting to turn the Canes into Saders v2, and therefore many players do not fit into the plan (Hosea Gear may not be wanted for goodness sake) and the other part seems to be the players not wanting Hammett as coach. Either way it isn't looking good for the Hurricanes with our entire starting front row either off seas or to another franchise, no Ma'a Nonu, possibly no Cruden, Jane, Weepu, Gear and a squad which already looks low on depth.

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

Structure:
What I like:
- Extended play-offs. The fact that 6 go on makes for more of the games being significant and adds that extra interest. Adding to that is the fact that the top 2 get an extra bye making the top 2 spots even more valuable (than solely home advantage) and keeps things interesting at the top as well.

Dislike:
- Playing each of your conference opposition twice. It gets old, what with the Currie cup coming up and pre-season warm-up matches; facing the Sharks 5 and possibly 7 times (should we meet in play-offs) in one year is ridiculous. The Aussies need to sort out themselves and get a domestic championship running and stop piggy-backing the Super rugby series.
- Not playing against all opposition. Though I've heard rumors that this is only in RWC years? It was what made the S14 special IE everyone faces everyone and gets the same opportunities the only difference being the time of year and home advantage or not.
- Lack of neutral refereeing. Refs make mistakes and while I'm sure they try their best to be impartial it is unfair to put unnecessary pressure on them; I mean there are 3 countries involved so there will always be a neutral ref available for a match. They will continue to make mistakes but if they are at least considered neutral it takes some sting out of it at least.

I don't mind the conference system and think it might help for if the competition expands which I am sure it would for good or bad.

Teams:
Stormers:
Have had a good enough season but have not been what you'd call dominant especially of late. Injuries to our pivots can be blamed but there has been some bad calls RE selections in that regard. We have continued our trend of winning games but not getting bonus points. The good thing is that we have giving a lot of youngsters a go and they have stepped up for the most part. Guys like Rynhardt Elsatdt, Johann Sadie and Deon Fourie (though he needs to work on his basics still) in particular. Other good news is that Ricky Januarie is off to Lyon!! Rumors have it that Johann Sadie is being courted by the Bulls though. I hope we rather ship Habana off North and get Sadie in on the wing for a season and move him inside after that. We will need to go shopping for a back-up 9 and 15 though. Francois Louw is also off to Bath. WHo his replacement will be I don't know. Schalk could possibly fill that role again but he is more of an all-round player. There are some junior WP player that might make the stpe up; Etzebeth, Carr and Kolisi are all pretty decent. I'd be interested to see what they could do surrounded by senior WP players.
In terms of the staff, I think they did well. Though I hope Heynecke Meyer becomes Bok coach after PdV, AC has a good chance as well and if he joins the Bok set-up I'm not sure I'd be overly keen on Rassie going at it for the Stormers.. Brendan Venter for me please... a bit of a twat but I think he is a very capable coach.

Cheetahs:
Had a terrible year ITO injuries but their replacements stepped up and gelled well as the season progressed. Have a very inexperienced squad that performed well and I hope they get the opportunity to build on this season. The likelyhood is though that they will lose a number of upcoming stars to the wealthier unions and Europe, particularly the players not at Free State but at the Griquas are likely to get snapped up much like Bjorn Basson last year; Sarel pretorius, Devon Raubenheimer and Riaan Viljoen. I expect most of the others to stay on though; Juan Smith is loyal to a fault and Brussow as well. The Ebersohn brothers have both also indicated they see their future at the Cheetahs. Hopefully these guys and the good season the team had influences the other's decisions in the Cheetah's favor.

 

[smartcooky]

Dislike:
- Playing each of your conference opposition twice. It gets old, what with the Currie cup coming up and pre-season warm-up matches; facing the Sharks 5 and possibly 7 times (should we meet in play-offs) in one year is ridiculous.

With respect Stormer, that is a problem which only really affects South Africa, because your Super Rugby teams are your Currie Cup sides in almost every way other than name.

We don't see it that way. Players in our Super Rugby sides may play for a different ITM Cup side, and are even sometimes from ITM Cup sides in different franchise areas (e.g Zac Guildford and Israel Dagg are Crusaders but their ITM Cup team is Hawkes Bay in the Hurricanes catchment, Colin Slade (Highlanders, Canterbury), plus our All Blacks Super Rugby players mostly do not even play in the ITM Cup.

The Aussies need to sort out themselves and get a domestic championship running and stop piggy-backing the Super rugby series.

100% agree. They have even tried to inveigle their way into ours!!!

 

[TRF_Ezequiel]

Overall:
Very satisfied. More matches, more play off spots and the whole conference concept.


Positive:
What I like most, is the fact we have 5 teams from each country. I heard Aussies complain about the fact they had less teams bla bla bla, but this is mainly due to the lack of provincial rugby in Australia itself. With the Rebels entering I think there is more chance of the ARU starting that desired domestic league. I know it might be difficult since Rugby League and AFL are more popular, but being one of the top countries in RU, there should be enough interest to finally get things rolling again.


The whole concept of playing domestic teams twice is nice, but obviously only suited for Aussie and Kiwi teams. In South Africa our franchises are mainly provincial teams. Only the Cheetahs are made up from more than 1 provincial side (Free State Cheetahs and GWK Griquas). The Lions, Stormers (Western Force) and Bulls never use players from the smaller unions. The Sharks don't even have other Unions to use as a player resource.


In New Zealand it's a different story. The Franchises are made up from 3 or more provincial sides and although I am not fully aware of where the franchise players are drawn from, I am sure it's more than the 2 or 3 players overall that are pulled from smaller unions by the Stormers, Bulls and Lions added up.


Blues have Auckland, North Harbour and Northland
Chiefs have Bay of Plenty, Counties Manukau, Waikato, King Country, Thames Valley
Crusaders have Canterbury, Tasman, Buller, Mid Canterbury, South Canterbury, West Coast
Highlanders have Otago, North Otago and Southland
Hurricanes have Hawke's Bay, Manawatu, Taranaki, Wellington, East Coast, Horowhenua-Kapiti, Poverty Bay, Wairarapa Bush and Wanganui


Because of this, I feel that the derbies have much more value in New Zealand compared to South Africa. For South Africans the derby matches are more of the same. Like stormer2010 says, the Stormers/Western Force might play the Sharks 7 times in 1 year (if they play each other in both Super Rugby and Currie Cup play offs).


Despite that, I still think it's nice, and people should not complain about it being unfair. Of course we have the Lions who have been the weaker side these last few years, but in Australia you have the Force and Rebels. In New Zealand, the Chiefs and Highlanders usually don't perform well enough to reach the play offs. Basically there are 9 sides able to win the ***le: Sharks, Bulls, Stormers, Reds, Waratahs, Brumbies, Crusaders, Blues and Hurricanes. All fair.


Negative:
I am getting tired of people complaining about the number of matches and the amount of injuries. Yes, injuries happen. It's not chess, it's freaking rugby. Don't complain about the expanded season.


Because it is a World Cup year, the schedule was shortened but what I would have liked is to take out the double domestic fixtures to at least have teams play all other opponents. The Sharks missed out on the Reds and the Highlanders for instance. I missed playing the Reds. They are a fabulous team and always bring out the best in the Sharks team.


Next year we will have 18 matches divided over 20 rounds. If they start to complain about it being too much, I'd say: Suck it up! 18 matches is not that much. To illustrate:


Let's pick Leinster as an example since they both played in the Magners League and Heineken Cup final.


Heineken Cup = 9 matches
Magners League = 22 matches + 2 play offs


This all together is 33 matches played from September till May (9 months)


For a SH example I will pick the Bulls, winner of the last 2 Super14 seasons.


If the Bulls go all the way in both the Super 15 and the Currie Cup, they get to this number of matches:


Super Rugby = 18 + 3 possible play off matchs
Currie Cup = 14 + 2 play off matches


This adds up to 37 matches played from February till October (9 months)


So the difference is only 4 matches compared to NH teams and I never heard them complain. Yes, Southern Hemisphere rugby might be a different type of rugby with more pace, but just learn how to deal with your squad. Smartcooky said it before, the squads need to be expanded. Why not have 40 players in the squad for the season? 3 for each position + 5 extra (youngsters maybe).


Teams:
Several teams I followed this season have shown me things I enjoyed. The 2 teams I follow closest are:


Sharks:
My favorite team started off amazing with 4 wins in a row and no try conceded in the first 3 (against the Cheetahs, Blues and Force). After their match in London, they started to go downhill. Of course there were wins over the Brumbies, Waratahs, Hurricanes and Cheetahs, but losing to the Bulls and Stormers and especially the draw in Jo'burg against the Lions is what will cost us the play offs tomorrow.


One thing that bugs me is the constant use of players who are off form. Stefan Terblanche, Meyer Bosman, Willem Alberts and especially Charl McLeod have be utterly poor this season but time and time again they get the chance to show how poor they really are. We had Conrad Hoffmann on the bench as a scrumhalf and when he finally got his chance (against the Waratahs) he went of injured within the first 30 minutes. With the arrival of Frederic Michalak, we have some more depth, but still Knock-on McLeod is starting because Michalak 'is not used to the pace of Super Rugby'. Well John Plumtree, neither is Charl McLeod!


Anyway, we have a small chance of making the play offs by beating the Bulls at Loftus or seeing the Tahs lose at home to the Brumbies.


Cheetahs:
Because my sympathy for the provincial side Griquas, I follow the Cheetahs, especially the Griquas players like Sarel Pretorius, Riaan Viljoen, Barry Geel and Naas Olivier. This season however, I've been impressed by the Ebersohn twins and Corne Uys. I still don't get the whole Oosthuizen-crush some guys have, but okay. He looks like a girl, so I can see where stormer2010 is coming from haha.


The wins over the Brumbies, Crusaders, Waratahs and the narrow loss (47-50) to the Hurricanes are all matches to remember. Winning 3 games against foreign opposition is massive for the Cheetahs. If only they could get time to build their squad, they would make a chance of reaching the play offs in a couple of years. The biggest issue for the Cheetahs franchise is that they have no say in what the Griquas do. They sold Basson to the Bulls, Olivier is moving to Aironi while there are talks that Sarel Pretorius and Riaan Viljoen will also be moving away from Kimberley.

 

[William18]

The only thing I don't like is the playoffs system. It should just be the top six teams and it shouldn't matter which conference you were in as to who you play. Other than that, I have enjoyed this season which is saying a lot given my teams form.

 

[Seaton]

I read a while a gom that when reviewing this years competition, they will pay careful attention to the awarding of 4 points for a bye, and how to deal with the problem of one team, this year being the Stormers, needing to start off the season with their bye.

Satisfied all round with structure and team, I think Scotland have got a better chance of winning a World Cup than the Sharks have of winning a SupeRugby ***le

 

[Amobokoboko]

The battle is only over after it has been fought

 

[Redcatstorm]

100% agree. They have even tried to inveigle their way into ours!!!

It's just not viable, with the AFL and NRL a second grade union comp wouldn't work. If you look at it SA and NZ they have nothing else to compete with the NPC and Currie Cup, a second rate comp is not going to compete with two competitions that are already vastly superior to even super rugby.

 

[Amobokoboko]

Maybe a stupid question, but what do the Austrialian union players do before and after the Super Rugby season?

 

[Draggs]

 

[TNT88]

Maybe a stupid question, but what do the Austrialian union players do before and after the Super Rugby season?

Leaving aside Wallaby players, they have their own sheduale. I'm pretty sure most Australian players will go and play in the Sydney or QLD first grade comp from next week on. That runs until September or so (maybe October i'm not sure), after that i suppose they have a break and then get back into pre-season training.

 

[ranger]

Some aussies have come over to play ANZC to stay sharp. Christian Lealifano, Luke Rooney, Pat O'Connor played last season. I think Matt Toomua played currie cup aswell

 

[smartcooky]

The only thing I don't like is the playoffs system. It should just be the top six teams and it shouldn't matter which conference you were in as to who you play.

That was considered and dropped, as it could reward teams that play in "easy" conferences and punish those in "hard" ones. You could have three teams in two "easy conferences" each having big bonus point wins over the other two teams, and close double bonus point matches between themselves, while in the third conference, the teams are evenly matched, all having no bonus points. All the teams in the "hard" conference could miss out altogether.

If your "top six regardless of conference" suggestion had been used this year, the top six would be....

1 Reds
2 Stormers
3 Crusaders
4 Blues
5 Waratahs
6 Sharks

Does this look familiar?

I read a while a gom that when reviewing this years competition, they will pay careful attention to the awarding of 4 points for a bye, and how to deal with the problem of one team, this year being the Stormers, needing to start off the season with their bye.

IMO the four points for a bye is a good thing and I would not like to see them change it. Its the same for all teams, and it allows you to look at the table and see exactly how the teams stand at that point, instead of the situation in previous years where you had to keep in mind which teams had "games in hand"

As for the problem of teams starting and finishing with a bye, I cannot see any way around that in a competition which has an odd number of teams; someone has to not play on the first weekend. If it was Super 18 in three conferences of six, it would be easy; you could have 9 matches, all conference derbies, each weekend (no byes at all) for the first five weeks, then throw in a whole bunch of byes near the middle of the competition at around the time that teams are traveling for the cross conference matches.

 

[John101]

Ive enjoyed this layout of the competition, just think that it is a bit unfair in terms of playing your own conference twice, as teams like nz bottem dellers the cheifs had six wins but ended up bottom of the nz conference, i know ill get some remarks from some auzzies but if you put that team in the auzzie conference im sure they would have almost, if not achieved playoffs.

 

[William18]

That was considered and dropped, as it could reward teams that play in "easy" conferences and punish those in "hard" ones. You could have three teams in two "easy conferences" each having big bonus point wins over the other two teams, and close double bonus point matches between themselves, while in the third conference, the teams are evenly matched, all having no bonus points. All the teams in the "hard" conference could miss out altogether.

If your "top six regardless of conference" suggestion had been used this year, the top six would be....

1 Reds
2 Stormers
3 Crusaders
4 Blues
5 Waratahs
6 Sharks

Does this look familiar?

It would be mathematically improbable for one conference to have no teams in the top six. There would have to be a collection of absurd results for that to happen. What I don't like is the fact that the two highest ranked conference winners get byes into the next week. If the two teams with the most point are from the same conference then they should both get byes. I'm not saying it's a big issue or anything but I don't like the way it is now.

 

[smartcooky]

It would be mathematically improbable for one conference to have no teams in the top six. There would have to be a collection of absurd results for that to happen. What I don't like is the fact that the two highest ranked conference winners get byes into the next week. If the two teams with the most point are from the same conference then they should both get byes. I'm not saying it's a big issue or anything but I don't like the way it is now.

Yes I know it is mathematically improbable, but why would you put in place a system which could do that. You would still have a situation where the results are skewed. I think the current system is the fairest they could have within the constraint where teams don't play every other team the same number of times.

Ultimately the best system would be for everyone to play each other twice, but that would make it a very long season with 15 teams (28 rounds).

Seriously, the best solution of all would be to do away with the current Super Format altogether, and instead, extend the length of the ITM Cup, the Currie Cup and make the Aussies resurrect the ARC, start them all at the same time that Super-Rugby starts now, then take the top four from each competition and call that Super 12.

You could then use a pool system similar to Heineken Cup with playoffs and a final in the first week of July. This would increase the importance of both of ITM Cup and the Currie Cup, and would force the Aussies to stop piggybacking on Super Rugby as a substitute for having their own competition.

 

[Wally]

People go on about how the Australian conference is weak. However, consider that the Reds lost three games this year with two defeats being against fellow Australian sides.

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I read a while a gom that when reviewing this years competition, they will pay careful attention to the awarding of 4 points for a bye, and how to deal with the problem of one team, this year being the Stormers, needing to start off the season with their bye.

Satisfied all round with structure and team, I think Scotland have got a better chance of winning a World Cup than the Sharks have of winning a SupeRugby ***le

Well that's just not true.