Paul Lewis: Super decade, surgery needed

There are few signs of it happening but it's time Sanzar took the Super 12 completely to bits and put it back together again. While this year's competition is admittedly getting to a more exciting stage, the 10th anniversary of the Super 12 now seems an ideal time to strap the whole thing on an operating table and surgically remove the offensive bits.

Why? Because it's become a bit boring and predictable. The surgical make-over it's currently getting (the Super 14 and the likelihood of Monday night ruby) will be a rarity: cosmetic surgery which results in the finished product being worse than the original but viewed by more people. The Super 14 is like breast implants where someone's forgotten to put the silicone in. Additions of little substance, you might say.

The Super 12 will head for hospital but only for the painful birth of the Super 14 - a move inspired not by the success of the competition but by Australian and South African TV audiences. We will endure the infancy of the Western Force and the Central Cheetahs - if the latter, in fact, happens as the fifth franchise has been thrown into doubt by racial and rugby politics.

The great God TV will induce these births and will film them as they are bullied in the playground by the likes of the Crusaders. They might grow up to be strapping Super 14 champions but that seems about as likely as Stacey Jones answering questions at a press conference.

The Super 12 used to thrill but now stirs milder interest. Look back over this year's competition. The games which truly excited can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Compare it to the 2005 NRL where any of the teams on show can, and do, beat any of the others.

The largest boil which needs to be lanced is the South African teams. Their franchises have never won Super 12 and won't win this year. No wins in 10 years and they're getting another team? From next year, at least five of the teams in the Super 14 will have no chance of winning it. Show me a similar competition - with the possible exception of English football's Premier League - where over a third of the contestants have no show of winning.

Watch the top sides against the South African teams. They struggle to take them seriously. Their performances notch down a level or three. Crusaders vs Cats and Blues vs Cats - and the Stormers - are classic examples.

South Africa, for so long the bete noire of All Black teams, have become Super 12 soft touches. What's that about? Is the Super 12 helping the Boks win the Tri-Nations and the All Blacks the World Cup? No.

Why not? Now they've got the money in the bank, Sanzar needs to be addressing this question. But the impression you get is that the NZRU and the SARU are well pleased with things as they are.

There are a few lines in the NZRU's glossy new annual report on the US$323 million broadcasting deal with News Limited and South Africa's Super Sport over the next five years. The NZRU achieved record revenue of $104.9m last year (a 12 per cent increase on the previous year) and a record profit of $20.5m (up 84.7 per cent on the previous year), based largely around the old broadcasting agreement and sponsorship from adidas.

Now you know why the radical will not happen. We're locked into the Sanzar/Super 14/News Ltd/Super Sport merry-go-round for five more years. The money's good but there are few signs of anyone sorting out a competition which has grown a few holes in its singlet. A shot in the arm? It needs a shotgun up the ... but let's not go there.

John Mitchell's Force may turn out to be another Brumbies but right now their main value is entertainment as we Kiwis watch the Aussie franchises biting each other in the back as Mitchell nicks yet another player.

If the Force are a sitcom (Gilligan's Island meets Kath & Kim), the Central Cheetahs are a bit of a horror show - South African rugby chewing off its own leg.

It may settle down and in five years the competition will be thriving. I hope so. I'd be delighted to be proved wrong.


- HERALD ON SUNDAY