Rejigged Super Rugby format ignores warning signs

SANZAR Media Event. Photo / Getty Images

Expanded competition seems likely to only exacerbate problems

On the eve of Super Rugby's launch as an 18-team, four conference format, the competition's name might be only 50 per cent accurate.

There are going to be 18 teams. There won't be an obvious sense of the super, though, and Sanzar's greedy eyes may turn out to be an awful lot bigger than its stomach.

Giving South Africa a sixth team and expanding into Japan and Argentina sounded dangerously ambitious when it was announced last year and with just three months until the first game of the 2016 season, the possibility of disaster has only heightened.

Sanzar, of course, refutes that. But the administrator seemingly determines the overall success based exclusively on the value of broadcast income the competition generates.

By all accounts the new TV deal is worth considerably more than the last, hence this belief the new competition has ticked every box.

It's a naive means by which to assess the landscape and like a volcano preparing to erupt, there are warning signs to look for.

In the case of Super Rugby the rumblings have been going on for a while. South Africa has seen an exodus of talent to Japan and Europe - factors driven by the weak rand and the Springboks' policy of being able to pick players contracted offshore.

Now that Duane Vermeulen and the du Plessis brothers have shifted to France, South Africa's franchises are desperately lacking in pedigree.

This year the Stormers were their sole representative in the playoffs and they qualified only by virtue of being conference winners as the seventh-placed Crusaders actually had more competition points.

Sanzar can point to these strong economic push factors and say they are outside their control, but New Zealand and Australia are under the same pressure and their players aren't leaving in the same numbers.

It's possible that the greater travel burden on the South Africans is a bigger issue than it seems and now that trips to Argentina, Japan and Singapore have been added to the list, more players in the Republic might find the lure of Europe hard to resist.

The other warning sign that Sanzar has missed is that they keep adding new teams, but the number of genuine title contenders hasn't grown. The Western Force, Rebels and Lions - the new arrivals since Super 12 began - have been cannon fodder. They have added nothing but have weakened the overall playing resources.

As a result, the Reds, one brilliant campaign in 2011 aside, have been a bottom-feeder since 2006. The South Africans have been pulled down en masse and New Zealand - although impressively resilient - hasn't been able to hold on to emerging players who don't initially win contracts.

It's an unanswerable but nevertheless pertinent question to ask how the top six sides of 1996 would fare against the top sides of 2015.

New Sanzar chief executive Andy Marinos has said that sustainability is the key goal for the new competition.

He's optimistic but it all really depends on what constitutes his definition of sustainability.

The Kings have a playing roster that says they are going to be a giant waste of time, while the Sunwolves - who will be populated mainly by Japanese internationals - are odds on to be hopelessly out of their depth.

Japan pulled off the greatest World Cup shock in history when they beat the Springboks - but a few days later they were thumped by Scotland. Super Rugby is relentless and that's the concern with the Sunwolves - they won't have the physicality required to front week after week.

As they still don't have a head coach, they may not have the depth of planning or preparation required either and the best case scenario for them and the Kings is that a host of factors all come together at the right time and they win one game.

It's a little different in Argentina where the recruitment has been hugely successful.

Argentina's problem may be that playing so many games on the road, at difficult times for a domestic audience to follow, could see them struggle to build a fan base.

They won't be alone. Crowds across South Africa, Australia and New Zealand are down about 30 per cent since 2006.

The broadcasters have valued more games, but not the fans or the players. And this has been Sanzar's problem - the competition has evolved through a series of ad hoc, compromised decisions.

The local derbies have been reduced next year because the players found them too intense but franchise executives loved them. They put bums on seats.

Players wanted less travel and Sanzar wanted more geographic locations - so the compromise has been to introduce Japan and Argentina but in a competition format that requires a university education to be deciphered.

South Africa, easily the Sanzar country with the most financial clout, was able to use that to win a sixth team that can justify its existence only on political rather than playing grounds.

The volcano is rumbling and may well erupt some time in 2016.