Getting a good run in the new Super 15 draw could be as easy as ABC
Getting a good run in the new Super 15 draw could be as easy as ABC
- Wayne Smith, Rugby union editor
- From: The Australian
- April 09, 2010 12:00AM
IT will be a case of "B for Brumbies, B for blessed" if an alphabetical system is approved to determine the draw for next year's inaugural Super 15, enabling the ACT side to avoid playing the Bulls and the Blues in 2011.
With next year's competition being played under a conference system, with the five teams in each of the Australian, New Zealand and South African conferences playing each other on a home and away basis before combating their foreign opponents, the draw will be too crowded to allow all teams to play each other during the course of the regular season.
SANZAR has all but decided that each team will miss an opponent from the other two conferences. Each year for the next five years the draw will rotate so that at the end of that period every side will have missed every other foreign side once.
Precisely how the rotation system will operate has not been determined but a telephone hook-up of SANZAR officials with broadcasters today will discuss a range of options, the most likely being simply listing the teams in each conference alphabetically by their popular names - hence "Waratahs" not "NSW" - and pairing them off next year against their corresponding New Zealand and South African sides.
If that system is endorsed, the Brumbies would be the first team to benefit, dodging the Bulls and the Blues, the former a two-time Super rugby winner, in 2008 and 2009, the latter a triple champion, in 1996, 1997 and 2003.
The Reds - who are still in the red in terms of Super rugby results with only 75 wins from 171 matches - would be left with mixed feelings. On one hand, they would be delighted to avoid playing seven-time champion the Crusaders (128 from 188) but would be disappointed at missing this weekend's rivals, the bottom-placed Lions (11 from 46).
Still, it was only last season that the fifth-placed Reds themselves finished 13th, so it would be unwise to project current form 12 months into the future.
The Waratahs (94 from 175) would not play the Highlanders (80 from 174) and the Sharks (72 from 152), while the Western Force would receive some mild compensation for its atrocious run of luck by bypassing two of the more solid teams in the competition, the Hurricanes (90 from 176) and the Stormers (70 from 148).
The new team in the expanded competition, Melbourne Rebels, would not mind avoiding last year's beaten finalists, the Chiefs (82 from 171) but would have regrets that in their inaugural season would not get a crack at the 2009 wooden-spooners the Cheetahs (14 from 58).
All teams have been asked to lodge their specific requests with SANZAR, with Rebels chief executive Brian Waldron admitting Melbourne's main hope is to make its entry into Super rugby with a couple of home matches at AAMI Park.
The Waratahs, however, have been more specific, lodging a request to kick-start what they hope will grow into fierce NSW-Victoria rivalry by playing the Rebels first up in Melbourne.
In a more practical vein, NSW has also requested it be spared any Friday night matches at the Sydney Football Stadium where traffic congestion invariably knocks about 5000 off their gate.
"We've also requested at least one Sunday afternoon game," Waratahs coach Chris Hickey said. `
`It's difficult for families to find time to come together but Sunday afternoon games would provide that."
NSW also took careful note of the fact that the QRU drew 20,016 to the Reds-Force match on Sunday, March 14.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news...-1225851594077
