1
Reports reveal plans for major Super Rugby shake-up
By Online Editors
The Sydney Morning Herald have revealed details from SANZAAR's 2030 Strategy paper, uncovering potential plans for further Super Rugby expansion, including adding a fourth conference featuring teams from existing competitions.
Super Rugby's version of an All-Star game and the concept of a southern hemisphere side similar in style to the British and Irish Lions are also reportedly detailed in the paper.
According to Sydney Morning Herald, SANZAAR is committed to the current Super Rugby format until 2020 but are weighing up five options moving forward.
The options cover all bases including competition contraction, retention and expansion - though expansion options outnumber the others.
One of the options for expansion would see a 20-team, four-conference format, with the expansion drawing from "new teams or teams from an existing competition".
The recently launched Major League Rugby in the United States stands out as a prime candidate. The MLR has partnered with major broadcaster CBS and the competition looks significantly more promising than the ill-fated PRO Rugby competition - America's previous crack at a professional league - that lasted just one season.
The strategy paper also covers women's competition, stating that "in time, any competition could become a SANZAAR competition and be wrapped into the commercial arrangements of SANZAAR."
This statement is relevant in the context of potential Super W expansion, which is currently only contested by Australian teams.
Only time will tell which direction the competitions shift, and whether any of the more extreme concepts like the southern hemisphere Lions team or a fourth Super Rugby conference come to fruition.
In other news:
Trending on RugbyPass
2
Jake White: Ireland, Australia and Wales have the same problem
3
David Campese names his Springbok world player of the year winner
4
Let's be real about these All Blacks
5
Latest Comments
There is nothing particularly significant about Ireland in this regard compared to other Tier 1 nations. To look at 'strategy' for illegal play its best to see what teams push boundaries with new laws. SA have milked two tries at ruck block downs. The strategy is to charge the first few before the ball is out at about 4 seconds but pull out and put up hands in reigned apology. The referees usually allow the scum half to clear without awarding a penalty in this scenario. The problem with that being that the scrumhalf is now taking over 5 seconds through no fault of his own. Having achieved a few slow balls > 5s , the SA forward can now pick a scrum to charge dead on 5s. Now if the scrum half waits, he will concede a penalty, as we saw against Scotland. With the new rule in place, any early charge should result in an immediate penalty.
SA also got an offside block against England which was pivotal again after a couple of 'apologetic' offside aborted charges forcing England to clear slowly.
Go to commentsYep, you're not the sharpest tool in the shed are you?
Go to comments