‘Not rewarding them’: Wallabies great questions Super Rugby playoff set-up

Wallabies legend Tim Horan has questioned whether Super Rugby Pacific should cut down from an eight to six-team playoff race in an effort to reward the sides that finish first and second.

The Blues and Hurricanes are in the box seat to finish the regular season in one of the coveted top-two places, while the Brumbies and Chiefs have also secured a home quarter-final.

Moving down the ladder, the fifth-place Queensland Reds are finals-bound, while the Melbourne Rebels, Highlanders and Fijian Drua are on the brink of booking their ticket to the next stage.

In a 12-team competition, those who finish the regular season in the top eight qualify for the playoffs. But, with two games to go before that stage, Tim Horan has suggested an alternative.

While the 4-8 Western Force and 2-10 Crusaders are among the teams still have a mathematical chance of qualifying, the two-time World Cup winner believes the top sides aren’t rewarded enough.

“Well, you’d think the Western Force is the best chance, wouldn’t you think, after their performance against the Waratahs in Perth last weekend,” Horan said on Stan Sports’ Rugby Heaven.

“Of course, they play the Reds this weekend on Saturday night.

“I think the Force, they’ve shown – Benny Donaldson, one of his better games of the year as well with Kurtley Beale, what he’s brought to this team.

“But then the conversation goes back to should you have a top eight? I actually think it should be top six. Top six, the quarter-final is three to six and the top two get the weekend off, the first weekend off.

“At the moment, you’re not rewarding say the Blues and the Hurricanes. If they finish one and two, you’re not rewarding them for finishing in the top two.”

As Horan mentioned, the Western Force are the more likely of the bottom-four teams to rise up the ladder and into a playoff spot on the back of a late regular season resurgence.

The men from out west have won their last two matches, which have both been against other sides vying for eighth place, and they’ve only lost two of their last five dating back to April 20.

Defending champions the Crusaders are four points behind the Force on the ladder and appear to be an outside chance of making the next stage.

Then there’s Moana Pasifika and the Waratahs. Former Wallaby Cameron Shepherd echoed Horan’s comments by saying those two teams “can’t really get back in” the top eight.

“I kind of agree in a 12-team competition that maybe six is the right thing,” Shepherd added.

“You look at it now, the Waratahs and Moana are probably the two teams that have definitely gone. The fall down from sixth to 10^th are the moving positions.

“The Tahs and Moana can’t really get back in there but they can certainly disrupt what’s going to happen.

“I think bonus points are just going to become so vital in these next couple of weeks, and for the poor Force, could that Bayley Kuenzle try that was disallowed at the end of the game last Saturday night and losing that one (bonus) point come back to hurt them?

“Fingers crossed not but it’s going to be an exciting couple of weeks.”