Fan's Voice - Super Rugby - Lose the Conference System

In the latest edition of ‘Fan’s Voice’, Rob Seltzer puts forward a well researched and passionate argument to ditch the conference system in Super Rugby. 

In 2016 Super Rugby split the competition into Conferences. The South African teams had two conferences, whereas the Australian and New Zealand teams were in a conference of their own.

Some clubs had a more difficult road to make the finals than others. For example, The Stormer’s didn’t face a New Zealand team until they played the Chiefs at Newlands. Despite having home advantage the Waikato team beat them 60-21, a result that lead to Stomers coach Robbie Fleck to criticise the format. He claimed that the Stormers had not faced an opponent that played with the intensity and skill the Chiefs played with that day and the Stormers simply couldn’t live with them.

Compare this to the Waratahs, who did not make the finals. They played all 5 New Zealand teams losing 4 of those games but they did beat a full strength Chiefs team at home 45-25 and also went to Cape Town and beat the Stomers 32-30.

With the current format, the Stormers and Brumbies both had home quarter finals against the Chiefs and Highlanders respectively (which they both lost). This happened despite the Stormers having a points total of 51 and the Brumbies 43 compared to 52 points for the Highlanders and 51 to the Chiefs.

Even the Crusaders in 7^th had to travel to the red hot Lions in Johannesburg despite having more points than the Brumbies. As the Brumbies and Stormers topped their respective conferences they automatically gained the home field advantage in the finals.

The Brumbies played 4 New Zealand teams losing all 4 of those matches and having a points total that would have them in joint 7^th place if the league was just done on points. Is this a fair system?

The history of Super Rugby is, unsurprisingly dominated by New Zealand teams. The first 5 tournaments were shared between the Auckland Blues (2) and Canterbury Crusaders (3) before the Brumbies beat the Sharks to take the title out of New Zealand for the first time. It wasn’t until 2007 that the Super Rugby title went to South Africa, when a superb Bulls outfit with Fourie Du Preez, Victor Matfield, Morne Steyn and Bryan Habana beat the Sharks in dramatic fashion with a last minute try. From 2007-2010 the Bulls won 3 titles with the Crusaders winning a title in 2008.

The format of the competition was each team would play each other and they were all in the same league. The top 8 would make the finals and the Champion would be crowned from them. In 2011 the Reds were victorious with 15 teams involved and the same format being adhered to before a Chiefs double 2012/13, the Waratahs in 2014, Highlanders 2015 and Hurricanes 2016 took the title.

Based on the above system, more often than not, the best 8 teams throughout the season would be playing finals rugby. The same cannot be said of 2016. The Blues for example ended up on 39 points. They got bonus point wins over the 2 top teams from the Australian conference, the Brumbies and Waratahs and most of their defeats came against fellow New Zealand teams.

They didn’t play the Sunwolves at all but did play the Hurricanes and the Crusaders twice. I know the argument is, you have to beat the best at some point to win, but a team that plays the Sunwolves twice and the Kings twice have an easier task than a team that plays the Crusaders and Hurricanes twice.

I would love to see the conference system to be thrown out of the window. It is a much fairer system to have one league, where all teams play each other once and alternate the home and away games each season. That way, no teams can have an “easier” fixture list to make the finals. No fans miss out on seeing teams as they will get a look at them every other season. If this isn’t feasible, although I don’t see why not, then how about we just take half the teams from each conference and make a league out of them and then the other half make the other league. Then the top 4 from each league playoff and you get your winners from there.

It won’t happen in the near future if ever, but the conference system needs to go.