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Super Rugby draw heavily favours NZ sides but they can't win in Australia
By John Ferguson reporting from Sydney
At the end of round nine each team has played eight games which is one more than exactly halfway through the season and this is a good moment to reflect on what has been and to look ahead to what is coming.
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To date, the Highlanders and the Chiefs are the only ‘Kiwi’ sides excluding Moana Pasifika, to have played in Australia.
The Landers have played three times, while the former table topping Chiefs have played and lost their only regular season game in Australia, let that sink in.
This revelation highlights how skewed the draw has been, with three of the Aussie sides having played two games in New Zealand, with the Force only having played one.
In the back half of the season, the Hurricanes (3), Blues (1), and Crusaders (2) will all come across the Tasman but the fact that the Blues and Chiefs only have one game each on Australian soil all season, is just plain wrong.
The ledger between the two nations sits at six-a-piece with the Aussie sides winning all their home games and the Kiwi sides dropping two at home to the Queensland Reds in Dunedin, and at Eden Park against the Brumbies.
Although home ground advantage isn’t everything, it certainly is a factor in preparation and impacts results, and the remaining split of home and away games for ‘Kiwi’ teams appears to make for a very tightly contested backend of the season.
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In round 10 the Hurricanes travel to Perth to take on the Western Force, after the men from Wellington narrowly lost to the now table-topping Crusaders.
It’s a game the Canes will look at with an intent to cause an upset and claim the first ‘Kiwi’ win in Australia for the year.
Conversely, Simon Cron and his Force are coming off a well deserved and much needed bye week, seeing as they were the last team to get a bye in the competition, playing eight weeks straight with the largest travel distances.
They conjured a good win over the Highlanders in round nine which means that despite the Waratahs upset win over the Chiefs, they retained their spot in the top six.
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The following round, the Reds host the Blues at Suncorp, for their only game in Australia in the regular season.
Again, the fact that last year’s competition winner and the runner up only have to play on Australian soil once each is ridiculous, however, if there’s one side you wouldn’t want to play that deep into the competition, it’s the Reds.
The sad demise of the Melbourne Rebels in 2024 has meant the Reds are the side which benefitted the greatest, apart from the Waratahs, from the influx of talent from Victoria.
It means that although they have been carrying a long injury list for much of the season, they have the depth in key positions to rotate and cover their injured well.
Similarly, the Blues have a full casualty ward, and they are heading into a bruising encounter with the now table-topping Crusaders in Christchurch this weekend, a rivalry which always delivers a bone crunching affair.
If we circle back to the split between home and away games against the ‘Kiwi’ sides in New Zealand, the ledger currently stands: the Waratahs have won none from two, the Reds 1/3, and the Brumbies 1/2.
The Force are the only side which has not played all three of their games in the land of the long white cloud yet, but they lost their only game so far to the Crusaders in round five.
They still have a two week tour to NZ during rounds 11 and 12, with back-to-back games against the Chiefs and the Blues respectively.
With all these numbers in mind, the backend of the season looks to be blockbuster, with the remaining clashes between Aussie sides and the Hurricanes, Blues, and Crusaders all to be played on Aussie soil where the home sides have a 100 per cent win record to date.
The Canes and the Blues are the ‘Kiwi’ sides with the lowest seeding heading into these Aussie clashes, sitting at eighth and ninth respectively.
The Canes’ three Aussie soil games of their remaining six games means, they could theoretically walk away with only a 50 per cent win rate from their remaining games.
For the Blues there is not too much to worry about with their solitary clash not necessarily determining their finals hopes, depending on how their next couple of rounds go.
However, the Blues and Reds have a great rivalry in recent history, and this looks set to continue for their round 11 clash, after the Reds come off their bye.
For the Crusaders, the two clashes in Sydney and Canberra in rounds 14 and 16 could prove crucial to their ambitions of home semi-finals.
The split of games in New Zealand and Australia must be addressed next year, because you can’t have only three Kiwi sides playing two or more and then the remaining two only playing a single game.
This issue feeds into the calls for a for-and-against format, with two bye weeks per team not feeding the hype or demands of the competition.
Especially because Super Rugby is already a much shorter season than a lot of other top tier competitions around the world.
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Rubbish article.
Based on the 2025 draw format, there is no advantage or disadvantage. Every team plays 7 home matches & 7 away matches, with 2 byes.
However, there is a serious travel disadvantage for the Drua, who are away from Fiji for half the SRP season. There are also minor travel differences between the NZL/AUS franchises but nothing that could be characterized as “heavily favours” the NZ teams.
Plus, grouping franchise wins & losses into AUS/NZL is meaningless. The Chiefs loss to the Tahs was cheered all the way by Crusaders fans. It matters not to us that the Highlanders & Chiefs lost in Australia.
Yep I’m not sure where he went wrong but his reasoning definitely didn’t click with me. Perhaps he didn’t realise what effect gonig from five to four would have?
Like now/last year, they (Aus) go from having three (two?) doubleup games, so say 50%, to now.. what, 100% of their conference competition being doubleup, home and away games? That’s a big difference in perception, so 4 home games (each local side) and 3 or 4 (half) of the rest. So if you can follow me so far, 2 of those home games could be the Drua and Moana, so it’s just random if you end up getting just two, or even just the one, kiwi team at home (where as the 6 NZ sides have 4 aus teams for their 3 or 4 non local home games?).
I think I might be making sense there. You can see his point though, he thinks it might be more advantageous to have a top team at home, rather than the bottom. But honestly I see no skin in the game between having it safe and a gaurenteed home win, versus banking on beating a good side at home and also being able to win away. I saw no truth offered by the article in that perception though.
Perhaps it’s a flaw in the system to have the doubleup games made up like that? Especially with the third conference, the Pacific, Drua and Moana, automatically playing each other twice? I’m sure they always have, so how did they balance the rest of their doubleup games? Perhaps a proper fixture model was pointless this year with 11 teams, but the new committee might be advised to find a proper way of creating the season rather than the hand picking of games, and who plays who, which doubleups would be most interesting etc, that we all know it is now.
Sorry John but I stopped reading this one and only barely skimmed some at the end, but I’ll still help you out.
It’s uneven teams mate, can’t be helped.
SR can stop doctoring the fixtures in favour of Australian teams results if that’s what you’d like though?
Pffft. As if the draw hadn't favoured aussie teams in the pool format for years. They would hardly have had a team in the playoffs if the aussies weren't gifted one most years. And as if a kiwi team beating an aussie team at home is an “upset”. It will take a few years of more respectable competition from aus teams before they will be expected to defend home ground like teams in other sports do.
While Ferguson is so hot on unfairness perhaps he aught to address the home town advantage in overdrive enjoyed by the Waratahs when reffed by a certain home town ref( I really rate all the other OZ refs btw before you start foaming at the mouth) who presided over Waratahs v Drua and copped a lot of flak for favouring the home side and who imo actually skewed the results and the same official popped up again when the Chiefs visited. The Waratahs did play well for large parts of the game but was their momentum gained under false pretences? We’ll never know . The penalty count was 18 - 5 AGAINST the Tahs .Yet only 1 Tahs players got carded right at the end.
I’m happy to weigh in here SR, the Drua game was won by the whistle, the Tahs very lucky to get out of that game with a win.
I think most Aussies would point you in the direction of the win/loss record under NZ ref James Doleman, it is very low for Aussie sides. This is not my counter argument, merely highlighting a point of what appears to be a pattern.
I think what is more astonishing honestly is how the Chiefs got 18 penalties and the Waratahs got 4 and the Chiefs still lost. That is a potential 54 points left on the field (not that all of them were kickable, but you take my point) in a game where they lost by 7.
Yep spot on. I saw someone else’s comment around that ref saying NO NZ side will win under him. Just so frustrating.
Very targeted article that writes to deliberately put across a fake point. Please John tell us who each side has played?
Why has NZ and AUs sides not really clashed? Because of all the “local” derbies John. How many times will the Reds, Brumbies, Tahs and Force , play the Blues, Canes, Saders, Highlanders, Moana and Chiefs John? ONCE per season. If you want to write an article about the failings of the draw then please write about the actual failings of the draw, Not a fabrication about the draw being unfair to the actual sides it heavily favours. Not 1 Aus side will play an NZ team twice to get to the finals. ALL NZ sides will.
To give you ONE example lets look at the Blues draw.
In 9 rounds so far they have played every NZ based side. ( 5 games ) then the Canes twice, Chiefs twice, And this weekend they play the 2nd game v the Saders this season. ( 3 more games ) so the only side they have played thats not an NZ based team is the Brumbies. 1 GAME! Still to play the Reds, Tahs, Force and Drua and will only get 1 game V those sides.
There are 4 Australian sides John. Pure maths tells me that means 2 home games against Aus sides and 2 away games v Aus sides. So basically NO NZ side should ever play more than 2 games in a season in Aus. Aus cut their teams down to 4. This is the direct result.
Yes the draw is not fair, but that heavily favors Aus sides. Either have 1 round or have 2, but this 1.5 rounds isnt fair to ALL NZ based sides.
Yep, I’m not reading that either though lol
All we need is that gimmick they brought in last year, the who’s played who table of rankings or whatever it was. This article was definitely not an proppa data analysis.
Cheers for the comment HHT!
I think your point on unfair draw and mine, which in essence is about an unfair draw actually aid each other for a rather strong argument that the draw needs to be looked at.
I think this is a case of two things can be true at once.
I have chosen in around 1000 words to explore this particular issue with the draw I have identified.
Your point, with having the NZ teams playing each other twice on some occassions while others in Aus not is also not fair.
But with the way the table looks currently, would the NZ sides all be in the top six if the draw had been done more in line with my and your point?
For instance, 4 of the 6 Aus wins against NZ sides have come against the Highlanders, 3 in Aus, 1 in NZ.
The Landers have beaten the Blues and lost to the Canes by 2 points, those are their only two NZ games to date and they play the Chiefs this weekend. Their 3 games against the Aussie sides in Australia compared to the Blues 1 is a massive disadvantage because travel takes it’s toll.
Then looking at your example the Blues, they have the toughest season of any side by far but I would also argue that the limited travel is a massive help in preparation, recovery etc. But their draw must be looked at, any side would suffer with a draw like that.
Although I am not suggesting the Aus sides are better than the NZ sides overall, the current ledger and table set up suggests the rift is not as big currently as the underlying assertion to your argument suggests.
More will absolutley be revealed over the coming rounds as the strength of the two franchises.
Spot on. Unless every team plays each other twice , both home and away, you are always going to get an imbalance in the draw which is going to favor some sides over others. Even so the cream usually rises to the top.