Predictability is killing Super Rugby
Another year of declining crowds and an all-Kiwi Final
Former All Black’s coach Steve Hansen is right. Super Rugby is too predictable and dying because of it.
In this interview, Hansen went so far as to say “NRL's a better game to watch”, which I’m starting to agree with.
Not because League is a better game than Union, but because the story of a Super Rugby season is far less exciting than the NRLs.
And by “story”, I mean the narrative/commentary about how many teams have a chance of winning the title, plus some upsets during the finals.
After all, everyone loves when an underdog gets up- something that never happens during the Super Rugby finals.
And with the fight for people’s attention as intense as ever, things don’t look great for Super Rugby, with only 12,000 fans turning up to the quarter final between Australia and New Zealand’s two largest cities- Auckland (Blues) and Sydney (Waratahs).
That’s a strong sign that increasingly less people care about Super Rugby.
If you compare that with a recent Sydney schoolboy Rugby game where 15,000 people rocked up, it’s clear as day that something is wrong at Super level.
Super Rugby games have been more entertaining this year with more tries and less stoppages.
But that all counted for naught as another predictable finals series is playing out, and I fear 2024 will just be another year of Kiwi dominance, and that Super Rugby will be completely dead by the end of the decade.
I hate complainers, and I hate bringing up problems without solutions.
Refs are trying their best to speed games up (which is great), but I don’t know what else can be done so that more teams have a genuine chance of being crowned champs.
And the more people who truly believe their team has a good chance of winning, the more people who will find Super Rugby interesting and worth caring about.
Putting an international salary cap won’t work (NZ would just lose their best players to Japan and Europe), and while the idea of letting Kiwi players play for Aussie sides is good in theory, it’s unlikely to work.
If I was a Kiwi player, unless I was gonna get paid heaps more, why on earth would I want to leave NZ to play in Aus? And what money are we going to use to poach NZ’s best?
So as you can tell, I’m pretty down about the future of Super Rugby.
But what about you?
Do you have any ideas about what changes need to be made so more teams have a genuine shot at winning the title?
The brumbies did well to hold out the chiefs for 78 mins! I thought they were oustanding in defence.
RA def needs to have a look at the other codes as to what they are doing and rugby is not. After chatting to an NZ rugby player a few weeks ago, he thought that the NRL just market the game better.
I still prefer watching Union over League but Im hard pressed to convince other people to. The game is still described as boring. Really need to survey the non rugby watchers or the fans who used to be fans and have lost interest, to really gain insight into what it is that needs to be changed. The game is faster but the fans still aren't coming back.
I don’t see how dodging the kiwi teams will help Australian teams get stronger or more competitive 🤷🏻♂️
There’s four footy codes in Aus and we’re at the bottom
A good showing at the RWC wld be a good start
I don’t know what the answer is though
Do we have to many super rugby teams?
Would an all Aussie comp help?
NRC??
Constant tmo reviews and poor referring don’t help either….. I’m all for player safety but some of these red/yellow cards are ridiculous 🤷🏻♂️
I will continue to watch it in any form…
Hope we can turn the corner soon 👍