Super Rugby’s bold Japan move
Super Rugby architects would invite the best Japanese Top League teams to take part in a Super Rugby finals series under one model being considered for the competition next year.
The teams would be the top two performers from Japan’s cash-rich, corporation-owned league, which will be run concurrently with Super Rugby in the first half of next year.
They would meet the winners of the Australia, New Zealand and South AfricaArgentina conferences in an eight-team finals series played in June or early July next year – and potentially in one country if coronavirus travel restrictions are still in place.
The model is one of a number being considered for the flagging southern hemisphere competition, which is having to rethink its original plans for a 14-team round robin structure in the post-coronavirus economy.
All models also assume the Sanzaar member unions will honour their agreements to stick with Super Rugby which, despite Sanzaar’s insistence, is not the done deal some are insisting it is.
The most likely fallback, given the likely prohibitive cost of international travel and internal pressures in Australia and New Zealand to ditch South Africa and Argentina, is that the competition will be run as three domestic conferences, using the current countries, with a cross-border finals series.
However, a variation of that model would see the likes of the Kobelco Steelers and Suntory Sungoliath, or the Panasonic Wild Knights, take on the top Super Rugby sides.
Ongoing Japanese involvement appears high on the list of priorities for Australia and New Zealand, most likely because it is a large commercial market in a similar time zone where rugby is on the rise.
Sources also indicated that, despite the Sunwolves’ impending exit from Super Rugby, there is still significant interest from sections of the Japanese game for the Asian nation to stay involved.
Test coach Jamie Joseph wants to keep a strong pathway between the Top League and the Brave Blossoms, sources told the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Japan Rugby Football Union’s ultimate goal still seems to be inclusion in the Rugby Championship.
Sources from all parties told the Sydney Morning Herald there were too many moving parts to make a Top League link with Super Rugby a certainty, despite there being keen interest.
A Sanzaar board meeting next week is expected to confirm the cancellation of the July incoming test tours, which would have seen Ireland play two games in Australia, Wales head to New Zealand, Scotland travel to South Africa, France to Argentina and England to Japan.