Simplicity works best for Sanzaar

If you have been a fan of Super Rugby you will have heard these comments before.

‘‘The likes of the Cheetahs, Zebre, Dragons and Southern Kings have little or nothing to offer.

‘‘Overall, the Pro 14 has too many dead rubbers, too many teams putting out understrength sides for games away from home. That’s something we’ve been criticising the French top 14 sides for years.

‘‘I would be worried for the future of the Pro14. How many games have we seen with small attendances?’’

They belong to Donal Lenihan, the former Irish internationalturned pundit whose comments are typically measured, in an interview about the Pro 14 competition with an Irish radio station this week.

However, it’s their symmetry with the complaints about Super Rugby’s previous direction that make them relevant here.

By adding teams from South Africa – the Cheetahs and Southern Kings – the Pro 14 tournament received a financial uplift but in the second year of their inclusion it is encountering some familiar growing pains. Too many games without spark, grumbles about a conference system (the Pro 14 has split itself in two) and a group of teams at the bottom of the ladder whose lack of competitiveness is causing concern.

Lenihan continued: ‘‘I have been very disappointed with the South African sides.’’

For Sanzaar, his words will carry echoes of the hard lessons it has already learnt.

Indeed, you wonder if they will reinforce that integrity of competition must be the main consideration as Sanzaar plots its future beyond 2020, when the current broadcasting deal expires.

If that is now the driving philosophy within Sanzaar we should be cautiously encouraged. It is the one most likely to produce the leaner, cleaner, and more stable competition that supporters can attach themselves to.

A reduction to 14 teams for example, without the Sunwolves, and a return to a form of roundrobin without conferences is a model that appeals. Even if that wishlist is not met at least we should have some certainty this year after a period in which teams have been added or subtracted.

These are more than abstract considerations – they have dollars and cents consequences.

Look at the the New Zealand franchises’ current drive for members, for example.

The Hurricanes have 5200 members and the cheapest adult membership is $129. That’s $670,000. That’s an unscientific calculation but already you can see the importance to budgets.

The fundamental question underlying the marketers’ membership drive is: How can you persuade fans to engage with a competition if it keeps changing, or its format is not simply understood or is perceived to have lost its meaning?

These are powerful forces in sport. Witness the reaction to Sir John Kirwan’s pleas to bring back the tribalism in New Zealand rugby.

Sanzaar will meet again in March to have further discussions about the format of the competition. World Rugby is currently conducting a feasibility study into its ‘World League’ project, the results of which will be known this month.

As a result these are volatile times for rugby as a whole.

But for Super Rugby in particular a yearning for simpler times may not be an exercise in nostalgia, but a necessity for the competition’s future.