Preview of next week’s big kick-off in the Southern Hemisphere
Nick Verdier assesses the upcoming season and the issues that will help determine the title
The Hurricanes got the monkey off their backs in 2016 with a maiden Super Rugby title but TJ Perenara reckons all it did was put a bigger target on their heads for 2017.
With the new season kicking off on Thursday, and the Lions tour looming large, all eyes will be on the New Zealand Conference with arguably three, or even four, teams capable of going all the way.
As the reigning champions, the ‘Canes will be the scalp every team wants to claim and All Black scrumhalf Perenara hopes his side can embrace the pressure their recent success has brought on them.
“It’s probably the only thing you do take from being defending champions – having a target on your head the following year,” he said.
“You don’t have the Championship any more. All we have is every team wanting to beat us so that’s something we want to embrace. It’s a challenge we’ll have week-to-week.”
The Wellington outfit will go into their first round game in Tokyo against the Sunwolves on the back of a 33-27 trial game win over the Crusaders.
Eight-time champions Crusaders will be hoping Scott Robertson can deliver what his former back-row partner Todd Blackadder could not do and bring a Championship back to Christchurch for the first time since 2008.
The Chiefs and the Highlanders are also expected to be challengers, both being led by a host of All Blacks looking to put their best foot forward ahead of the Lions tour in July.
The Blues, without Sonny Bill Williams for the opening six weeks as he recovers from an Achilles injury, have shown great improvement in pre-season and they will start the season high on confidence after beating a full-strength Chiefs outfit 26-14 on Friday. Head coach Tana Umaga, left, said: “It was our last dress rehearsal before the season proper starts but we had a bit of effort in there and had been talking about accuracy so that was good.
“There were a lot of positives we could take from the game. We know we can score tries, it’s trying to stop them that we’ve tried to work on. It was a good day today but it starts in earnest next Thursday for us against the Rebels. We’ve got to make sure we carry those things forward.”
The Lions were the surprise package of 2016 but if anything it showed how poor the South African Conference was with former big-hitters like the Bulls, the Sharks and the Stormers nowhere to be seen.
Hopes in Pretoria have since grown significantly ahead of this season with the return to the Bulls of prodigal son Handre Pollard.
The fly-half, who took world rugby by storm in 2015, started the 2016 season in Japan for a big-money sabbatical but picked up a knee injury as soon as he got back to South Africa and ended up missing the entire Super Rugby campaign.
With the new format seeing teams playing largely in their own conferences, two South African teams will reach the play-offs with little exposure against Kiwi or Aussie opposition but once they do it’ll make for a rude awakening – last season the Stormers won their group but were then dispatched with ease by the Chiefs (60-21) on their own in turf Cape Town.
The Jaguares held their own in their first season even if ultimately the rigours of Super Rugby proved hard to cope with as the season went by.
They will no doubt continue to improve with superstar No.8 Facundo Isa likely to be their driving force once more before he heads off to Toulon.