Kiwis still back Sanzaar despite SA exit
New Zealand Rugby (NZR) continued to insist on Wednesday that the Sanzaar alliance governing southern hemisphere rugby was still healthy even after SA ditched the Super Rugby tournament after 25 years and fired a farewell shot blaming their colleagues in Wellington.
SA Rugby said on Tuesday it had voted to pull its four teams out of the cross-border franchise competition and would look to align with Europe’s PRO14 competition.
That decision came hours after Rugby Australia chair Hamish McLennan said their relationship with New Zealand Rugby was at its “lowest ebb” as the two bodies traded barbs over the future of the game.
“I think we are working in extraordinary times with extraordinary pressure. We think there is a great future with Sanzaar,” New Zealand Rugby CEO Mark Robinson told reporters on a conference call on Wednesday.
“We know there are challenges. We know there are tensions. But ultimately we all believe in a common goal around Rugby Championship.”
The world champion Springboks are still expected to play in the Rugby Championship, which also includes the national teams from New Zealand, Australia and Argentina.
SA Rugby’s decision to walk away from Super Rugby had long been expected with reports periodically surfacing over the past decade, even if officials kept denying that they were interested in aligning with Europe.
The move by the Cheetahs and Southern Kings to the PRO14 ahead of the 2018 season after they were dumped from Super Rugby after a poorly received expansion to 18 teams in the southern hemisphere competition, however, set the wheels in motion.
We know that SA have been very open about going to the northern hemisphere,” Robinson added. “They obviously feel now is the time to explore that opportunity.”
Super Rugby was already undergoing a realignment for 2021, with the Japan-based Sunwolves dropped before the coronavirus pandemic brought the tournament to a shuddering halt in March.
Countries scrambled to organise domestic-only competitions in 2020 and NZR presented a trans-Tasman model involving just New Zealand and Australian teams for 2021.
That unilateral ” decision prompted SA Rugby to decide to realign with Europe, CEO Jurie Roux said in his parting shot to the competition that had been in place since 1996.
Robinson, however, said all NZR was doing was what Sanzaar had agreed.
All of the Sanzaar partners had agreed to look at more domestically related competitions in 2020 and 2021,” he said. We talked about ours a while ago. We haven’t settled on anything yet.”