‘Confusing’ Super format goes, as Stormers open against Jaguares
AFTER YEARS of frustration over an unfair and senseless Super Rugby format, the Stormers will kick off a restructured, more sensible competition against the Jaguares at Newlands on February 17 next year.
Sanzaar yesterday announced the new format and fixtures for the 2018 season, and CEO Andy Marinos admitted that the tournament “was not working with 18 teams, the structure was confusing, and the outcomes of matches were becoming too predictable”.
Following the axing of South Africa’s Cheetahs and Kings and Australia’s Western Force, the new tournament will revert to a 15-team, three-conference format.
The Sunwolves join the Australian conference, while the Jaguares form part of the South African group. The New Zealand conference remains unchanged.
In the restructured competition, each team will play 16 round-robin matches – eight inter-conference matches and eight cross-conference matches. So they will play all other teams in their conference twice, and once each against four of the teams from the other two conferences (four of the games will be at home and four away).
The finals series will comprise an eight-team, seven-match series, and the top teams in each of the three conferences will qualify for the quarter-finals, along with the five teams across all conferences with the most competition points (wildcards). The conference winners and the best wildcard team will host the quarters.
The format will see each team play 12 of the other franchises within the regular season – so each team will play 85% of opposition teams as opposed to this year’s 70%.
The South African teams will start their campaigns one week earlier than Australia and New Zealand.
Marinos was confident that the Super Rugby competition will continue to be the ultimate selection pool for national sides from the Sanzaar unions, while he also explained that Sanzaar will be more hands-on with the Sunwolves.
“It was not an easy decision to reduce the number of teams, but a necessary one considering the outputs from the strategic review to date. Sanzaar has also been working hard with Japan and the Sunwolves. Their performances over the first two seasons have been disappointing and improvement is required.”