Super 15 it is then...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/2425529/Its-now-Super-15-rugby

Thoughts?

still struggling to see how adding another team will improve the competition

Come on Roman, make me do your work for you

Well I like the idea of more local derbies and especially rhe expanded finals series replacing the antiquated semi final system

Adding a team from Japan sounds nice but the problem is to be competative they will include hardly any Japanese players. Still might be good though esp for the nips

Forget the Islands....I cant see them getting their shit together, do they even have infrastructure for this sort of caper? Anyway its not in the NZR or AR best interests so wont happen

The extra franchise is open fish_boy perhaps your beloved HB should apply as that seems to be what you are getting at in your other thread

I really hope SA doesnt get to add another team. Fuck we cant even fill what we have with quality players and now they want to spread it out even more.

yeah you would think the same applies to Australia x 2..... at least the safas have the Bulls and Sharks. wtf @ a frachise in melbourne, even the Storm arent all that popular. Ive lived in Melbourne, and rugby aint shit there except to the local kiwis

Yeah, as cool as it would be to have a team in Melbourne (for personal reason, ie me moving over there), it will not pay imo.

I think I like it. And I would be all for Japanese team in the tournament. It would add variety for sure.

I'm happy they've dropped the idea of having another team in NZ. That would just be fucking stupid. Drop Highlanders I say and replace them with another franchise, but not adding an additional franchise.

wot. Why the Highlanders? Why not the Chiefs. Their W/L records are roughly similair and at least the Highlanders have made a final

They should be looking at the Pacific Islands or Argentina. Adding a team from Japan would be a purely financial decision.

When did they make the final tho?

Maybe, have a Super 15 franchises based on performances of that particular province. So a franchise gets a green light if their province wins/does well (top four). Then neighboring provinces make up draft pool of players that can be picked for any franchises that made into top four. Or something like that.

I reckon it would improve provincial rugby, as everyone would be competing for Super 15 spot.

With this plan, you don't have to move main rugby points to begin with. So if Auckland doesn't make top four in provincial comp and Northland does, for example, Northland home ground will be Eden Park. And so on.

What NZ and South Africa need to do is create a policy in which the top 5 teams from the NPC/Currie Cup play S15 the next season.

WITH NO DRAFTING!

e.g. if Canterbury don't make the top 5, Daniel Carter doesn't play S15 the next year.

Artificial franchises suck balls :>

Oh that. Which is very close to my idea btw.

Carter and McCaw are playing for the Blues next season anyway.

I'm all for another franchise in NZ.

Maybe Nth Harbour/Northland combo.

They've got a big fuck off stadium in Albany, and let's face it, Auckland and Harbour fans hate each other so why play together.

Yeah semifinals are only used in the CL, UEFA CUp, World Cup and a semifinal equivalent is also used in the NFL

Stealing my ideas without referencing = VERY MUCH A HATER THING TO DO

I was advocating this YEARS ago

YUO = NEWTON

ME = LEIBNIZ

GJ comparing a completly different sport, because football has bonus points right Z? And those comps have a full round robin too right Z? Oh look ...dont they all also have quarter finals as well? So the finals stsyem isnt even the samw anyway!

The prospect of having an extra team from the worst performing country makes me so moist! I need some tissues now!!

To think, I've spent hours trying to work out how to make super rugby better when the solution was right in front of me all the time! Just further dilute a piss poor rugby playing nation further. And while we are at it lets make it bigger (BIGGER IS BETTER!) and take a competition already suffering from lack of intensity and water it down some more. Silly me for not seeing all this genius decision making from the NZRFU.

John O'Neill get everything the Aussies wanted. He gets them a guaranteed place in the semi-finals for his shit useless teams - a form of protectionism that I would have thought would be against WTO rules but there you have it. Effectively that means the Warratahs get a free pass to the semi-finals (where does John O'Neill live again?) until such time as the Melbourne Samoans (all New Zealand born, and now available for the Wallabies instead of the All Blacks) win the comp in 2015. Yay.

The South Africans get everything they want. They keep the Currie CUp intact and they get to keep not just their super players but their Springboks in it. The whole tri-nations and super competition has been orgainsed around their wishes. That puts New Zealand provincial rugby and the Air New Zealand Cup in it's place!

We get nothing. The only positive note is we can't be fucked up the arse anymore, we've got nothing left to be fucked for. Say goodbye to last vestiges of traditional New Zealand rugby. Not only are the All Blacks now permanently out of the the Air New Zealand cup, so are the Super 14 players for the first rounds. The Air New Zeland Cup won't last past 2015. The unions outside the big five will all be bankrupt in ten-fifteen years.

The competition is a dogs breakfast dreamt up in a Dublin boardroom by a bunch NZRFU sell outs who don't give a fuck about the game outside their comfy offices and cosy super 14 franchises.

Is there another professional sporting competition in the world that has 15 sides, runs three conferences, goes for over seven months, yet all the teams don't play each other at least once? The Super teams will play 16 games and not play on 5 other weekends. Factor in the three or more weekends off for the test matches and some of the players whose teams miss the playoffs will feel like they've been on holiday for five months. From start to finish it will be 27 weekends and some players will play on 16 of them and have the weekend off in 11 of them.

It will go on. And on. And on. And on. And on.

Yeah, it's definitely not looking good for NZ provincial rugby. Mostly agree with the points you brought up FB.