27 January 2012
By David van der Merwe
Having watched a lot of Heineken Cup action over the last couple of months and being exposed to the new Super Rugby structure has made me think which of the two competitions is the better one. Any Southern Hemisphere rugby fan will say Super Rugby and the Northern fans will say Heineken Cup. But let’s look at it realistically and see which is truly the better tournament. And when I say better I mean better for rugby and the fans not the coffers of the Unions and Administrators.
SUPER RUGBY
2011 saw the launch of the new Super Rugby competition and structure. The expansion to 15 teams and name change was done in a manner which would allow for future teams to be added without changing the name. The same as what we are seeing this season with The Rugby Championship.
My only problem with the expansion is that the Melbourne Rebels got the license ahead of the Southern Kings purely because of financial implications to SANZAR. The Kings were clearly the club with the better structure, team and planning. I mean right at the end the Rebels amalgamated 7 tenders in to one. And then it became clear that SANZAR would lose $15-$20 million over 5 years due to reduce Australian TV rights if the Rebels didn't get the spot. So money was the reason for the Rebels inclusion.
But let's look at the structure of the competition. There are 15 teams competing in 3 conferences. Each country has a conference for the 5 teams from that country. SA conference: Stormers, Sharks, Lions, Cheetahs, Bulls. NZ conference: Crusaders, Chiefs, Highlanders, Blues, Hurricanes. Aus conference: Brumbies, Force, Rebels, Reds, Waratahs.
Each team plays the other 4 teams in the conference once home and once away. They also play two teams from each of the other conferences away from home and two teams at home. That makes for a total of 12 games for a team before the play-offs begin.
Each conference has a log to determine the winner of that conference. The three logs are also combined into an overall log. The three conference leaders are placed in position 1-3. From then on it is based on the points of each team. This means that the teams placed below 3rd place might have more log points than 2nd and 3rd placed teams. Teams placed 3rd to 6th play in a makeshift quarter final to determine who will play in the semi-finals against 1st and 2nd place.
3rd and 4th place will have home ground advantage with 3rd playing 6th and 4th playing 5th. The winners of the so called quarter-finals then play in the semi-finals against the 1st and 2nd placed teams. 1st place will play the lowest log placed team at home and 2nd place the highest log placed team. The winners then play the final. The highest ranked team has home ground advantage. This set up is more confusing than the Doughworth-Lewis system in rain effected cricket ODI's.
2012 will see the Super Rugby competition starting on 24 February and running until 4 August. There will be a 3 week break between round 15 and 16 for international games around 14 July. Every week 1 team has a break as there are only 15 teams. This makes for the longest Super Rugby season ever in weeks played. A total of 131 games are played to determine the winner. Each team will play a minimum of 16 games and a maximum of 19 games.
New Zealand and South Africa's domestic Currie Cup and ITM Cup can only start after the completion of Super Rugby. Australia doesn't have this problem as they don't have a state or domestic provincial competition. As a result South africa has reduced the Currie Cup from 8 to 6 teams.
HEINEKEN CUP
The Heineken Cup is a European club rugby competition played between teams from England, Ireland, France, Italy, Scotland and Wales. The top teams from each country’s domestic competition qualify to make up the 24 team competition. Six teams from England and France qualify. Three each from Ireland and Wales and two teams each from Italy and Scotland qualify. The other two spots are filled by the winners of the previous season's Heineken Cup and Amlin Challange Cup competitions. If the winners have already qualified through domestic competition, an additional team from that country will qualify.
2011 saw the launch of the new Super Rugby competition and structure. The expansion to 15 teams and name change was done in a manner which would allow for future teams to be added without changing the name. The same as what we are seeing this season with The Rugby Championship.
My only problem with the expansion is that the Melbourne Rebels got the license ahead of the Southern Kings purely because of financial implications to SANZAR. The Kings were clearly the club with the better structure, team and planning. I mean right at the end the Rebels amalgamated 7 tenders in to one. And then it became clear that SANZAR would lose $15-$20 million over 5 years due to reduce Australian TV rights if the Rebels didn't get the spot. So money was the reason for the Rebels inclusion.
But let's look at the structure of the competition. There are 15 teams competing in 3 conferences. Each country has a conference for the 5 teams from that country. SA conference: Stormers, Sharks, Lions, Cheetahs, Bulls. NZ conference: Crusaders, Chiefs, Highlanders, Blues, Hurricanes. Aus conference: Brumbies, Force, Rebels, Reds, Waratahs.
Each team plays the other 4 teams in the conference once home and once away. They also play two teams from each of the other conferences away from home and two teams at home. That makes for a total of 12 games for a team before the play-offs begin.
Each conference has a log to determine the winner of that conference. The three logs are also combined into an overall log. The three conference leaders are placed in position 1-3. From then on it is based on the points of each team. This means that the teams placed below 3rd place might have more log points than 2nd and 3rd placed teams. Teams placed 3rd to 6th play in a makeshift quarter final to determine who will play in the semi-finals against 1st and 2nd place.
3rd and 4th place will have home ground advantage with 3rd playing 6th and 4th playing 5th. The winners of the so called quarter-finals then play in the semi-finals against the 1st and 2nd placed teams. 1st place will play the lowest log placed team at home and 2nd place the highest log placed team. The winners then play the final. The highest ranked team has home ground advantage. This set up is more confusing than the Doughworth-Lewis system in rain effected cricket ODI's.
2012 will see the Super Rugby competition starting on 24 February and running until 4 August. There will be a 3 week break between round 15 and 16 for international games around 14 July. Every week 1 team has a break as there are only 15 teams. This makes for the longest Super Rugby season ever in weeks played. A total of 131 games are played to determine the winner. Each team will play a minimum of 16 games and a maximum of 19 games.
New Zealand and South Africa's domestic Currie Cup and ITM Cup can only start after the completion of Super Rugby. Australia doesn't have this problem as they don't have a state or domestic provincial competition. As a result South africa has reduced the Currie Cup from 8 to 6 teams.
HEINEKEN CUP
The Heineken Cup is a European club rugby competition played between teams from England, Ireland, France, Italy, Scotland and Wales. The top teams from each country’s domestic competition qualify to make up the 24 team competition. Six teams from England and France qualify. Three each from Ireland and Wales and two teams each from Italy and Scotland qualify. The other two spots are filled by the winners of the previous season's Heineken Cup and Amlin Challange Cup competitions. If the winners have already qualified through domestic competition, an additional team from that country will qualify.
This season sees the following teams compete:
England - Leicester Tigers, Northampton Saints, Gloucester, Harlequins (qualified as Amlin Challange Cup winners), Bath, London Irish, Saracens; France - Toulouse, Biarritz, Clermont Auvergne, Castres, Montpellier, Racing Métro; Ireland - Leinster, Munster, Ulster, Connacht (qualified as Leinster were Heineken Cup Champions the previous season); Wales - Cardiff Blues, Ospreys, Scarlets; Italy - Benetton Treviso, Aironi; Scotland - Glasgow Warriors, Edinburgh.
The teams are seeded into 4 tiers of 6 teams each. Seeding is determined by previous performance in the Heineken Cup and Amlin Challange Cup. The teams are drawn in 6 groups of 4 teams with a team from each tier in a group. There can however only be 1 team from a country in a group unless England or France has a 7th team in the competition.
The teams play each team in their pool home and away after which the pool winners all proceed to the quarter finals. Rankings are determined by pool points earned. The two best runners up make up the top 8. The other 3 runners up go into the Amlin Challenge Cup quarter finals as teams 6-8 based on their pool points. The top 4 teams in the quarter finals have home ground advantage. 1st plays 8th, 2nd plays 7th and so forth.
The winners play the semi-finals again based on their positions in the quarter finals. And from there the final is played. The final is played at a ground pre-determined at the start of the season. This year it will be played at Twickenham. A total of 72 pool games and 7 play-offs games are played to determine the winner.
The Heineken Cup is played during the regulation domestic season of the countries participating. Every 4 weeks two weekends are set aside for this to happen.
My conclusion is that the Heineken Cup is a better format for an inter-country competition. High standards are set and still smaller rugby countries and their clubs get the chance to participate against the bigger teams. This gives players exposure to a higher level of rugby. Combine this with the 6 Nations starting shortly and you have for some good competitive rugby.
Super Rugby on the other hand is currently all about rugby. Basically the franchise system is a sham as very few of the smaller unions do get players selected to the regional teams. The biggest hamper currently for SANZAR is the Australian Rugby Union. They don't have a domestic competition and now uses Super Rugby for this. It puts a strain on NZ and SA. A competition based on the Heineken Cup should give bigger Rugby exposure to Southern Hemisphere Rugby.
Take the current 15 teams playing and add the 4 top teams from Argentina. Add to this a team from Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Namibia and Japan and you have your 24 teams even if it is the national sides from the last 5 countries. This will give exposure to players from all over the Southern Hemisphere to top flight rugby. After 79 games a winner is determined and Bob's your Uncle. The top two of the last 5 countries can then join the Rugby Championship in a 6 Nations type competition.
What would be great to see is the semi-finalists of the Heineken Cup and Super Rugby playing in a world club/provincial championship with basically quarter-finals, semi-finals and final. Now that would be great for world rugby.
Currently though we are stuck with what we have. Just hope SA and NZ grow some big ones and tell Australia to go fly a kite with a wire string in a thunder storm. But they won't because money makes the world go round.
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