SARrugby.com

While the Currie Cup has been exciting the last two or three weekends, the competition as a whole just lacks the prestige it once enjoyed. The main reason for this is Super Rugby. And to make matters worse, the players that play for the majority of the Currie cup season and earn their respective teams rights to Semi-finals &/or finals get left out for the returning Springboks/Super Rugby players. So basically, at the glory end of the competition, they miss out on what they have earned. I think it is fair to say that most people on this site agree that there is too much rugby being played, and as a result of the amount of rugby, there are too many injuries. I reckon they should have the Currie Cup as the premier local tournament with Auz and NZ doing the same. The top three teams from each country's local tournament, then go on to play Super Rugby (Champions league). That way you would have 9 teams of simlar strength playing a home and away game with the top four playing a semi-final and final. That way Super Rugby would be shorter and more intense aka better. The best players in the country could ALL play Currie Cup rugby, making it more of a high level competition. And there would be less rugby played and therefore fresher players with less injuries playing in internationals.

Your thoughts?

I like the idea. I would also have a 2nd tier super rugby league(europa league) so all teams can compete in top competitions.

You could have The Currie cup become a "minor league", or a feeder league to Super Rugby teams where young talent, guys that aren't good enough for Super Rugby, and injured players rehabing back fill the roster while super rugby players have an off season. This could even extend the Super rugby season by a couple of games because these players would not have to play in 10-12 Currie Cup games.

You have to remember, it's all about money. The more games being played, is better. Owners and league officials do not want to have less games. It means less revenue.

I posted something very similar a while back.

I love the idea of having a 2 tiered super rugby tourno and a 2 tiered currie cup.

You have enhanced the idea by having the top 3 sides from each local competition, compete in a super 9 tournament at the beginning of the following year.

The basic concept is: less fixtures + strength vs strength = Less player burnout = more intense rugga = m0re meaningful games = more intrest.

The only negative is that the officials will earn less as will the players.

But im sure it would also lenghthen their careers.

In the old days, some okes carried on playing until 40. Nowdays, no one goes past 33!!

Very good point blue.

Just hope it prevails....

At the moment, the game is so flippim saturated with meaningless games!

Nice ideas but no chance of success though.   The issue centers around money and the main TV rights.  Since the latter - and not game attendance - provides the money to the Boards, the latter will ultimately be the key to the format to be used.

The other prblem is that the top teams in for instance CC games may exclude top players that would normally be included in the Super Series teams from the latter competition.   This was what happened initially in the Super Series insofar as SA is concerned and was changed subsequently as the New Zealand teams were based on different criteria.

In summary - the key decisions will be based on MONEY - bugger the interest of the Players or the Public sad to say..   The present system will remain in plce until 2016 - as per contractual agreements and the present discussions on the issue will in fact be theroretical and have no bearing on issues until much later.

Yeah, unfortunately the bottom line is money. That is all the administrators care about. The odd thing is that the current format earns more money, but at the expense of rugby! They are going to have to rethink things at some point, because the players are just not lasting!

Bluenok

I agree with you about players lasting.   The situation prior to the professional area was that Sprimngboks normally never play more than 16 games in a year in both ests and the CC competition,   Despite that many in later years had serious physical health problems - Keith oxley being an example. 

Nowadays they have to play between 32 and 36 matches a year - Tests, Super Series and CC.   There bodies cannot possibly hold up under such conditions.   I may mention that New Zealand players also complain about it - but the Re-Union programme comments were - that they are wrong.   That shows the attitude of TV commentators.

The only way the present injury problems can be alleviated is fior each franchise to have a rotation policy.   Players should play a maximum 3 games and then get 2 games rest.    That should reduce the number of games per year played to about 20 per player    However, it will never be accepted - since franchises will have to sign contracts with more players - and if game results are adverse,  the coaches may  get booted out.

All I can say is - the poor players (money is not everything in life).

i made the same type of post a few months back...the big thing is the super rugby comp now is being setup and builded towards allowing the aussies there version of a local comp as they dont have a local comp like we and the NZ does. the biggest point is the money spinner. the commercial rights is massive and to what i heard SA bring in about 60 % of the viewership but only gets 1/3 of the profit so i doubt that SANZAR will allow this type of structure to it. the

due to the dates and times the super rugby comp has in effect taken over from the NZ and SA local comps and handed the aussies there local comp. fair to say the concept of strength vs strength will allow the super rugby comp to be more intense and more of a spectacle than the current version of it. i enjoyed more the super 12 and super 10 days than the overbloated version of it now. there needs to be a promotion relegation system in place to demand results and allow only the best in the top tier.

we cant overstate the importance of the CC in terms of the development of players or the importance to SA rugby on a whole. the players bodies as mike as said cant handle the amount of rugby and in effect sanzar is killing the goose that is laying the golden egg as players breakdown the level of competition will become less and less.

the best method will be that the curent super rugby be split into 2 tiers. the top 10 or 12 play each other in the main tier and the second tier should be expanded to include teams from japan the islands (nz will try to block this as they will lose there main form of player recruitments) and the pumas. the top 6 of each division the play in knockouts at the end of the season that makes use of a home and away concept., from that the semis and finalist will be chosen.

less games in regular season and more finals will ensure enough money generation and have a bigger following. there is just to much rugby at the moment and with smaller squads ext the players can play this amount of games and still be up for it come the internationals window. SANZAR needs to sort this out as we are shooting ourselves in the foot.

the boks need to be centrally contracted and the unions need to have a secondary say in how they use the player. as well there needs to be much better player management