Archive for May, 2009
Super 15 format revealed
Posted by: | CommentsYou heard it here first, with no inside sources I practically nailed the new Super 15 competition structure. Clearly SANZAR must read this blog and come here for advice, or perhaps we both know a good idea when we hear it.
The key difference between my proposal and the new format is the six team playoff system, where the three conference champions and three wild card teams make the playoffs. The top ranked conference winners receive a first round bye in the playoffs, while the rest battle it out in elimination finals.
One question which hasn’t been answered anywhere that I’ve read is how the rankings will work to determine the first round of elimination finals. Will the teams be ranked according to their competition points? Or will the lowest ranked conference winner be ranked above the wild card teams?
Here’s an example from this year’s tournament. South African Conference champions are the Bulls, Australian Conference the Waratahs and New Zealand conference the Chiefs, wild cards go to the Hurricanes, Crusaders and Sharks. The Bulls and Chiefs are the top two ranked conference winners and get a first round bye, so the question is: Would the Waratahs be ranked above the Crusaders and Hurricanes because they won their conference, or would the Hurricanes and Crusaders be ranked third and fourth due to their competition points?
The only other difference from my proposal is the fact that teams will only play four of the five teams from the other two conferences in regular season play, eight games instead of ten. Do we need a full round robin system? No, and as always the cream will rise to the top. Notice the six teams who would make the playoffs under this system? Notice where they are on the points table? First through sixth, funny that.
Here’s what I think Super 15 should look like
Posted by: | CommentsNow that SANZAR have reached an agreement that will see Super rugby expanded to 15 teams for the 2011 season, the question everyone wants to know is, what form will the competition take?
Since the details are yet to be announced, here’s how I would structure the Super 15 if I were in charge. First detail to get out of the way, where does the 15th team come from? The obvious answer would be Australia, probably Melbourne, which gives all three nations involved five teams each.
There is the obvious argument against expansion, particularly as all three nations have at least one team who seem to be perennial stragglers, such as the Reds, Cheetahs and Highlanders, but for the purposes of this proposal, I’m ignoring that.
First off, split the teams into geographic based conferences.
| South Africa | Australia | New Zealand |
| Bulls | Brumbies | Blues |
| Cheetahs | Force | Chiefs |
| Lions | Melbourne | Crusaders |
| Sharks | Reds | Highlanders |
| Stormers | Waratahs | Hurricanes |
What purpose do these conferences serve? Two purposes, firstly we want to see more derby games, more rivalries and a bit of provincial pride for these teams so I propose that each team plays the other four teams in their conference twice, once at home and once on the road. That makes up eight games of the schedule. The question then is, would organizers want a true round robin tournament where everyone plays everyone else, or can some regular season fixtures be dropped in favour of an expanded playoff format?
I see no reason not to go for the full round robin, leaving teams to play 10 inter-conference games for a total of 18 regular season games. This also tailors to the request from the broadcasters for more games, a total of five more games per team or 45 additional fixtures.
Then comes the tricky matter of who makes the playoffs, and this is where I use the conferences once again. Take the top two teams from each conference, they’re in. Then compare the remaining nine teams and take the top two regardless of which conference they are in, call these the wild card teams.
Now rank these teams one through eight, with the conference winners automatically in the top three regardless of points, and play a single elimination playoff system. That is to say, quarter finals, semi finals and a grand final. Or use one of the excellent alternatives to this such as the NRL’s McIntyre System or the AFL’s modified version of this system.
Let’s look at this year’s table and how it would pan out under this system:
South Africa would have the Bulls and Sharks through, Australia the Waratahs and Brumbies, New Zealand has the Chiefs and Hurricanes though while the Crusaders and Force claim the wild card spots.
Seedings
| Seed | Team | Points |
| 1 | Bulls | 46 |
| 2 | Chiefs | 45 |
| 3 | Waratahs * | 41 |
| 4 | Hurricanes | 44 |
| 5 | Crusaders | 41 |
| 6 | Sharks | 38 |
| 7 | Brumbies | 38 |
| 8 | Force | 36 |
Now notice that the Waratahs are seeded above the Hurricanes and Crusaders, despite having fewer points or a worse points differential, that’s because they would be Australian Conference Champions and as such, entitled to a seeding of no worse than third. We would then be looking forward to four quarter finals in Pretoria, Hamilton, Sydney and Wellington this weekend and all three nations would be guaranteed representation.
What do you think? Should I sell this idea to SANZAR and retire to a tropical island?
Super 14 semi final picture coming into focus
Posted by: | CommentsAfter the first two games of the final round, the playoff picture is becoming pretty clear. After the Chiefs beat the Brumbies by 10-7, they secured a home semi final for themselves as they can now finish now worse than second, while the Brumbies are out. The Waratahs managed to beat the Lions 38-33 and secure a bonus point for themselves, but it may not be enough for Australia’s last chance to have a team in the semis.
The Waratahs sit on 41 points, currently third, and have a points differential of +29. However the teams around them are yet to play this weekend. The Hurricanes have 39 points and a points differential of +92 so can make the semi finals with a draw against the Reds, although given current form it seems far more likely that they will claim a bonus point win.
Then we have the Crusaders on 37 points with a points differential of +31, which means a win without a bonus point against the Blues tonight would put them above the Waratahs on points difference.
Then we have a final game of the round between the Bulls and Sharks, which depending on other results could be a do or die game for the Sharks, or a dead rubber. The Sharks have 36 points and a points differential of +44, so should the Cruaders win, without a bonus point and by 13 points or fewer, a Sharks bonus point win would see them in the semi finals.
For the Bulls, on 42 points, their semi final spot is sewn up, it’s just a matter of what position they end up occupying. Even a loss to the Sharks without scoring a bonus point would see them finish no worse than fourth.
Essentially, the playoff picture hinges almost entirely on the Crusaders v Blues game. A bonus point win by the Crusaders seals up the top four as the Chiefs, Bulls, Hurricanes and Crusaders, while anything else sees the door left slightly open for Sharks and Waratahs. One thing is for sure, it’s going to be fun!
Inside The Numbers Week 13: Attack and Defence
Posted by: | CommentsAs the Super 14 goes into its final week with seven teams still in the hunt for semi final spots, it’s interesting to take a look at what makes the difference between a good team and a poor team, besides the number of wins. So what’s more important, attack or defence?
Attack
| Team | Points For |
| Hurricanes | 343 |
| Chiefs | 328 |
| Blues | 327 |
| Bulls | 311 |
| Brumbies | 304 |
| Force | 295 |
| Lions | 261 |
| Sharks | 256 |
| Highlanders | 226 |
| Reds | 220 |
| Crusaders | 216 |
| Stormers | 207 |
| Waratahs | 203 |
| Cheetahs | 192 |
Well that almost looks like the points table, except what are the Blues doing in there? Even though they have no chance of making the semi finals, they have the third best attacking record in the tournament. Then there’s the Crusaders, who can secure a semi final spot with a bonus point win over the Blues, but sit eleventh in terms of attack. While it does help to have a good attcking team, it doesn’t guarantee success.
Defence
| Team | PA |
| Waratahs | 180 |
| Crusaders | 185 |
| Sharks | 212 |
| Stormers | 227 |
| Chiefs | 229 |
| Highlanders | 236 |
| Bulls | 245 |
| Force | 247 |
| Hurricanes | 251 |
| Brumbies | 296 |
| Cheetahs | 313 |
| Reds | 343 |
| Blues | 354 |
| Lions | 371 |
That’s a bit more like it.Those sitting in four of the top five spots are still in contention for the playoffs, although the Hurricanes sit nineth in this stat, which is something of a surprise.
Finally, what happens if we combine the two:
| Team | Difference |
| Chiefs | 99 |
| Hurricanes | 92 |
| Bulls | 66 |
| Force | 48 |
| Sharks | 44 |
| Crusaders | 31 |
| Waratahs | 23 |
| Brumbies | 8 |
| Highlanders | -10 |
| Stormers | -20 |
| Blues | -27 |
| Lions | -110 |
| Cheetahs | -121 |
| Reds | -123 |
It would appear that this is the one. The seven teams remaining in contention for the playoffs occupy the top eight places, with the Force, who fell out of contention last week, rounding out the top eight.
The Blues high position in attack but low position in defence, overall margin and the table shows that all out attack without a good defence is useless, while the high ranking of the Crusaders and Waratahs in the defensive stats shows that the old cliche: defence wins championships is still true today.
So perhaps this confirms what we’ve always known about rugby: a good attack is nice, but a good defence is better and if you can have both then your team could be a title contender.
I’d forgotten how well behaved rugby players are
Posted by: | CommentsNormally this would be something I would have posted to my Referee’s Corner blog, but since I haven’t used it in years you’re stuck with my own personal experiences here too.
I refereed rugby almost every weekend for 10 years before I got fed up with some of the politics of appointments and left for football (soccer). Although I am now a football referee at the weekends, I continue to referee secondary school rugby on a Wednesday afternoon.
Typically most football players want to argue decisions out on the field, from just a glare in the general direction right up to shouting at the referee. What I have found so far in my career as a football referee is that most of the management techniques I learned in rugby, from a quiet word asking for cooperation up to strangling a game with the whistle, simply don’t have any effect on some players.
The answer to why that is seems to be cultural. In football is seems all referees are assumed to be blind and incompetant until they prove themselves otherwise.
Now in rugby, referees are held in high esteem, partly because without a trained referee teams cannot play contested scrums in New Zealand. And I can back this up with an example from yesterday.
One team was complaining that their opponents were using their hands in the ruck frequently, and they were and I was pinging them whenever I saw it. Now as part of my pre-match briefing I tell captains they can ask me a question at the appropriate time but to make sure what they say is a question, so when I gave a scrum to the team in possession for an unplayable tackle and the captain complains that there were hands in there again, I told her to pipe down.
Her protest, “But they are using their hands,” annoyed me and I decided to take action: A long blast on the whistle and a penalty against her, then I pointed straight at her and said, “You will not tell me how to referee this game!” And guess what? Didn’t her another complaint from her or her teammates for the rest of the game.
That’s not to say there way no communication, she asked me a couple of questions during the game, with regards to a couple of offside and advantage decisions, and I was able to work with her to solve an issue with flankers detaching early from the scrum.
Would I have gotten the same result on the football field? I very much doubt it, in fact I likely would have been swarmed by player and likely booked more than one of them for that behaviour.
As rugby referees we are taught to be the 31st man on the field, but also told there are times you need to be number 1, in football you are the 23rd man on the field and always will be, even when you try to get on top of players. And perhaps that also answer the question of why football struggles for referees despite having more players than rugby, while rugby is able to provide referees to games involving kids as young as 11.
