Here’s what I think Super 15 should look like

Now 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.

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

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?

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The Here’s what I think Super 15 should look like by Hamish McBrearty, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.