The credibility of the Wallabies and Super Rugby go on the line in July
Attendance at the Super Rugby Pacific semi-finals will surpass attendance at equivalent matches in the United Rugby Championship played last weekend.
15,346 people attended the Leinster v Stormers match in Dublin and 17,981 turned out for Glasgow’s “home” semi-final against the Bulls in Murrayfield. The Leinster v Lions quarter-final played a week earlier failed to attract more than 10,000 and even the official attendance in the 9000s was seen as generous. Times reporter Peter O’Reilly.
The URC is perhaps more of a competition played out of necessity than Super Rugby, but these overwhelming crowd numbers should not cause any delight in this part of the world because they only tell half of a complex story.
The aim of Super Rugby has always been in part to prepare Australian and New Zealand players for Test rugby. By its own definition it is a high-performance vehicle whose value depends on the success of the Wallabies and All Blacks. A decision will be made in that region soon.
Ireland, France and Italy arrive in July and while Les Bleus have a snowball chance of bringing in their best sides – despite claims to the contrary by Rugby Australia chief executive Phil Waugh – all three nations will face tough challenges in their first Nations Championship.
The new tournament already has enough critics. Some countries, such as France, will rest their star players after long European seasons, feeding the narrative that the Nations Championship will lack real meaning.
But it’s probably best to give the tournament the benefit of the doubt. Once it starts, competitive instincts will kick in and everyone will want to win it. This won’t take away the Rugby World Cup in terms of relevance, but that doesn’t mean it will be devoid of meaning.
However, the flaw of the Nations Championship is that it is marketed as a clash of the hemispheres, which is not the case.
South Africa and Argentina players are now largely focused on European rugby competitions. A whole new generation of players is emerging with no prior exposure to Australians or New Zealanders at club level. They are shaped according to the northern hemisphere, not the southern hemisphere.
The July Tests will therefore be a case of Super Rugby Pacific against others rather than a clash of hemispheres, and no one can escape the gnawing feeling that this isolation does not serve the Wallabies or the All Blacks well.
At the very least, it is difficult to quantify what benefits Super Rugby Pacific will bring to the Wallabies and All Blacks. We just don’t know.
Conversely, if we asked whether the Irish, Scots and South Africans gained a benefit in terms of high performance from the URC semi-finals, most reasonable people would say yes.
The South Africans were in hostile territory against two overlapping teams with the Ireland and Scotland internationals. And while the URC will struggle to convince anyone from Dublin or Glasgow that they should care about manufactured rivalries against distant Cape Town and Pretoria teams, their national coaches are likely to find gold in those encounters.
Does Super Rugby Pacific provide the same benefits for the Wallabies and All Blacks? At best we should be agnostic about this theory.
That’s why Super Rugby Pacific officials have such difficulty selling the competition’s undoubted success stories; “Outselling” the URC semi-finals would be another one.
Super Rugby Pacific operates with a lack of trust among critics and long-time observers. We want the competition to be great and we want the Wallabies and All Blacks to be top five teams but we don’t see the evidence yet.
A strong July for the trans-Tasman foes (five Test wins in six) could begin to change that narrative, but the opposite is also true.
The risks are high. A strong push to privatize Super Rugby is underway with the support of New Zealand clubs.
Rugby Australia and New Zealand Rugby will be in a position to resist and maintain control if the Wallabies and All Blacks are humming along. Super Rugby’s credibility is on the line in July; There’s no way to cover this up.
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Paul Cully is a rugby columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect with: X or email.
