Two South African teams and one from Australia will be axed from the 2018 Super Rugby competition, governing body SANZAAR said on Sunday. The current 18-team competition will be streamlined to a three conference, 15-team format with five teams from New Zealand, four from Australia, four from South Africa, one from Japan and one from … Read more
Australia’s professional rugby players may go on strike early next year if one of their Super Rugby teams is axed in a shake-up of the competition, a report said on Friday. Fairfax Media said Australia’s Rugby Union Players’ Association (RUPA) is considering pre-season strike action if one of the country’s five Super Rugby teams is … Read more
Defending champions Wellington Hurricanes prepare to unleash their big guns this weekend but the pressure is on Super Rugby’s lesser lights amid talk of slimming down the 18-team competition. Governing body SANZAAR meet next week to discuss how to tackle Super Rugby’s unwieldy conference structure, exhausting travel schedules and lopsided contests which are now sprawled … Read more
Former Australian rugby chief John O’Neill has called for Argentina and Japan to be dumped from the troubled Super Rugby competition, along with a South African side. As the SANZAAR organisers grapple with a way forward for the confusing 18-team, five-nation championship, former Australian Rugby Union chairman O’Neill says they must return to a 15-team … Read more
A new Super Rugby season kicks off this week with bosses pledging to tackle its unwieldy conference structure, exhausting travel schedules and lopsided contests. There will be a first fixture in Samoa in June, meaning the 2017 Super Rugby season will now straddle 17 time zones and four continents. The competition will retain the much-criticised … Read more