Super Rugby organizer SANZAAR has confirmed the southern hemisphere rugby tournament is to be cut from 18 to 15 teams next season with the removal of two sides from South Africa and one from Australia.
However, in a statement yesterday SANZAAR left open the question of which ones will go, saying “the teams from Australia and South Africa that will compete in Super Rugby will be confirmed in due course by the respective national unions.”
SANZAAR was expected to announce that the Perth-based Western Force would be removed from the Australian conference and the Port Elizabeth-based Kings and Bloemfontein-based Cheetahs from South Africa.
Photo: EPA
Instead, it stopped short of naming the teams, heaping more anxiety on players from Australia and South Africa who fear their livelihoods are in jeopardy.
The absence of detail around the plan has plagued Super Rugby since its member nations decided in London a month ago that the tournament should be reduced in size to improve the quality of the competition and simplify its structure. Now several teams remain in limbo.
SANZAAR has confirmed Super Rugby will have three five-team conferences next year.
New Zealand is to retain all five of its current teams, while Australia’s four remaining teams will be joined by Japan’s Sunwolves in the Australian conference. South Africa’s four teams will play in a conference including Argentina’s Jaguares.
“The decision to revert to a 15-team format reflects a consensus view of the mandated SANZAAR executive committee that met in London recently,” SANZAAR chairman Brent Impey said.
Impey said SANZAAR’s major broadcast partners had endorsed the new structure “after due consideration.”
The decision comes only a year after the league was expanded from 15 to 18 sides with the introduction of the Sunwolves, Jaguares and Kings.
“The decision to retain the Sunwolves is linked directly to SANZAAR’s strategic plan for the future,” Impey said. “The potential for growth of the sport in Asia off the back of the establishment of the Sunwolves and the impending Rugby World Cup in 2019 is significant. It remains an obvious focus for the organization and a Japanese Super Rugby franchise is key to that strategy.”
It was a bitter irony that two of the teams marked for removal, the Force and Kings, met in Perth yesterday in a match that ended less than an hour before SANZAAR’s statement was released.
The Force won 46-41 in a closely fought encounter that featured 12 tries.
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