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Recipe for Champions Cup tastes better than Super Rugby right now
If you like rugby, I can recommend the Champions Cup.
At least in comparison to our upcoming Super Rugby Pacific tournament. Featuring the best of French, South African and British rugby, the Champions Cup is of a high standard, played in front sizable crowds and seems to matter to the participants.
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The reaction of the Bath players and fans to beating Racing 92 the other day was striking.
These weren’t people going through the motions. The Bath team didn’t feature players wishing they’d put a sabbatical in their contract or counting down the minutes until their sabbatical starts.
One the losing side, star Racing recruit Siya Kolisi looked genuinely crestfallen.
You remember him, right? Same as you would the Stormers and Bulls who, like Kolisi, used to grace our own franchise competition but now play in the Champions Cup.
But fear not, long-suffering fan, New Zealand Rugby (NZR) and Rugby Australia (RA) have a plan.
They can’t articulate that plan just yet but promise that, from 2025 on, Super Rugby Pacific will have you on the edge of your seat.
It’s all part of a strategy to put fan engagement at the forefront of their thinking.
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This year’s competition has crept up on NZR and RA, so the 2024 season will look much the same as 2023’s, the two governing bodies announced in December.
They do promise one innovation, though, which is to potentially limit the interference of the Television Match Official and encourage less stoppages and more minutes where the ball is in play.
I’m not against that notion, it’s just that – with all due respect to a few Super Rugby Pacific squads – watching more bad rugby from more inept teams doesn’t really seem a strong selling point.
The Champions Cup is an elite competition. It involves many of the world’s best players. It’s eight weeks from go to woah, which means that results have consequences.
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In short, it’s pretty much everything that Super Rugby Pacific is not.
Cast your eye towards New Zealand’s 2024 Super Rugby Pacific squads. Look at the names and see how many you recognise and then tally up how many of those blokes you’d actually pay to watch.
The good folk at NZR and RA can come up with all the marketing ideas they like, but it’s good players playing against other good players that engages fans.
I heard a story of a lad named JT the other day. Someone asked what the initials stood for and the bloke prefaced his answer by saying his father was once a fanatical Hurricanes fan.
Turns out the young man’s christian names are Jerry Tana.
That’s fan engagement but, sadly, it probably belongs to an era of Super Rugby we’ll never see the like of again.
It wasn’t novelty that made the early years of Super Rugby compelling and turned players such as Jerry Collins and Tana Umaga into folk heroes.
The competition had a devoted and enthusiastic audience because it featured the very best of New Zealand, Australian and South African rugby.
It’s a recipe that appears to be working in the Champions Cup.
Comments on RugbyPass
Let’s not forget about Ardie Savea just yet.
4 Go to commentsThe URC and the Euro Championscup can’t run at the same time, basically dilutes both competitions.
1 Go to comments“While Sotutu should start at No.8 for the All Blacks against England, but it’s only in that arena that he can prove just how good he really is.” And that my friends is where simply hasnt shone despite multiple opportunities. Even in this performance you can see what did him in in the test arena..he almost always still runs at the opposition almost ramrod upright making him easier to stop than it should be.
4 Go to commentsShould have been 0-0 and a message from SR CEO to both teams - “don’t worry about turning up next year”.
4 Go to commentsGreat work Owen Franks. A great of this team, scoring his first try for the Crusaders since 2010.He was beaming, justifiably. A fine win, he and the rest did the job up front.
1 Go to commentsDanny Care. Lang in die tand.
1 Go to commentsBig empty stadium does nothing for atmosphere but munster are playing well with solid performance
1 Go to commentsYes, Fiji can win the World Cup! With that belief plus their christian faith🙏 and hard work it is achievable. Great article. Ian Duncan Fiji resident 1981-84
2 Go to commentsInteresting comments about Touch. England’s hosting the Touch World Cup this year and the numbers have exploded since their last World Cup in 2019, something like 70% more teams and 40 nations taking part. And England Touch have made a big thing about how many universities are in their BUCS University Touch Championship as well as Sport England membership. Can only see this growing even more domestically as more people become aware of it
10 Go to comments“Cortez Ratima is light years ahead of anyone on current form, while TJ Perenara has also skyrocketed into contention following the unfortunate injury to the talented Cam Roigard.” At last some sanity. Hitherto so many pundits have been wittering on about Finlay Christie to the point one wondered if they were observing a FC in a parallel universe where the FC they saw wasnt just the mediocre Shayne Philpott project of Fosters hapless AB reign in the real world. Ratima, Perenara and Fakatava are the ONLY logical 9s for Razor now Roigard is crocked.
4 Go to commentsThis game was just as painful as the Hurricanes game. It was real fork-in-the-eye stuff.
4 Go to commentsNow if they could just fire the Crusaders ground PA guy who likes to play his dance music and just loves the sound of his own voice the entire game, even when play is going on. And I thought their brass band thing of a few years ago was bad.
5 Go to commentsUnfortunately when you lose by far the two form players this season in Roigard and Aumua, you're left replacing two game changing Tanks with a couple of pea-shooters. Which is also about the speed of TJs pass.
4 Go to commentsBit rich coming from the guy with zero loyalty to anyone or any team, including happily taking a players place in a league world cup squad because well, SBW wanted to play in it and thus an already named player got told he was no longer going. And airing stuff like this, which may or may not be true, doesn't exactly say you're a stand up guy either SBW. Just looking to keep his name in lights as usual.
38 Go to commentsTamati Tua. …the Taniwha NPC midfielder. Ollie Sapsford, Hawkes Bay NPC midfielder…doing well
4 Go to commentsFiji deserve to be in the rugby championship, fans love seeing the Fijian national team play, the Fijian Drua is a wonderful idea but the players can still be stolen to play for NZ and AUS…
2 Go to commentsThe first concern for this afternoon are wheather forecast…
1 Go to commentsWhy cant I watch Rugby games please?
1 Go to commentsBeautiful shot from Finau, end of story. Gutted for Shaun Stevenson though.
4 Go to commentsThe Chiefs definitely didn’t win ugly. They had the superior scrum, a dominant lineout, and their defence was excellent once the Waratahs scored their two tries (thanks to some lucky refereeing calls mind you). They put pressure on the Waratahs lineout throughout the game, and the mind boggles as to why the referee did not award a yellow card or a penalty try against the Waratahs for repeated scrum infringements on their own try line before Narawa’s first try. And the Chiefs were slick with their passing and running angles on attack. It was a dominant performance all round, even with many questionable refereeing decisions.
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