Super Rugby 2017

The Blues have seriously disappointed me this season so far (funnily enough), they have the talent as always and Tana is a great coach and though last season wasn't great it was a much better than previous years and it looked very promising.

The game plan they had last year was in my opinion the best out of all of the NZ franchises, frustratingly it hardly produced the results but looked as though they needed to adapt to it and keep building on it into this year, it seems to me that they've gone away from it but should have stuck with it

Quite different to the other nz franchises, more of a ball in hand pressure building type game plan whereas the others, with maybe the exception of the hurricanes, build pressure while on defence, play territory and strike off counter attack and/or mistakes with straight ruthlessness, for all the talent they have they are unable to do that for some reason

Highlanders look like they're going backwards to how they used to be, Chiefs seemed to have got that edge again that won them back to back titles which is great to see.

Activist wrote:The Blues have seriously disappointed me this  season so far (funnily enough), they have the talent as always and Tana is a great coach and though last season wasn't great it was a much better than previous years and it looked very promising.

The game plan they had last year was in my opinion the best out of all of the NZ franchises, frustratingly it hardly produced the results but looked as though they needed to adapt to it and keep building on it into this year, it seems to me that they've gone away from it but should have stuck with it

Quite different to the other nz franchises, more of a ball in hand pressure building type game plan whereas the others, with maybe the exception of the hurricanes, build pressure while on defence, play territory and strike off counter attack and/or mistakes with straight ruthlessness, for all the talent they have they are unable to do that for some reason

Highlanders look like they're going backwards to how they used to be, Chiefs seemed to have got that edge again that won them back to back titles which is great to see.

And the Canes look scary when playing on a dry track!

They do indeed, they played very well in the opening 20 minutes in the wet vs the Chiefs in such bad conditions I thought that was very impressive the ball handling and skills they showed even though they lost in the end.

Two teams from SA and one from AU.

Looks like we are back to the conference system. Does that mean that the Jaguares will play in the SA conference and the SunWolves in the AU conference? Looks like NZ players are not particularly fond of bashing against each other kiwi franchise home and away ...

tryasta wrote:
Looks like we are back to the conference system. Does that mean that the Jaguares will play in the SA conference and the SunWolves in the AU conference?

Correct. I was hoping for a round-robin like the good old days.

Wohooo... then we are all losers in the new deal.


My understanding is that SA will veto any format that requires their players to be on the road for 6 weeks, and that makes round robin impossible.