The Orange

Seeing the Save Our Teams people are having so much fun, I’d though I’d start my own campaign.

It’s got to have a nice slogan – like “Save Our Teams” – so how about Otago’s Got Ta Go! From the Super 14 that is.

All the kerfuffle about the NPC and the teams that should take the drop have raised, at least in my strange mind, a different question – why the hell do we continue to put up with the Highlanders in the Super comp?

If the NPC relegation was based on performance this year alone, there would be a fair degree of ants in the kilts in Dunedin given that Otago is currently 5th from the bottom just one point ahead of Manawatu who are odds on to go down.

While you could possibly argue that the performance of Southland (currently 4th equal but fifth on for and against) mitigates the lowly position of Otago, it’s a pathetic effort for the base of a Super franchise.

More importantly, Otago’s performances in the Super comp doesn’t stack up either:

• 2009 – 11th and last of the NZ franchises
• 2008 – 11th and last of the NZ franchises
• 2007 – 9th and last of the NZ franchises
• 2006 – 9th and last of the NZ franchises
• 2005 – 8th and last of the NZ franchises
• 2004 – 9th and second to last of the NZ franchises
• 2003 – 7th and second to last of the NZ franchises

Based on the last seven years, Otago’s lucky it’s not a racehorse – it it was, it would be canned and Fido’s favourite.

Like my flat earth friends at Save Our Teams, there will likely be someone crying but look at Otago’s past record.

Sadly, the past has nothing to do with the present when it comes to sports teams.  Much of Otago’s successes in the 1980’s and early 1990’s came from the imports who played out of Otago University.  With the development of professional rugby and academies, Otago’s lack of quality players is woefully exposed as the players don’t need to pretend they’re at university to play rugby full time.

It’s no surprise to see Hawke’s Bay for example prosper in the professional environment when for many years their best and brighest went away to play first division and super rugby and many of those to Otago.

Off the field, Otago doesn’t appear to have the commercial support either although the replacement of Carisbrook creates a bit of a moral dilemma.

However, if it came down to performance, then the Highlanders should go north.

Yeah right.

If I had a little bit more time (OK, if I could be stuffed) I’d do a Tui Billboard.

FFS the Aussies barely can handle 4 teams at present – and there has to be real question marks about the credibility of Queensland:

Queensland rugby is teetering on the brink of the abyss as the aftershock of Berrick Barnes’ departure toppled the state’s two top officials and caused the Reds two remaining star players to reconsider their commitment to the disintegrating franchise.

In the wake of the stunning developments, which saw QRU chairman Peter Lewis and chief executive Ken Freer announce their resignations, an alarmed Will Chambers of the Melbourne Storm, the Reds’ only major new signing for 2010, re-opened talks with Queensland even as Reds’ Test winger Digby Ioane was contemplating following Barnes to NSW.

.. turn the effing lights on at North Harbour.

What an embarassment for rugby in NZ and with the scary prospect that we’re only a couple of years for the next Rugby World Cup.

Talk about passing the buck (funny that, with Buck being North Harbour and all!):

North Harbour Stadium chief executive Brendan O’Connor said the company would be talking to Vector about future supply. “It doesn’t scare me but it is a timely reminder to all of us involved with the Rugby World Cup that there are things out of our control and the need to have good backup.”

North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams said he was not surprised to hear of the outage. “There has been so little investment by the utility companies into North Shore’s infrastructure that our system is so fragile just one limb on the line can bring down the power.”

Perhaps the Stadium should have a backup plan like a generator?

On second thought, anyone else think it was an outraged Blues fan who pulled the plug?

Another rugby post at the Orange!!!!

What next?

Anyway, just spotted an interesting story on the ABC web site which floated the idea that everyone’s favourite S14 coach John Mitchell may be on the way out.

While the Force continue to surprise on the field, they have issues off the field.

They got burnt with sponsors and are struggling to retain marquee players.

The story also notes that the CEO has resigned.

Based on many years as a Warriors supporter, it’s a fact I tell you that an unhappy front office makes an unhappy team.

Will be interested to see if the story has any legs.

I’m on a bit of a Super 14 roll, so let’s keep it going.

Kind of like use it or lose it.

When the Super 12 kicked off it was all so new and we ruled the world and we showed them how rugby could be played.  Bugger me, did we what.

But i bet when the fishheads who came up with bonus points were thinking through all their scenarios, not once did they think that a team could get blotted – not score a single point – and yet still score a bonus point.

Nor did anyone think a team could be dicked by around 30 points and yet still score bonus point.

See where are we heading with this?

If anyone was reading this, they may be able to help because I can’t think of any other serious competition where bonus points play such a role.

In the big four American pro sports, as far I tell, there’s no bonus points.  You win or you lose.  Americans simply hate draws because there isn’t a winner so they’re hardly likely to get excited about scoring a bonus point for a glorious 0-6 loss!

EPL – win, lose, draw.

NRL – win, lose, and only draw when the we’ve played extra time.

Imagine if golf gave bonus points for longest drives or closest to the pin.

Anyway, that’s one side of the argument.

The other point is how the table is distorted by the impact of the bonus points.  Let’s look at a little something I whipped up out the back showing what would happen if we went back to the good old tried and true system of 2 points for a win and 1 for a draw (as with the NRL).

The current position of each team is in the first column, followed by team name, games played, wins, draws, losses, points diff, bonus points 1 (losses 7 points or less), bonus points 2 (4+ tries) and finally total points.  Teams are ranked by points and then points diff.

The Bonus Point system simply doesn’t reward the best teams.

The Sharks have won the most games but are second to the Chiefs who’ve clocked up the most bonus points altho admittedly the Sharks have played a game extra.

The Blues however are undoubtedly the biggest winners – they’re currently fifth on the table yet if we go with the old and improved that’s how we did it in the old days point system, they would drop down to 8th.  Amazingly, the Blues on 5 wins are ahead of TWO teams who’ve won six games – the Tahs and Brumbies.

I’ll repeat the activity once the final round robin games have been played to see what difference the bonus points have made.

I’m not trying to get on my hobby horse bagging rugby.  Not really.

But there’s a couple of points about the Super 14 I want to get off my chest.

First, the Highlanders.

The last couple of weeks you would have thought Jesus was playing on the wing the way the press was writing up the Southern Men.

Fair enough, they had beaten the Bulls but the reality always was that the Highlanders still had a tough road ahead of them with the South African trip still to come.

Getting dicked by the Blues certainly doesn’t help and you’d need a few Speights in you to think that the Highlanders have got a chance.

Frankly, I think it’s increasingly a travesty that Dunedin sitll has a Super 14 team.  Any justification for having a team in the deep South goes out the door when they need to play HOME games in Palmerston North.

As for player depth, without the draft there wouldn’t be a team.

The reality is that player strength and financial support is further north.  But don’t expect logic to enter into any discussions about moving the franchise north.

Just as the Aussies didn’t let logic get in the way of expaning the number of Aussie teams in the Super 14.

Sure, it makes it a more appealling with more home games and especially more local derbies.

I bagged the depth in Australian rugby earlier this year and even managed to get right up the nostrils of some Aussie.  I’d love to see him return!

At the time, I made the comment that the Aussies didn’t have depth to justify 4 team … and our Aussie mate rightly pointed out that the Tahs were in the top 2.

We’re now at the pointy end of the season and how things have changed.

Now not ONE Aussie team is in the top 5.  More importantly, the top Aussie team (the Tahs) has still to have its bye.

At the other end of the table, the Reds are second to last and only because the Cheetahs are so bad.

Not a great advertisement for expansion in Australia.

Mind you, the Highlanders aren’t a great advertisement for 5 teams in NZ either!

It’s a bit of a worry for anyone when the undertaker starts talking about your ailing health.

Inga the Winger is the latest to join the queue to warn about the dire state of Super rugby.

In today’s Herald, Inga reckons Super rugby is in “survival mode”.

Just like some of my recent posts (surely he hasn’t been reading the Orange??), he points out that the NRL is packaged to maximise fan and spectator interest.

It’s not rocket science.  NZ and Oz rugby fans don’t want to watch rugby in January.

Not that the Yarpies care.

Inga does make a good point tho.  He doesn’t agree with the Yarpies’ ideas but he does admire the way they are simply hell bent on getting their way and bugger the rest of the world.

The current Sanzar impasse is indicative of the problems. South Africa is sticking to its guns, wanting an even earlier start to the Super 14 seasons. Australia and New Zealand want a later start, and there are other issues of dispute.

It’s high time that the NZRU was much more assertive on the international stage.

While I disagree with South Africa’s position on the Super 14 season, I do kind of admire them for standing up for themselves.

It’s time our rugby administrator grow some balls.

Wynne Gray has hit the nail on the head in yesterday’s Herald*: Time to Ditch SA From Super Rugby

I’ve blogged about this issue in a roundabout way over the last couple of weeks without really saying it quite so bluntly but I agree it’s time to move on.

The guts of what Gray has to say is this:

The tyranny of travel and time difference in this Super rugby series is one of its greatest downfalls while the seasonal familiarity of the accompanying Tri-series has eroded much of the sport’s intrigue.

New Zealand and South Africa have a rich rugby history but it is in danger of being watered down the longer Super rugby and the Tri-Nations continues. Tests every second year would do much to recapture some of that spark while it would also free up more time in the congested annual schedule.

Part of the problem of heritage is that it often blinds you to the future.

While the Super rugby concept has been around now for over a decade, we can easily fool ourselves that we need the Yarpies to survive.

Indeed, the Yarpies do pay proportionately more for the TV rights than do NZ or Oz.

Rugby administrators – as bad as they are – only need to look at the NRL to see that a proper professional rugby competition should be possible.

Indeed, the AFL in Australia outstrips rugby and league in Oz yet is a purely domestic competition.

There are a number of advantages in thinking local.

First, a reduction in travel obligations will cut some costs and appeal to players with less time in planes and hotels and more time at home.

Second, a purely Australasian tournament will provide more product on a time that suits the TV networks.

Third, anything we do that potentially minimises the threat posed by the Boks has to be good for the AB’s!

I’m not the only one to be giving SANZAR a bit of stick.

Now I doubt anyone from NZRFU HQ would bother reading a two-bit blog like this (assuming it is two bit and not just one bit).

I’m equally confident that a few more people will read the NZ Herald (Granny to you and I) and a lot of those will read Wynne Gray’s comments about rugby.

In Saturday’s Herald, he launches into SANZAR for their failure to get their collective shit together:

It was disturbing to think that men [from the IRB] often lampooned for their ineffectiveness had outdistanced their new-age Sanzar counterparts.

Indeed.

How embarassing when the IRB can sort out a tournament that starts the same year as the new SANZAR tournament.

I accept that there are some complicated issues that SANZAR has to deal with.  That would normally encourage you to get going earlier.

The point is that SANZAR is simply unable to organise a professional sports competition to compete with the NRL in the South and the club comps in the North.

It may seem a little harsh assessment (it’s not an assertion) but the reality is that all parties in SANZAR are motivated by internal politics rather than building the best possible sporting competition.

And while self-interest continues to dominate, we’ll continue to get a half arsed tournament when there is the makings of a decent professional rugby competition.

Some of the RWC decisions are debatable, especially the decision to kick off games at 9 pm NZT.  The logic is admirable – maximise TV audiences in Europe – but it will certainly make the games less of a spectacle.  (Wait for the grannies to write letters to the editor complaining that their grandson/daughter can’t watch the games cause they’re part their bed time!)

However, what isnt debatable is that at least the RWC decisions have been made.  As Gray puts it:

It is an indictment when the RWC can outflank Sanzar, when those characterised as the doddering global administrators can hit the tape earlier than those smart young things from the Southern Hemisphere. Spanked them well and truly.

At least we still have the NRL

This post will be hard to write but it needs to be written anyway.

Back in the Glory Days of Super12 (when we cared, we knew the players, their away strips weren’t 0% style and 100% embarassment), Stephen Jones was spwewing in the North about the froth of the Super12.

He pointed out the lack of power scrummaging, the emphasis on points and tries over the essence of sport – competition and drama.  Indeed, he suggested the heresy that a tight game with few points was more exciting than a point a minute extravaganza, which is what we had come to expect from the Super12.

Now, I admit I didn’t actually watch the game between the Highlanders and the Crusaders but I was keeping a close eye on the score updates.  At first, I was concerned that my browser wasn’t refrshing but then it became clear that deep inside the second half, no points had been scored.

I’m in no position to question the quality of the game but without any doubt the game epitomised the tension and drama that at its best makes sport so rivetting.

So, perhaps our nemisis Mr Jones may have been right after all.

On a related topic, it again shows what a farce the bonus point situation is.

The Highlanders won and are obviously deserving of the full points.  The Crusaders get a point for a close loss.  In most other professional competitions, you either win or lose – a close loss is another of those sporting oxymorons.

And who defined a close loss?  Why isn’t it six points or 10 points?  It’s completely subjective.

I’m now starting to see little reason for the four try bonus point – it simply rewards one part of the game when we all parrot that defence wins matches.  So why reward reckless disgregard for defence?

The bonus points also end up distorting the table at the end of the season.  You win or you lose.  Better teams will generally have a better for and against record. And don’t we want the better teams in the playoffs?

I have no doubt that Stephen Jones willl never ever read this blog.  In some ways, I hope he doesn’t because he may then think that he’s right on the rest of his rants which I happily tear into.

But if he did, I’d have to put my hand up and say mate – you were right about the Super rugby.

And that’s as unlikely as finding a Crusader supporter with two eyes.