Playoff numbers to be cut under Super Rugby restructure

The closure of the Melbourne Rebels is also set to trim the numbers in Super Rugby’s maligned eight-team finals system, with a return to a six-team playoffs next year in an 11-team competition.

The Super Rugby Pacific finals series kicks off this weekend, with the Brumbies, Reds and Rebels all representing Australia. But given eventual wooden-spooners NSW were also in contention to make it until the last two weeks of the season, the overcrowded playoff series came in for fresh criticism.

Under the current structure, eight teams in a 12-team competition make the finals, and before the Waratahs played their penultimate game of the season against Moana Pasifika, NSW had won just two games all year but still had a mathematical chance of qualifying.

But with Super Rugby Pacific going down to 11 teams next year, the number of teams in the finals is also set to be slashed, under the favoured plan being put together by the Super Rugby commission.

Under the proposed competition structure for 2025, the new-look Super Rugby competition would be played across a 19-week season, with two byes for each team, according to sources with knowledge of the plan. Each team would get seven home games, one more than in 2024.

The finals would go back to a top-six, with the teams finishing in first and second spot having a week off, and a first round of finals between third vs sixth and fourth vs fifth.

The Brumbies finished third and will play in the 2024 finals this weekend.Credit: Getty

A six-team finals format was last used in the 2015 Super Rugby competition when 15 teams were competing: including five from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Meanwhile, Rugby Australia have moved to clarify the prospect of a National Club Competition starting later this year after a social media post by RA appeared to announce the creation of the third tier competition.

On Tuesday, RA announced insurance broker Gallagher as a commercial partner on social media, for the Wallabies, Wallaroos, Super Rugby W, Under-16s and Under-19s programs. But it also included “National Club Competition”, which sent keen observers into a frenzy of speculation.

RA later confirmed there will be no National Club Competition in 2024, and edited the words to “any future National Club Competition” on the RA website. The mistake was as a result of Gallagher expressing willingness to stretch their sponsorship to a third-tier competition, if and when it began, according to informed sources.

Talks have been underway for over a year about the best option for a third-tier competition below Super Rugby, which would run after club competitions in September and October.

The national club competition is one possibility that has been discussed, and so has an Australian state-based competition that could use players, coaches and resources of existing Super Rugby and state franchises. It could allow a senior Victorian men’s side to compete against the other states, and possibly Pacific Islands representation too.

RA has stated that it will continue “grow the game within the state” of Victoria after the shutdown of the Rebels in Super Rugby, and they continue to own the rights to use the club’s name and colours in all competitions.

The state-based competition could play a similar role to the former National Championships which ran from 1998 to 2000, and the 2006 Australian Provincial Championship, which utilised existing provincial franchises.

Currently, there is a one-off Australian Club Championship game, played last March between Randwick and eventual champions Brothers from Brisbane, but no broader competition between the country’s best club sides.

A potential disadvantage of a National Club Championship as a third-tier, developmental vehicle would be players all flocking to top clubs to get exposure at the next level, thus harming the clubs with less resources.

Watch all the action from the 2024 Super Rugby Pacific season, with every match ad-free, live and on demand on Stan Sport.

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