South Africa set to quit Super Rugby and head for Europe

Australia’s 25-year association with South African Super Rugby clubs will almost certainly end later today.

Australia’s 25-year association with teams such as the Bulls appears to be over

Australia’s 25-year association with South African Super Rugby clubs will almost certainly end later today when the general council of SA Rugby meets to vote on whether to send its four strongest franchises north into what will become the European Pro16 competition.

After threatening for so long to switch its provincial focus from SANZAAR to Europe, South Africa finally is about to do the deed, though it has taken nothing less than a global pandemic to bring about this long-predicted outcome. Certainly within South African rugby circles it is regarded as an open secret that the general council will vote to send the Sharks, Stormers, Bulls and Lions into the Pro16.

Technically speaking, this arrangement is purely for 2021, in much the same way as NZ’s Super Rugby Aotearoa and Australia’s Super Rugby AU are also only holdover competitions for next year until the coronavirus crisis passes. After that, supposedly, they will all resume the 14-team Super Rugby series that, as SANZAAR members, they have committed to through to 2025.

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At least, that is how it stands at present. The expectation, however, is that the SANZAAR executive committee will decide in 2021 to recognise that South African rugby’s future lies permanently in Europe, while Australia and NZ are likely to link up in a trans-Tasman series. Sadly, the only loser out of this will be Argentina

There was much consternation back in July when New Zealand announced plans to ditch Super Rugby and set up in its place an eight to 10-team trans-Tasman competition involving a Pasifika team, one from Japan and between two and four Australian teams.

The NZ announcement was greeted with disdain by Australia, which threatened to – and ultimately did – set up its own purely domestic competition.

But South Africa too reacted harshly. SA Rugby chief executive Jurie Roux accused the Kiwis of acting outside the terms of the joint venture agreement that is SANZAAR.

“If anybody kicked anyone out of Super Rugby, it was New Zealand kicking themselves out,” Roux said at the time.

But for all the threats of legal action, South Africa itself has teased SANZAAR for most of the past decade with threats of abandoning Super Rugby and heading to Europe instead. Having found itself isolated by the COVID pandemic – Australia and NZ both had completed their competitions before the South Africans even started – it began looking seriously at joining the Pro12 competition.

For a brief time, the Pro12 became the Pro14, following the inclusions of the two Super Rugby sides culled in 2017, the Cheetahs and the Southern Kings. But, as the pandemic descended, the expanded competition took a new hit, with the Kings going into liquidation and the Cheetahs being grounded.

It could get very messy indeed in South African rugby if the general council approves of its four senior sides taking the places of the two Super Rugby rejects in what will become the Pro16. While the Kings look like going quietly, the Cheetahs are gearing up for legal action.

As The Sunday Times pointed out, there is also considerable disgruntlement within the general rugby population in South Africa. “The traditionalists will miss regular contact with New Zealand teams,” the newspaper pointed on the weekend.

True, the South Africans have had some great contests with the five Kiwi franchises, replicating the Springbok-All Black Tests. The final Super Rugby ledger records that of the 523 games played between NZ and SA, the Kiwis won 320 of them, a winning percentage of 61.18. But the South Africans also come out behind Australia over the quarter-century of Super Rugby, with the five Australian teams winning 225 games out of 424 with SA rivals, a win ratio of 53.06.

For the three Australian teams which have been part of Super Rugby since its inception in 1996, the ratio jumps to 55.22 (206 wins from 373 matches).

And aside from the Crusaders, who won 78.21 per cent of matches against SA rivals, no team did better than the Brumbies, who dominated 66 of their 103 games, a rate of 64.07 per cent.

Meanwhile, new Wallabies lineout coach Geoff Parling admits the broken arm that Toulouse lock Rory Arnold suffered on the weekend could jeopardise his chances of being recalled to Australia as one of the coach’s picks for The Rugby Championship.

“It’s unfortunate for Rory,” Parling said on Monday. “He is certainly someone who came in for discussion about joining us for The Rugby Championships but now we’ll reassess. I’ve also got lots of confidence in the guys we have here, great players and great athletes and we’ll find out how bad that injury is and then go from there.”