Tank Lanning
The rift between the top 6 sides in the Currie Cup and the rest was made painfully apparent on Friday night. And it is not as if the Kings dominated the 1st division this year. In 3 games between the Kings and the Pumas, 2 were drawn and the final was won by 1 point! The Premier division simply has to remain a 6 team tournament.
And it’s not as if the Kings have improved over the years … The 2010 Promotion / Relegation scores: EP Kings 28-46 Pumas, Pumas 36-36 EP Kings, and SWD 32-28 Leopards, Leopards 37-22 SWD
Of course it makes absolutely no sense to put a side that takes 50 points from the last placed Currie Cup team into Super Rugby while kicking the team that were a grasshopper’s hamstring away from making the Currie Cup final out of Super Rugby. But this became a non-rugby decision a very long time ago.
To my mind, SA can only sustain 4 competitive franchises, so what we do with that 5th one is almost irrelevant. The Lions have been appalling at Super Rugby level and brought this mess upon themselves.
Much talk about the King’s lily white makeup … The fact that they got given only a year at the top is just ridiculous and almost relieves them of their development responsibilities, which should have been the primary reason for their existence! Dogshow …
Their Super Rugby side will look very different to the one that turned out on Friday, though. For starters, their skippers Luke Watson and Darron Nell will be back. And they will have the likes of Demetri Catrakilis, Steven Sykes, Andries Strauss and their overseas signings in the mix …
But Super Rugby comes with player attrition of enormous proportions, and I just do not see the EP side being able to front up a squad that will be anything short of a joke at the highest level.
I actually like the idea of the Kings playing Super Rugby, and this could have been good for our rugby, on many levels, but the way it has panned out, I only see SA Rugby being the laughing stock of world rugby again … Why do we do this to ourselves?
This Kings business is a complete farce, I wonder if SARU will take resposibility when the Kings prove to be martyrs before the juggernauts of the Super XV, namely Crusaders, Chiefs, Sharks, Ect.
I said it before – but should Hoskins not be campaigning for a Heineking Cup format – so a shorter Super rugby season as we have 4 pools, which will include all 6 of our franchises?!!
It may mean Super Rugby will be slightly watered down, what with a few mediocre Aussie teams lurking about and the Lions and Kings likely to continue struggling – but it will give SA some huge benefits that they are not otherwise receiving from the Super Rugby season:
1. A refocus upon the currie cup for those players not part of the backend of the shorter Super rugby season of 8 weeks max (incl playoffs), and so strengthening our foundations.
2. Sustaining the Lions and Kings – so that the former will not disintentegrate and the latter will have time to develop local talent realistically, to the benefit of SA rugby.
3. The Kings to form part of the Currie Cup so that silly relegation is not necesarry – it may work for premiership football but SA rugby is nowhere near financially big enough or professional to allow a Union of the size of the cheetahs to be usurped by a minnow like the Pumas or An Other.
Other necessary developments:
1. Get rid of the stupid vodacom cup – what purpose does it serve that our dying 120 year rugby clubs cannot do?
2. Begin taking steps to incorporate Argentinian teams into Super Rugby.
Thoughts?
If I’m not mistaking, the Kings already have two overseas players in their mix. Winger Paul Perez and prop Clint Newland. Are they now seen as SA players? I don’t see them qualify for the Boks in any case.
Will the Kings have a “B” team competing in Vodacom Cup while SupeRugby is on? if not i see them thrashed by all the lower rank teams in Vodacom Cup.