2018 Super Rugby draw announced; NZ Herald

The new-look Super Rugby competition for 2018 is locked in, with the draw for next year being released today.

The 2018 tournament will kick off on the 17th of February with the South African Conference. The Stormers will be hosting the Jaguares in Cape Town in the season opener, before the Lions, runners-up the last two years, host the Sharks in Johannesburg.

The Australian and New Zealand Conferences will kick off a week later when the defending champions Crusaders open the defence of their title at home against the Chiefs.

The Crusaders will have a tricky conclusion to the regular season, playing their final five games against fellow New Zealand opposition.

The Brumbies, last year's Australian Conference winner, open the season against the Sunwolves in Tokyo who are now positioned in the Australian Conference.

SANZAAR CEO Andy Marinos defended the changes, after an off-season where the competition was cut from 18 teams to 15, with the Cheetahs, Kings and Force all getting the axe.

"It was not an easy decision to reduce the number of teams but a necessary one considering the outputs from the strategic review to date. The tournament was not working with 18 teams, the structure was confusing, the outcomes of matches were becoming too predictable and the fans and stakeholders had, through our surveys, voiced their concerns."

Each team will play 16 matches, with two byes apiece. Eight teams - more than half the competition - will make the playoffs, with the three conference winners plus the next highest five sides on the overall ladder making the cut.

The final is scheduled for the 4th of August.

To see full draw click here

Gregor Paul: Super Rugby draw is better, but still flawed; NZ Herald

It shows just how bad Super Rugby had become with 18 teams that there has been a red carpet welcome for the previous format that was never particularly loved.

Super Rugby has reverted to a 15-team, three-conference format as it was between 2011 and 2015. That format got the boot in 2016 when the competition expanded to 18 teams, but it probably would have been given the boot regardless.

No one much liked it, least of all New Zealand's players who felt that having to play two full rounds of local derbies was too demanding.

It's kind of silly to pretend otherwise - the New Zealand Conference is the toughest. It is the most intense. The five teams in it hammer the snot out of each other in games that aren't so far removed from tests.

Doing it eight times in the season is tough and it was that desire to reduce the local content that was a significant driver leading to change in 2016.

There were other issues with the previous format, too. It was never quite right that it wasn't a full round-robin and the curious nature of playing four of the five teams in each of the other two conferences was deemed odd.

A kind of awkward fit to make it all work and it never sat right.

Yet here we are in September 2017 being asked to welcome back this old world as if it is inspired and brilli ant when back in its heyday it was maligned and mocked.

In fact, this new old world is even more flawed in that there is an Argentinian team in the South African Conference and a Japanese outfit in the Australian outfit.

So now not only are there more high-impact local derbies, there is more long-haul travel. 
There will be New Zealand teams that have to play a game in Africa and then fly to Argentina and then also play in Japan.

The tradeoff is the guarantee of eight home games and while the players aren't jumping up and down at the prospect of smacking heads in pseudo All Blacks trials, the money men are loving it.

And that's kind of all that matters. Having happy bean counters suddenly means Super Rugby is fixed.

It's not, though. The new draw and format is an improvement on what we had in 2016 and 2017. It is better for sure.

It makes more sense, but not total sense. The New Zealand teams have at least won some kind of concession that common sense has prevailed with the five wildcard places.

The three conference winners will automatically qualify for the playoffs but in 2018, unlike the last two years, the five wildcard places will go to the five teams with the most points.

But while it is improved, it is not fixed.

How can it be - because the very format that has been adopted is one that has previously been tried and rejected.

What we have is the best of a number of bad options that the executive types will say has fixed everything simply because it works better for them.