Sonny Bill Williams calls for SA to return to Superrugby

SOCIAL SPOTLIGHT: All Blacks star Sonny Bill Williams has called on South African franchises to make a return to Super Rugby.

South African teams have been absent from the southern hemisphere competition since 2020, after shifting north to compete in the United Rugby Championship and Europe’s elite club tournaments.

While the Springboks continue to contest the Rugby Championship alongside New Zealand, Australia and Argentina, the country’s leading franchises now ply their trade in northern hemisphere competitions.

The Bulls, Lions, Sharks and Stormers are all competing in the URC this season.

In Europe, the Bulls, Sharks and Stormers are featured in the Champions Cup, with the Lions and Cheetahs involved in the Challenge Cup.

Williams’ comments came in response to a clip shared on X of Sharks scrumhalf Grant Williams scoring against the Saracens on Saturday.

The 40-year-old former world champion posted:

“Can the South African teams stop playing hard to get and come back to Super Rugby? Asking for a mate.”

New Zealand Ru gby forced SA to move to the Northern Competitions by kicking South Africa out of Superrugby. Now tNZ suffer finncially from tht situation and competitiveness in that competion is a goner a f f actin g development of players from New Zealand also suffer, So how does NZ Rugby wants to get S A teams back? ,

Not a chance in hell that our sides will ever return to SR.

The best Sonny can hope for is that the Cheetahs and company join SR.

It's no coincidence that South Africa's rugby fortunes have massively improved since moving north.

Literally everything about our move to the URC has been a benefit. From $, to our profile, to results.

Will NZ field relatively a fresh/young team in the incoming series next year?

Assume they do...those players that they pick, they won't have been nearly as exposed to the professional game in all its variances as our young crew would have. A guy might be 22 or 23 when he gets selected for the Boks but he'll have played on the dry Highveld in summer and in the cold wet winter of Europe against every type of rugby one can think of. That type of experience is priceless...and all the guys at our major franchises benefit from it...feeding into our national squad.

When we talk about these things, the chat usually goes to money, schedules, etc. We tend to forget how massively important exposure is. As the age old saying goes...

"Exposure = Composure"

Just kidding, I made that up, but I think it's true..

Plm

I agree with most of what you wrote above. The problem always was that new Zealand suffer from lac of competitiveness in respect of their franchises and that means their player pool on national level is becoming ineffective. .

However, NZ Rugby caused the end fo Superrugby and to get SA back will be a virtually impossibile.

I said many years before it happened or any oaks here were thinking about it that we should move north.

I spoke about the bent down under refs blowing our sides out of the game and the down under sides living off us financially.

I warned NZ and Oz would want us back etc.

All foreseen by Beeno. Take another bow Beeno?

Yes Plumster no chance of us going back. The money is too good and the refs a lot better. I also don't miss the Hahahahaka.

We play the Kiwis and Oz in the Rugby Championship and that is quite enough. Best of both worlds really.

Hasbeeno, the Haka is only performed prior to Test matches, so considering SA is still in the Rugby Championship and the ABs are playing the Boks 4 times next year, guess what??

You’ll get to see the Hahahahaka a lot more!!!

I do realise you secretly adore the ABs and it’s high time you burst out of the closet and admitted the Haka sends a shiver down your spine every time you see it…..

"I do realise you secretly adore the ABs and it’s high time you burst out of the closet and admitted the Haka sends a shiver down your spine every time you see it…..

Not so much of late...

Would be great to have a combination of playing SR and Champions Cup/URC

Cut out all the local derby crap - leave that to the Currie Cup

I agree with Sonny Bill……

Piss off Becs

Language, Saffolk……

This is a money thing. Inevitably all nations are going to feel pressure to join the biggest money pot. But the URC is a pale shadow of Super Rugby at it’s best….hardly a game worth watching for the contest, interest is mostly confined to how players you are tracking perform.

That's true, Moz.

It's pretty much the Irish sides, Glasgow and then our sides. Still, that's about 8'ish sides worth watching. The Italians and the Welsh will forever suck haha.

Consider that if we remove the "fat" from the URC, then we're not far off from SR before it became Super 15 or whatever it was towards the end.

Not sure if it could happen but would like to see the Argies(Jaguars) included in the URC, and perhaps the Georgian's could put together a decent club side too.

NZ had 5 good sides, Aust mostly only 2 and us mostly 3 at best...the other 6 or 8 sides were thereabouts to outright weak...

Ireland has 4 good sides, Scotts 2 and us 3...not nearly that much different...the S12 and S14 on the other hand....

Added bonus of playing in the Champions Cup...we miss Super Rugby because of nostalgia ...yes the quality of the sides were good and the NZ and Ausie brands of play are different, but it it's not superior at all.

The game times are also far more palatable.

At least if our teams lose it's only a couple of hours until bed time...with SR, your side would lose and then you had a full day of depression to deal with haha

"The game times are also far more palatable."

Not for a rugby fan.

For a rugby fan, there was nothing better than waking up at 6am to watch a game, followed by a game at 8am, another one at 10am and then an Aussie game at either 12 or 1 pm depending on if it was Perth, followed by the SA games at 3pm and 5pm.

Now for a rugby fan, that was pretty palatable. Rugby the whole day every Saturday . . . and good rugby too.

Bring back the S12. The S14 and all that conference stuff wasn't an improvement. The S12 was the best ever rugby outside of test matches. Change it slightly to give NZ only 4 teams and give the new spot to a Pacific side.

I'd leave the URC to go back to that.

Saffa teams actually did better during S14...but yes, the conference nonsense wasn't ideal for SR and it's still a drag in the URC.

Nope keep going with the NH competitions.

Their sides are far better than I realize due to all the imports.

The Super comp not on the same level particularly the forwards.

It's also nice that generally speaking you get much better refs. How often were our sides completely shafted by the kiwi Oz Crooks. Not that this matter to our so called Saffa side supporters!

Face facts our SA sides battle in the URC even with the better reffing.

The money and travel is much better.

Can't think of any good reason to go back to propping up down under rugy. They had their chance and blew it. I warned them but to no avail. Hahahahahaha.

Moooo LA Lal LA land nobody is afraid of the dainty wee abs. It's all in your warped imagination oaks.

Get off the weed and face reality!