Sport: Put more fizz into Super Rugby final

Sanzar needs to take an urgent look at the controversial new Super Rugby format.
Defenders will argue it needs time to bed in and was always going to struggle for traction in a Rugby World Cup year.
But rarely in top level sport has there been such a drawn-out build-up for so little fizz at the end.
It makes the agonisingly long one-day cricket world cup feel like the recent blink-and-you-missed it netball champs in Singapore.
More local derbies and an extended top-six play-off series resulted in nothing but an excruciating exercise in milking every last cent from television rights.
Pitiful attendances proved what the paying punter thought of it all - they stopped caring weeks before the final in Brisbane.
The Crusaders and the Reds were so obviously head-and-shoulders above the rest, their collision in the final was inevitable.
Then, just when you thought this whole sorry mess couldn't get any more forgettable, the final highlighted yet another format fault - the best team won't always win the title.
After countless travelling miles - one insane trip to London included - the homeless Crusaders made two tiny mistakes and the game went to the Reds.
Play it again this week and you get a different result.
Now before you go reaching for the cliche book and reminding me this is Finals Footy and games at this level are won and lost on the tiniest slip-up, that's irrefutably true.
No argument there.
But as the competition stands, there is simply too much of an imbalance.
Why go to such painful lengths to find the finalists - the competition goes on even longer next year - and have just one game to decide the winner?
Seems to me that rugby bosses happily stole basketball's best conference and playoff bits but stopped short on including the most thrilling of them all - the "best-of x" final series.
Imagine how enthralling a home-and-away, best-of-three final would have been this year, particularly given the sentiment behind the Crusaders' bid.
Much like the hugely popular NBL final showdown between the Breakers and Cairns, it needn't have been a drawn-out affair, either.
Play the first game on the Saturday night in Brisbane, another the next weekend on Crusaders' turf, and if you need a decider they're back in Queensland a week later.
Two weeks of a riveting rugby competition guaranteed to spike Sky subscriptions and get the turnstiles moving again.
Too taxing on an already crammed schedule? Yes, as it stands.
But there's a simple fix - just clip the 16-game initial round-robin system by a week.
It's way too long at the moment. Two-thirds of the way through it this year and the cracks were showing.