Rugby: Super 15 to go ahead in 2011

Super rugby will expand to a 15-team format in 2011. Photos / Getty Images

The souped-up Super 15 will be squeezed into its debut 2011 season because of conflicts with the next World Cup in New Zealand.

Details released yesterday by Sanzar partners New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, show the regular expanded series starting in late February with a break in June before the August finals followed by the Tri-Nations test series.

Those plans will be trimmed for the initial 2011 series because teams will want a break before the opening September 9 international in that year's World Cup at Eden Park between the All Blacks and Tonga.

For that year, the Super 15 will kick off on February 19 and run through until the July 9 conclusion because none of the countries will host any June internationals that season. Instead of the five byes planned for each side, teams will get only two each.

The Tri-Nations test series will begin in mid-July and run towards late August although the All Blacks, Wallabies and Springboks will play each other twice that season instead of the normal three contests.

The All Blacks played seven tests in 2007 after the end of the Super 14 and then had a six-week break before the first World Cup game.

For the 2011 event it seems the All Blacks and their Tri-Nations rivals will have about three weeks respite from the expanded Super series before they open their World Cup campaigns.

Some of the Super 15 framework was revealed yesterday by the Sanzar partners after they had released details of their agreement to their provinces, sponsors and other shareholders.

The outline for the next five-year deal, to be presented to the rights-holding News Corporation next month, proposes the regular Super series to begin in late February with five teams in each conference in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.

Sides will play each other home and away in their own conference, before they play four of the five sides in the other two sections.

There will be a break in June for sides to host in-bound tests as the All Blacks are doing this year with France and Italy, before the Super series resumes, running into an expanded six-team playoff section and early August conclusion.

Each conference winner, and therefore one team from each country, will earn automatic entry into the finals while the three other qualifiers will be those teams who have scored the highest number of points in any conference.

The new 24-week Super series will guarantee each team a minimum of eight home matches and a 16-match regular season. The expanded six-team finals series involves two sudden-death matches before the semifinals.

Outside a World Cup year, the series will be suspended in June to accommodate in-bound tests while the Tri-Nations tests will start once the Super 15 champion is crowned.

"We have said at every juncture that our preference was to maintain the three-country alliance and to build on it," NZRU chief executive Steve Tew said last night.

"We are delighted that we have reached an agreement which allows us to move the Super rugby competition to a new platform which we believe will capture and excite rugby fans in all three countries."

The identity and Australian headquarters of the new 15th team will be decided by Sanzar after a tender process.

The three wildcard finalists and the conference winner with the fewest points will play an elimination round to meet the two best-performed conference winners in the semifinals.

In a regular season, the Tri-Nations will always start in mid-August in South Africa and finish in early October with two of the three transtasman matches so that Springboks can be released early for the Currie Cup.

CHANGES

• A 15th team playing in the Australian conference will be added to Super Rugby following a tender process open to all territories, and with Sanzar making the decision on the new side's location. A timetable for tenders will be released shortly.

• The Tournament will kick off in the last week of February and conclude in the first week of August, except in 2011 when the calendar will be shifted earlier to accommodate Rugby World Cup.

• Teams will be divided into three national conferences of five teams each. The new team will compete in the Australian conference.

• Teams play the other four teams in their conference twice (home and away).

• Teams play four out of the five teams from the other two conferences (four home, four away).

• All teams will have a three-week bye during the June test window;

• The three conference winners and three wildcard teams with the highest number of competition points from any conference qualify for the playoffs.

• The wildcard teams and the conference winner with the least competition points will play an elimination round to meet the two conference winners with the greatest number of competition points in the semifinals;

• Tri-Nations will always kick-off in South Africa in mid-August and conclude with two of the three transtasman matches in early October to allow for early release of Springboks to Currie Cup. The will allow for Tri Nations tests between particular teams in particular countries to become permanent fixtures on the rugby calendar.