OUTRIGHT PREVIEW: Super Rugby Pacific 2023

Darry Worthington takes a look at the format of the tournament, how the 12 sides are shaping up prior to kick-off and gives his verdict on who he thinks will take the title come the close of the second Super Rugby Pacific campaign in June.

To Win Tournament Outright

Crusaders 7/4
Blues 9/4
Chiefs 4/1
Hurricanes 15/2
Brumbies 12/1
Highlanders 16/1
Reds 16/1
Waratahs 33/1
Fijian Drua 66/1
Melbourne Rebels 100/1
Western Force 100/1
Moana Pasfika 150/1

Tournament Format

The tournament follows the exact same format as last season with teams set to play 14 games. They will play against each side in the tournament playing teams in the opposing conference and then play three teams from their conference twice and two teams from their conference twice.

Once again, regular season games that end in a draw will go to extra time where the winner will be decided by virtue of a ‘Golden Point’.

The tournament will run from the 24th of February up until the 24th of June.

Rule Changes

Before we start looking at the teams and the conferences that they form part of, let’s have a look through some rule changes heading into the tournament. 

Rule 1 – Shot Clocks

Gone are the days of sharpshooters standing over the rugby ball for what seems like an eternity while they line up a simple conversion or penalty from 10 metres out and directly in front of the posts.

Super Rugby Pacific will not stand for this wasting of precious time and goalkickers will now have 90 seconds to take a conversion from the time a try is awarded and just 60-seconds to take a penalty from the moment the decision is made to have a shot.

While similar rules were kind of in place prior to this, they were hardly ever enforced by referees. The men with the whistles will be enforcing them in Super Rugby this year, however, as they have been instructed to start their stopwatches as soon as a try or penalty is awarded.

Impact: A lot of players are likely to get called up on this during the early salvos of the season. They’ll adjust and eventually, it’ll become second nature.

These rules will make pressure shots at goal all the more challenging but we’re likely to see more points across all fixtures as these rules will ensure the ball is in play a lot more.

Rule 2: Assembling Scrums and Lineouts

Forward packs! Assemble! And in 30 seconds only! The big men will not be happy with this one as their rest time will be significantly shortened as they will now only have 30 seconds to prepare a scrum or lineout from the moment they are awarded.

Impact: We’re likely to see far more ball-in-play now as these were areas that well and truly slowed down the game. With this, will come more tight five substitutions as the big men are likely to get through a whole lot more work.

Rule 3: Foul Play Review

Really good one next up. Refs will now issue a yellow card for serious foul play that could be deemed to end up as a red card. While the player is off the field, the TMO will review the incident and decide whether to keep it as a yellow card or upgrade it to a red.

Impact: This should help get more accurate decisions when it comes to the issuing of cards as the officials now have more time and less pressure to make their decisions.

It’s also a massive one for supporters as there will not be mammoth delays in the middle of the game as we won’t have to wait for TMOs to make a decision before the game restarts.

Rule 4: Pulling the Nine Into the Line

This is a bit of a controversial one as it will stop nines pestering their opposite number as they will now not be allowed to rush the back of the scrum. Defending nines will be forced to stay on their side of the tunnel.

Impact: This will likely bring the number eights more into the game as they’ll get clean pick ups at the base of the scrum.

We’re likely to see more pick and goes from the base and we could well see flankers become more of an attacking option by running inside channels off the eight after they have picked and gone from the base.

New Zealand Conference

Crusaders, Highlanders, Hurricanes, Blues, Chiefs, and Moana Pasifika

Favourites: Crusaders and Blues

Two standouts here with last season’s finalists the Blues and Crusaders likely to be the pick of the New Zealand sides once again. The juggernauts of Kiwi rugby are short-priced to win the comp with last season’s champions, the Crusaders, currently topping the betting boards while the Blues are just behind them as second favourites.

Scott Robertson’s ‘Saders weren’t as all-conquering as previous Canterbury teams during the inaugural Super Rugby Pacific season as they lost to the Blues, Chiefs and Waratahs during the regular season.

As is always the case with the most successful team in Super Rugby history, however, they produced the goods at the back end of the season impressing in the playoffs with wins over the Reds (37-15), Chiefs (20-7) before beating the Blues 7-21 in the final which was staged at Eden Park.

The Crusaders haven’t lost too many of their key players from last year’s title run although the departures of Bryn Hall, George Bridge and Pablo Matera will have weakened their depth somewhat.

They have moved quickly to rectify the outgoings with impressive young backrower Christian Lio-Willie joining from the Highlanders while veteran Willi Heinz has been brought in to sure-up their scrum-half stocks.

It was oh-so close for the Blues once again as they were beaten to yet another Super Rugby title by their biggest rivals. The Aucklanders were almost flawless during last year’s regular season as they won 13 of their 14 round-robin phase matches with their only defeat coming at the hands of the Hurricanes in Round 1.

The writing started appearing on the wall that it would not be the Blues year at the semi-final stage as, having smashed the Highlanders 35-6 in their quarter-final clash, the Blues looked exceedingly nervous against the Brumbies just scrapping a 20-19 victory.

Those same nerves came out in the final a week later as they failed to get their attacking game going and ended up losing 7-21 to the Crusaders in front of their home faithful.

2023 is looking more and more likely to be the Blues’ best chance of breaking their Super Rugby duck – I’m not counting their 2021 Super Rugby Aotearoa victory as a win as it was an internal tournament. They’ll be losing some big-name players at the close of this one and that may well set them back a couple of years.

In a bid to break their duck, the Blues have brought back stalwart Patrick Tuipolotu. It would be fitting if the Blues did win it this season to have the veteran raise the trophy for the province that he’s bled for on so many occasions.