The 2013 Super Rugby (also known as
Super 15) is the top club competition in the southern hemisphere.
Formed in 1996, having been known before that as the South Pacific
Championship, it brings together the top teams from New Zealand,
South Africa and Australia. It was the 2011 season which saw the
tournament expand to including fifteen teams from the twelve it was
most commonly known for. The 2011 season saw quite a big reformat as
the three participating nations being split into their own
conferences. Teams play all their other conference rivals twice and
face four teams from the other two conferences in cross conference
matches.
The top side from each conference will
qualify for the knockout stage of the tournament, and they will be
joined by the next three teams who have amassed the most points for
the season (regardless of the conference from which they come from).
The top two conference winners (based on points) gets a bye to the
semi finals, the other four teams battling through a quarter final
knockout round. With all that cleared up, the high quality
competition will be defended by New Zealand’s Waikato Chiefs. That
was their first title of Super Rugby and continued a strong New
Zealand trend of dominance in the competition. The Chiefs will go
back in as one of the favourites for the 2013 edition.
The outright favourites though will be
the Canterbury Crusaders, also from New Zealand. The Crusaders are
the most successful club in the history of Super Rugby having taken
seven titles. They were edged out in the semi finals of last season’s
competition by the Chiefs, who were the New Zealand conference
winners, in a cracking match. South Africa’s Stormers, who topped
the overall standings after the conference rounds thanks to an
immense defence, should run well again this season and are one of the
favourites. Fellow conference side, the Sharks, who have been runners
up four times before should also mount a serious challenge again
after losing in the final of 2012 against the Chiefs.
Just to put the influence of New
Zealand’s club into perspective here, a Kiwi club has won eleven
times and have been runner up seven times. They had two of the top
four clubs in the tournament last season. They, along with the South
African representatives are in the ascendancy at the moment. Only one
Australian club made it to the knockouts (and were eliminated in the
first round) in the inaugural season, and their conference had only
two representatives inside the top ten in the final overall standings
after the conference round. Three of the bottom five of the fifteen
were Australian clubs.
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