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New Zealand Teams Proving to Be the Ones to Beat in Super Rugby This Year
Published: April 12, 2015
This year's crop is looking especially strong, with four teams emerging as genuine playoff contenders. Indeed, you could argue the Hurricanes, Highlanders, Chiefs and Crusaders are all capable of winning the whole thing.
Only the lowly Blues are easy beats for those four teams. Given that you play every team in your conference twice, that is bad news for the New Zealand franchises—although they seem to be doing well enough as it is.
After nine rounds of the competition, only three times have Australian or South African teams beaten any of the top four New Zealand teams; two were in South Africa, and one was against a rusty Crusaders team in Round 1. Meanwhile, New Zealand's top four teams have beaten teams from those conferences 14 times.
That does not bode well for those two conferences. The Waratahs and Stormers were both on top of their respective conferences when they played the Highlanders, yet both were beaten. In Pretoria the highly rated Bulls went down to the Hurricanes, while the Sharks received a walloping from a clinical Crusaders team last weekend in Durban.
In many ways it highlights the disparity of the competition. That those four top teams have to play one another twice and the best in the other conferences get their extra games against teams of a lower level makes for an unfair advantage.
For many years it has been a problem in the Australian conference, as both the Force and Rebels have been among the lowest-ranked teams in the competition. This year you can lump the Reds in there with them. Even the Waratahs have yet to prove themselves against top opposition from other conferences, while the Brumbies, top of the Au...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Rugby Union
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