Figured I’d start a thread in honour of the initiative nobody asked for, and seemingly hardly anybody wants. The Super Round!
All of this weekend’s games are held at AAMI park in Melbourne; so yeah, of the 12 teams, 6 of them are missing a home game. But I believe they’re compensated by the Victoria State government so they go along with it.
Last weekend the Melbourne Rebels had 4000 in the crowd for a home derby against the Brumbies. It’ll be interesting to see if they get much of a crowd for any of these games which for the home fans are all bar 1 neutral games.
It’s just not something that makes a lot of sense for Super Rugby given the travel distances (and costs) involved for any travelling fans. So it really relies on local support to fill the stands, and there’s not really any city down here with enough rugby fans that would be able to turn out for 6 games over 3 days. Very different to say having a European club Super Round where every fan is within such easy travel of any major venue for it.
Canberra & Sydney are 70-90 minutes flight away from Melbourne, Brisbane is over 2 hours, and then Perth, Wellington, Auckland & Christchurch are probably around 4 hours off, so its a big commitment. I think the only reason the clubs do it is because the state government covers the loss of profit from holding home games, and if they’re lucky with the draw they might even make more money off it, than say Hurricanes hosting the Force.
Oh, and yep there’s a finals series for the top 8 of 12 teams :)
Actually - you’re probably right on the timing too, if they held it over Easter weekend instead I’m sure it’d be a lot more attractive to travel over the ditch for a long weekend.