Trying times

Super Rugby gets off to a rollicking start, but black clouds loom over NZR; Black Caps perfect prep; Sinner exposes tennis' battle between haves and have-nots.

Follow the leader - Luke Jacobson on the charge. Getty Images

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Super Rugby started with the full breakfast buffet of bedlam. While defence was a dirty word in a couple of the fixtures, here’s looking at you Moana Pasifika and Force especially, week one was an appropriately chaotic watch.

There were 45 tries spread across the five matches, the most consequential of those coming in Sydney and Perth where the Waratahs and Force pinched games in the 80th and 84th minutes respectively. Up by 13 with five minutes to go, Tana Umaga will have recurring nightmares about the inability of his Moana side to close out what should have been a relatively comfortable win against the Force — a side many will have marked down as wooden-spoon favourites.

The weightiest match, the replay of last year’s final, also happened to be the one that most resembled “real” rugby. It wouldn’t be fair to call the Blues-Chief finals rematch a grind, but it was shorn of the freewheeling elements of the others.

Joshua Fusitu’a’s yellow card was the match’s critical moment, with Leroy Carter dotting down in his absence to take a lead the Chiefs never looked like relinquishing, thanks in large part to Luke Jacobson, who took over the game’s final quarter in an understated, follow-me kind of way.

Stern Vern Cotter has earned a reputation for being direct, apparently, but if anyone can decipher what he was saying here, you’re doing better than me.

From TVNZ:

“What I thought we didn’t do particularly well was adapt,” Cotter said. “We’d got ourselves comfortable around dominating scoring… sometimes you just need to learn to adapt. And that’s what I’m talking about — [showing] the maturity is sometimes going to be tough and you have to find a way, and it might be a different way than you’re used to.”

Adapt to what, exactly? Adapt how, exactly? Isn’t, when all is said and done, “dominating scoring” the determinant factor between winning and losing? Are the Blues going to spend this week training to become uncomfortable around dominating scoring, or comfortable being scored upon?

Did they need to adapt to the opposition tactics, to the conditions, to the ref, to their own limitations, to the appearance of a naked stranger in the Chiefs backline?

While Scott Robertson’s first year as All Black coach wasn’t perfect, one thing he brought to the game which was appreciated (by this newsletter at least), was far more granular post-game analysis rather than the boring platitudes that have become the stock in trade of rugby players and coaches since time immemorial.

The sport would be in a better place if that attitude of disclosure seeped into all corners of the game, and to be fair to Cotter it is up to those to whom he serves up these word salads to probe him for more details.

At least Cotter cannot be accused of hyperbole. Across the Tasman it was all bouquets as the Force, Brumbies and Waratahs kickstarted their seasons with wins.

It prompted this headline in the Sydney Morning Herald, which was cause for a double-take: “The Suaalii effect: Has rugby’s multimillion-dollar recruit already paid for himself?”

To date, Sua’ali’i has played four tests and one Super Rugby match.

Given his A$5 million three-year deal, that works out to about a million a match. That is not the way to analyse this deal, however, say proponents of the contract.

The Waratahs are expecting a “strong” crowd based on ticket sales, but whether it challenges the 25,000 that saw the Tahs play the Brumbies in the first game back in Allianz in 2023 won’t be known until the night.

(NB. The crowd against the Highlanders was a smidge more than 16,000.)

Already, however, the impact of Suaalii on the Waratahs is evident, following a pre-season where the star recruit has been plastered on multiple back pages of Sydney newspapers, appeared on morning television and in ad campaigns, and been a steady presence in his new sky-blue kit on social media, too…

Online tracking by Waratahs officials has shown a 60 per cent increase in search traffic for the Tahs, and while Suaalii-boosted crowds may take a few weeks to gauge, the club says there has been a 15 per cent increase in membership sales compared to the start of 2023.

The coup de grace was this line…

It has all helped generate a buzz about a Waratahs player – and a Super Rugby season – not seen since the early days of Israel Folau.

For Australian rugby’s sake, let’s hope this one ends better…

***

This is a sports report worthy of the “Premium” ($) tag that came with it.

It’s a sprawling report on the fragility of New Zealand Rugby’s finances in the wake of the Ineos sponsorship brouhaha and covers a lot of ground, from the direct issue of replacing the petrochemical money, to broadcast cash to the Silver Lake “problem”.

Writes Gregor Paul:

There’s a worst-case scenario looming for New Zealand Rugby (NZR) in which it potentially sees its income drop by almost $50 million next year and its costs jump by $10m.

For an organisation that lost almost $10m in 2023 and $47m in 2022, the possibility of a $60m black hole opening in the accounts next year has left New Zealand’s entire rugby ecosystem on edge.

If the income drops as sharply as some fear, the consequences could be far-reaching and devastating — forcing NZR into an austerity plan that will likely impact almost all aspects of the national game.

There are plenty of nuggets in there, including that before the ill-fated deal key NZR staff were urging their bosses to sign up with Amazon, not Ineos¹; that Sky are likely to seek a deal worth $26m per year less than what they currently pay; and that Silver Lake shareholders might insist the company converts its loan to equity, even though it has done little to nothing so far to boost NZR’s revenue profile.

I failed the only accounting paper I took at university, but I know enough to say the story was not a positive one.