Super Rugby Pacific Preview

By Benji Crossley

It’s apt that for a summer that never really got going, the 2023 rugby season will kick off during the same weekend as the Basin Reserve is sold out for a cricket test. Here’s five things I am looking forward to for both Super Rugby Pacific in 2023.

1) The Drua playing in Fiji

Two things will stick in my mind from season one of the Super Rugby Pacific. One was the Blues lineout falling apart in the final and the second, and much more important for the future of the competition, was the Drua games that were played in Fiji. The atmosphere was electric and the Drua played great footy to go with it. This year they’ll split five fixtures across Lautoka and Suva which is bound to add a much needed shot of colour and live atmosphere to the competition. If the atmosphere and conditions, which are bound to greet opposition teams, can give the Drua a competitive edge it will give them a real push towards a run at the playoffs

2) Sideshows, of every variety

One of the problems with what Super Rugby has become, is that it feels like an entrée to something else. It doesn’t generate its own identity. You don’t look at Premier League football and view it through a prism of who is going to make international squads, you watch it on its own merits. In New Zealand, we’ve got to the point where everything Super Rugby is viewed through the prism of the All Blacks.

Unfortunately, the 2023 sideshows that will take attention away from the players and the games themselves have already begun.

Our first sideshow of the year is undoubtedly the All Black coaching process. If we’re not careful, it will become the only show in town this season. Right now, we’re not even debating who the coach will be. We’re just debating when they’ll decide who it will be. International coaches taking the focus might be a recurring theme with the return of Eddie Jones to Australia bound to take up plenty of column inches across the ditch. In fairness to Rugby Australia, Eddie Jones getting column inches may well have been the point, or part of it.

Every year rugby tinkers with its rules which creates all kinds of fun and games for fans, players and referees alike. This year is no different; countdown clocks at various points of the game will be sure to keep the crowds interested, halfbacks having to stay away from the back of the scrum and an altered TMO process are the headline changes for this season. The rule changes will be sure to be a major talking point for the early weeks of the competition and will undoubtedly throw us some unintended consequences we can all chuckle at.

3) Who wants to be a #10, the Wallabies edition

Dave Rennie had plenty of issues in his time in Australian rugby but one of his fundamental issues was his failure to settle on a #10 to guide the team around the park. For a while it looked like the Brumbies youngster, Noah Lolesio, would be that guy but, as he struggled, Rennie turned to veterans like Quade Cooper, James O’Connor and Bernard Foley. At the time of writing, none of those names are starting for Australian teams this weekend. Lolesio is coming off the bench for the Brumbies,  there is a Lynagh wearing the 10 jersey for Queensland, which is an intriguing prospect, but Cooper and Foley will both be watching on from Japan. Eddie Jones has plenty on his plate with the Wallabies but perhaps his most important decision will be who gets the #10 jersey.

4) Roger Tuivasa-Sheck

It’s entirely possible that I wasn’t watching closely enough but my memories of Super Rugby Pacific in 2022 had Tuivasa-Sheck as one of the best 12s in the comp. Ian Foster and his mates clearly didn’t agree and RTS spent the rest of the year holding tackle bags. The rumours of a return to the NRL in 2024 have been pretty constant over the off season but it’s clear that he’ll need a massive Super Rugby season to force himself into contention in a crowded midfield space for the All Blacks.

Every game he plays will be examined with a microscope for signs that he has taken his game to the next level. Has he added a kicking game over the off-season? Will the Blues give him time on the wing in an attempt to show some utility value? Whatever happens, everything he does and every decision his coaches make about him will be looked at with a magnifying glass.

5) Will someone please stop the Crusaders

I am absolutely certain I speak for fans of all other teams in Super Rugby when I say that we desperately want someone that isn’t the Crusaders to win the competition. It’s not that they aren’t impressive, or that they don’t play exciting rugby, it’s just that they’re really annoying. Just when you think you’ve got them on the ropes, they do something remarkable. Just when you think the dynasty is beginning to crumble, it doesn’t.

The only situation I want to see Scott Robertson break dancing this season is after guiding Fiji to a World Cup quarter final by beating Australia and Wales in the group stages.

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