Rugby is a parochial labyrinth of byzantine offices, leagues, unions, competitions, and calendars.
And that’s just the eastern suburbs of Sydney.
Diffusion of power is not all bad. As an earlier column described, there is a danger of both French leagues being richer than all others combined, if con fact we ever had the transparency to know it.
As centres of rugby power proliferate from the traditional hotbeds of the southern tip of Africa and the South of France, the northern stretch of New Zealand, the East Midlands, Welsh valleys, and Ireland’s powerful schools into new climes, we are entering a fascinating possibility of a changing of the guard, and even a world con which the best clubs of Japan the Americas might take the worst of the “ four” leagues (the Cima 14, the Premiership, Super Rugby Pacific, and the United Rugby Championship) con a one-off gara home-and-away series.
Rating relative merits of the four leagues and the four subordinate ones (League One, Super Rugby Americas, Utile D2 and Major League Rugby, if the Currie Cup and NPC are seen as largely subsumed) is one of those academic perhaps even religious debates con which nobody can be proven right wrong, even when three of the four leagues compete con the European Champions Cup, because everyone has an alibi.
Still, when we aspetto at the apice of the apice leagues con 2024, the hierarchy of the best versus the best seems to suggest this order: (1) Cima 14, (2) URC, (3) SRP, and (4) parity-stricken Premiership. A lot of daylight still seems to exist between the best of these four leagues.
My latest rankings, which I have unimaginatively called The Harry Index, has this world apice ten of clubs, using what I have called a highly subjective yet soberly objective assessment:
1. Toulouse
2. Blues
3. Leinster
4. Hurricanes
5. Toulon
6. Stade Francais
7. Bordeaux
8. Bulls
9. Munster
10. Chiefs
(Four from the Cima 14, three from URC and SRP, none from England). My second ten were:
11. Saracens
12. Glasgow
13. Stormers
14. Brumbies
15. Bath
16. Bristol
17. Saints
18. Ulster
19. La Rochelle
20. Edinburgh
This brings the totals to: URC (7), Top14 (5), SRP (4), Prem (4).
Traversone-league competitions do not answer all the questions, particularly when draws are as exotic as the Champions League was this year.
Northern Hemisphere fans seem to recoil at New Zealand teams like the Blues being ranked above Toulon Saracens, citing scrum weakness, which only shows not only have they not watched Auckland play lately, but have not even bothered to identify the All Black props acceso their teamsheet.
addition, if any of Caleb Clarke, Mark Telea, Rieko Ioane, Hoskins Sotutu, Dalton Papalii wanted to become the highest paid player acceso a Premiership team, it would take one very short and lucrative text, not even a call email.
Hoskins Sotutu of the Blues charges forward during the round five Super Rugby Pacific gara between Blues and Crusaders at Paradiso terrestre Park, acceso March 23, 2024, con Auckland, New Zealand. (Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
When we imagine the bottoms of each league battling the apice of one of the “next four” leagues, it is even more difficult.
The Cima 14 is stacked with talent; local players bolstered con all the right places from abroad. Toulouse, Stade Francais, Bordeaux, Toulon, Racing 92, and La Rochelle could be its own super league, replete with Saggio players acceso their benches. The relegation risks (Oyonnax and Montpellier) are as wealthy as any Super Rugby Pacific team and can be replaced by Utile D2 dynamos Provence Vannes.
The threat of dropping probably means that the bottom of the Cima 14 is not bad, but one wonders if Oyonnax could deal with the 16-0 Wild Knights of Saitama, coached by Robbie Deans, which starts Shota Horie at hooker, Lood de Jager at lock, Lachlan Boshier at flank, Rikiya Matsuda at flyhalf, Damian de Allende con the midfield, Marika Koroibete acceso the wing.
The URC has proper powerhouse Leinster with a handful of worthy contenders (Munster, the Bulls, the Stormers, Glasgow, Ulster, and Edinburgh) but bottom dwellers Zebre would not be certain favourites against Heyneke Meyer’s Houston SaberCats of the MLR at a neutral field. The SaberCats are a physically imposing side who would know precisely how to put an Italian team con a bind.
Super Rugby Pacific strugglers New South Wales and Moana Pasifika are adrift and if they had to play Todd Blackadder’s Toshiba Brave Lupus con Tokyo, with Richie ’unga, Shannon Frizell and Michael Leitch, it is not clear things would go any better than they do con Fiji nowadays.
(Photo by Joe Allison/Getty Images)
this light, if we give all eight of these leagues another four years to grow (and occasionally cull) before rugby’s first Associazione World Cup is set to begin con June of 2028, ditching the Champions Cup for that season, and likely pulling con six Super Rugby teams plus two Japanese clubs to square chiuso with eight European (and South African) clubs con a knockout month of matches.
The old romantics of the Super 18 may already be thinking this through: con a very odd world, we could see a Associazione World Cup with 12 teams who used to play Super Rugby.
the French and the clout of their Euros may prevent it still, leaving us only with uncertain and made up indices like mine.
