The Silver Fern

Yeah interesting on all this BB stuff coming out lately on and off the field.

Soooo what happens when Mo'unga is back if BB has this much say in matters?

And also, without turning this into a Hoskins Sotutu argument, to those who may hear things, did his non-selection cause any friction in the camp? I'm sure he'd have a fair few close mates in the side?

Again, not trying to start up an argument that's been done to death, but I'm wondering if some of the players were annoyed by it?

Is there a chance that Razor and his team goes before the RWC if we have a poor year?

If you are a youngster, is there any point in signing for the Blues? It's extremely hard to get a look in if you play for them.

@frugby said in Blues 2026:

Have heard Dalton Papalii is looking offshore, possibly already signed offshore. Anyone got anything on that?

Well with him falling out with Razor, it is of no surprise.

Once again the Blues becoming a breeding ground for overseas clubs. Yay.

@booboo said in Super Rugby 2026:

@Nepia said in Super Rugby 2026:

@cgrant said in Super Rugby 2026:

@canefan said in Super Rugby 2026:

Pro rugby league is an infinitely more exciting watch than Pro rugby union right now.

That's your opinion, not mine.

Obviously each to their own opinion, but I do find that opinion odd considering how good the actual rugby, as in the matches, were in Super and NPC was last year. The test rugby was a less enjoyable watch.

League for me finished with a bang with the Pacific Championship win, but my eternal pessimism about the Warriors meant that even when they were flying high early in the season I just assumed how it fizzled out would be how it fizzled out.

Rugby, and other sport, journos in this country are more likely to criticise rugby, and league journos in both NZ and Aus are more than happy to sell their product so it becomes accepted as fact.

It was usual to criticise Super Rugby early season several years back when it was a slow start so that when it was good it wasn't acceptable to say so.

I'll also throw in that I do not find League a particularly entertaining spectacle. Feel free to enjoy if that is your bag though.

I am a league fan too, but yes, it is seen as the cool thing to do in NZ to bag Super Rugby and hype up the NRL, even if you got some awesome Super Rugby games and dire NRL games. Ironically, and not trying to cause offence to Wahs fans, but man, they can be one of the worst teams to watch in the comp a lot of the time, but hey, credit to their promotion for getting people on board.

Nock might ecen get to the 100 mark for the Blues if he hangs around for about 2 more seasons.

@Kiwiwomble said in Super Rugby 2026:

@African-Monkey said in Super Rugby 2026:

@sparky said in Super Rugby 2026:

@frugby said in Super Rugby 2026:

@Duluth said in Super Rugby 2026:

@frugby said in Super Rugby 2026:

I think there should be more teams and the larger ones should be broken up. There should be more opportunities for players to play close to their home.. that makes for a more tribal competition with more interest.

I find this quite fascinating. Have recently been in the UK, and the sheer density of population/football teams in London is incredible, and it goes back to your first point.

What's really impressive in England at the moment is some sides in the National League, Nation League North/South and the Isthmian League (the 5th, 6th and 7th tier) pulling in paying crowds of over 5000.

Take a bow supporters of Carlisle, Notts County, Oldham Athletic, York City, Southend United, Torquay United and Dulwich Hamlet

You live therw, would you say it's a flow on efect with so many locals being priced out of going to premier league games now?

i would say thats definitely a part....but the standard is also much better, when wimbledon came through the leagues we only went semi pro in championship south i think and didnt go full pro until promotion to the league (this was only 2010), now i believe theyre full pro right through the championship

@antipodean said in Super Rugby 2026:

@Dan54 said in Super Rugby 2026:

@African-Monkey said in Super Rugby 2026:

@frugby said in Super Rugby 2026:

@Duluth said in Super Rugby 2026:

@frugby said in Super Rugby 2026:

I think there should be more teams and the larger ones should be broken up. There should be more opportunities for players to play close to their home.. that makes for a more tribal competition with more interest.

I find this quite fascinating. Have recently been in the UK, and the sheer density of population/football teams in London is incredible, and it goes back to your first point.

Why is it, that Auckland, a city of 1.5m, struggles to support two Super Rugby teams, given rugby is our national game?

Sydney is about 2x as big and they support 9 NRL teams.

Is it better to look at the population of rugby fans as opposed to actual population?

I think a ranking of average crowd size for the 14 NPC sides + the 5 Super Rugby sides would be interesting.

Auckland also has The Wahs and Auckland FC to compete with, and with a cost of living crisis, rugby is bring squeezed out by rival codes. Compare that with the population of the Canterbury region which is about 700,000 currently and growing and has ONE professinal sports team. Lets see how they cope once they eventually get a league team down the track. There's no competition currently in the South Island and the crowds down there are still pathetic most of the time.

Sydney is also not 2 times as big, it has a population of 5.5 mil.

Yep bang on AM, it's pretty different when you look Sydney has population of whole of NZ .
Problem is getting that 5.5 mill to stadiums involves a fair bit of travelling.
Brisbane las about double pop of Auckland doesn't it, and has one of each code , I think, with a couple of teams in surrounding cities? My main take is travel and of course w got a lot of people who these days quite enjoy the convenience of sitting on couches?

If you count the Goldy and Sunshine Coast (and you should) then Brisbane is over 3.5 million

And while there's been rationalisation in this millennium, if your region/ suburb had a NRL team, you had a stadium which was "reasonably" well serviced by public transport. Or certainly better than driving which is an act of self loathing.

Australia is also much more willing to waste taxpayer funds on infrastructure.

The other issue is while Australians generally support winners, my experience is there's a considerable discrepancy between codes when their team sucks. Rugby appears to be the worst- "fans" stop attending when their team sucks and are amazingly ignorant of the laws.

i remember being shocked when i first came over and their was a mid season mid table game between Richmond and Carlton...ie both having average to shit seasons and very little to play for....90k people

Yeah it's quite funny in Perth. The Eagles are obviously going through a massive rebuild and their fans have been mocked for not getting behind their side in tough times......I went to their last game of the season against the Swans and they still got 37,000, and their fans have been described as fairweather fans lol as they only won 1 game all season.

Imagine the state of NZ super rugby crowds if one of our teams were on a run like the Eagles are currently on!

@sparky said in Super Rugby 2026:

@frugby said in Super Rugby 2026:

@Duluth said in Super Rugby 2026:

@frugby said in Super Rugby 2026:

I think there should be more teams and the larger ones should be broken up. There should be more opportunities for players to play close to their home.. that makes for a more tribal competition with more interest.

I find this quite fascinating. Have recently been in the UK, and the sheer density of population/football teams in London is incredible, and it goes back to your first point.

What's really impressive in England at the moment is some sides in the National League, Nation League North/South and the Isthmian League (the 5th, 6th and 7th tier) pulling in paying crowds of over 5000.

Take a bow supporters of Carlisle, Notts County, Oldham Athletic, York City, Southend United, Torquay United and Dulwich Hamlet

You live therw, would you say it's a flow on efect with so many locals being priced out of going to premier league games now?

@Old-Alleynians said in Super Rugby 2026:

@African-Monkey

I'm not having a go. Auckland FC turned up 2 minutes ago - the Blues/Auckland rugby crowds were poor before then.

You'll get no arguments from me on the Auckland front, the NPC is dead there and Auckland themselves seemed to have given up trying to win the thing, we see more academy players running around for them with the established players playing like they don't want to get injured or something.

On the Blues, well, we were very poor in the 2010s which contributed a lot to the downfall of crowds in that era. We were usually out of finals contention by April in those years so yeah, it was hard to attract big audiences back then. What I will say though is that crowds against non NZ competition back in those days were better than what it is now.

Now, its a massive uphill task since the end if covid days. The Wahs returned fulltime to NZ with a huge following, Auckland FC Have added to the market, I haven't even included the Breakers until now so yeah, crowds since 2022 have been on a steady decline, so instead of attracting 15,000 fans or so against non NZ opposition, they're now barely attracting 10 on a good day.

@frugby said in Super Rugby 2026:

@Duluth said in Super Rugby 2026:

@frugby said in Super Rugby 2026:

I think there should be more teams and the larger ones should be broken up. There should be more opportunities for players to play close to their home.. that makes for a more tribal competition with more interest.

I find this quite fascinating. Have recently been in the UK, and the sheer density of population/football teams in London is incredible, and it goes back to your first point.

Why is it, that Auckland, a city of 1.5m, struggles to support two Super Rugby teams, given rugby is our national game?

Sydney is about 2x as big and they support 9 NRL teams.

Is it better to look at the population of rugby fans as opposed to actual population?

I think a ranking of average crowd size for the 14 NPC sides + the 5 Super Rugby sides would be interesting.

Auckland also has The Wahs and Auckland FC to compete with, and with a cost of living crisis, rugby is bring squeezed out by rival codes. Compare that with the population of the Canterbury region which is about 700,000 currently and growing and has ONE professinal sports team. Lets see how they cope once they eventually get a league team down the track. There's no competition currently in the South Island and the crowds down there are still pathetic most of the time.

Sydney is also not 2 times as big, it has a population of 5.5 mil.

@WoodysRFC said in Exodus:

@African-Monkey said in Exodus:

@hikastags said in Exodus:

Apparently ABs, Super players and the Black ferns are getting a pay increase next year. I can only assume it's a crap increase if all these players are still leaving...

One of my good mates plays at a shit club in the URC and gets around €200k (400k NZD). Compared to the 185k players are paid here, which is only for the top players, it's a no-brainer financially for mid-tier players to leave if they aren't making ABs.

Well there you have it. Lets us Taina Fox-Matamua, who was a bit part player for Ta$man who ended up spending a few seasons at Zebre in the URC. He was nowhere near Super Rugby level yet if he can demand that sort of money (in that ballpark), then it's not only mid tier players that are going to be targetted by overseas clubs, we'll end up with fringe NPC players taking up super rugby spots going forward like we're already seeing happen (Mason Tupaea and Hamdahn Tuipulotu at the Blues being an example of that last season). This isn't even taking into account the MLR which is diluting the depth in this country.

So yes, our contract model is broken and as @mariner4life pointed out, the NPC is part of the problem (sadly).

Hamdahn isn't super standard, but he was also used as a fourth / fifth choice due to an injury crisis. I'll add there's only a handful of super standard kiwi props playing overseas, Ainsley and Kaivelata? Bit rough on Tupaea by the way, he's fine as a third option, in this case he's a fourth option.

But that's my point, that guys like Hamdahn Tuipulotu are now this close to Super Rugby selection when he couldn't even crack the Auckland side and it's by no means a dig at Mason Tupaea, but he ended up playing about 8 games for the Blues last season, over half the regular season games when he wasm't even an established NPC player.

This will continue to happen going forward under our current model and these types of players are only gonna end up overseas themselves after a year or 2 as they know they've gone further than they thought they would have.

I remember when they were on the paddock when we played the Crusaders and lost late because of the scrum which was hammered by Fletcher Newell. People were waxing lyrical about how amazing Fletcher Newell was, but I was more concerned about the standard of props he was coming up against, and sure enough, he wasn't dominating anywhere near as much at the very top level of international rugby. Maybe our ABs are being ill advised as to how good they really are due to our domestic comp getting weaker and weaker?

@hikastags said in Exodus:

Apparently ABs, Super players and the Black ferns are getting a pay increase next year. I can only assume it's a crap increase if all these players are still leaving...

One of my good mates plays at a shit club in the URC and gets around €200k (400k NZD). Compared to the 185k players are paid here, which is only for the top players, it's a no-brainer financially for mid-tier players to leave if they aren't making ABs.

Well there you have it. Lets us Taina Fox-Matamua, who was a bit part player for Ta$man who ended up spending a few seasons at Zebre in the URC. He was nowhere near Super Rugby level yet if he can demand that sort of money (in that ballpark), then it's not only mid tier players that are going to be targetted by overseas clubs, we'll end up with fringe NPC players taking up super rugby spots going forward like we're already seeing happen (Mason Tupaea and Hamdahn Tuipulotu at the Blues being an example of that last season). This isn't even taking into account the MLR which is diluting the depth in this country.

So yes, our contract model is broken and as @mariner4life pointed out, the NPC is part of the problem (sadly).

@sparky said in EPL 2025/26:

Liam Rosenior has confirmed at press conference in Strasbourg that he will be Chelsea's next Head Coach and that he will be in charge for their FA Cup game against Charlton on Saturday.

Interesting now that Chelsea always look for up and coming managers as opposed to established managers.

Will we see Man U go down the same road?

Seems like the time is now for high profile clubs sacking their managers with Wilfred Nancy been shown the door at Celtic after 33 days.

@Bones said in Super Rugby 2026:

"Higgins revealed as marquee signing for R360, hoping to be fit to play by 2028"

Lets be honest, the bloke will be playing for Wales sooner rather than later.

Both Maresca and Amorim's outbursts about the respective clubs have been rather damning.

Maresca will come again I feel, unsure if Amorim will however. Amorim just screams AS Roma as his next club or something before sliding down the ladder.

An awful appointment who shouldn't have gotten the job in the first place.

@pukunui said in All Blacks 2026:

@ShaquilleOatmeal
It seems people have forgotten just how bad 2022 was.

• First home/series loss to Ireland
• First loss to Argentina (at home)
• Well beaten by Boks in the first game
• Saved by the ref calling time wasting against the Wallabies with time almost up.
• Close calls against Japan and Scotland
• Escaping with a draw v England

All of this coming off the back of the 2021 eoyt where we got smacked by ireland and france and had to sack multiple assistant coaches.

Also worth remembering this was all with multiple AB greats still in the team and a 10 who was a much better player than 2025 BB.

2025 was shit, but I would argue 2022 was rock bottom.

It was ordinary, saved by the Boks win in Joburg, but I think we showed signs that there was light at the end of the tunnel for 2023. There were a few hairy moments after thw Joburg test, but I felt at the time that it was to be expected with the coaching team changing mid season and we did also hammer Argentina and the Wallabies in the return fixtures that year. I felt like we were a more settled XV at the end of 2022 and the coaches knew what their best lineup was going into the 2023 RWC.

Can't say I feel the same optimism going into 2026 and they still seem unsure on their best XV.

@Canes4life said in Super Rugby 2026:

@SouthernMann said in Super Rugby 2026:

Few predictions heading into the year

1. MP to take the loss have Savea hard. Last.

2. Crusaders to dominate the competition once again. Final to be held at the new Christchurch stadium.

3. Blues to miss the playoffs.

4. Highlanders to win more than they lose.

5. Two Aussie sides to make the top 6.

6. If Zac Lomax comes across, he will be one of the top try scorers. With Kyren Taumoefolau and Tangitau up in the top 4.

7. Riley Higgins' injury woes continue. Sadly.

8. Nathan Hastie plays his way into Wallabies contention.

9. Samipeni Finau squashes at least four first fives.

10. George Bell is the standout starting hooker. Codie Taylor's time is primarily managed from the bench.

Just some random thoughts by watching some bazball

Fk right off pal.

Yeah listen to the bloke, trying to say that the Blues won't make the playoffs! The disrespect!

That's what you were talking about right?