Former All Blacks head coach Sir Steven Hansen feels that the quality of Super Rugby Pacific is still high, despite losing the South African teams in 2020. The Bulls, Lions, Stormers and Sharks all left to create the United Rugby Championship (URC). That decision has left many who watch SRP ruing the void, and believing that the southern hemisphere tournament has declined in quality since.
“An exciting time for New Zealand rugby”
Speaking on the DSPN podcast with Martin Devlin, Hansen said “The rugby is good. I mean, people get carried away and say the standard has dropped, but it doesn’t matter where you play your footy. Great players play to their own standards, and we are fortunate that we’ve got a lot of very, very talented players in New Zealand who want to be great, and they force other players to rise to those standards. So the standard’s fine. No problem.”
Hansen, who is the coach of Japanese side Toyota Verblitz, also said that he watches Super Rugby Pacific. He said “Quite a bit, it’s an exciting time for New Zealand Rugby. So I’m trying to look at and see what’s happening, and you’re looking for what’s new and what’s not new in the game, so it’s one of the products you watch.”
New Zealand’s tour of South Africa
The All-Blacks head to South Africa in August and September this year for the ‘Greatest Rivalry Tour’, as part of new head coach Dave Rennie’s first international season in charge. Rennie is taking an incredibly large squad and will play midweek matches against the four URC clubs. Hansen agreed with Devlin’s thoughts that the tour would be the perfect preparation for the World Cup in Australia next year.
Hansen said “I agree with that. One of the things we miss is not having them in the Super competition because you’re measuring yourself against they style of footy they play all the time. So, having a tour over there, we’ll get a good look at what they are doing and what they’re not doing, and be able to put your own stamp on it as well. So I agree, it’s a great place, great preparation for the World Cup.
“A lot of challenges”
Hansen shared his excitement for the tour. He said “Rugby all over the world is looking to try and improve its product with different competitions, and this is one opportunity to take a team on tour. We’ve not done it for a long, long time, and you go back into the old days, it used to be exciting. As a kid, you’d get up to listen to the radio and be on tour, but we haven’t done that for many, many years and what a great place to go.
“South Africa is steeped in history; it’s traditionally our strongest foe, they’re a wonderful side at the moment, and they produce a lot of challenges for us to be able to get excited about.”
