{"id":60896,"date":"2021-04-21T05:31:14","date_gmt":"2021-04-21T05:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=60896"},"modified":"2021-04-21T07:57:15","modified_gmt":"2021-04-21T07:57:15","slug":"what-super-rugby-expansion-means-for-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=60896","title":{"rendered":"What Super Rugby expansion means for Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Wallabies Morgan Turinui and Tim Horan have expressed their excitement at the news two Pacific Island teams are set to join an expanded Super Rugby competition next year.<\/a><\/p>\n

But Turinui still holds fears that Moana Pasifika – to be based in south Auckland – will simply become a sixth New Zealand franchise.<\/a><\/p>\n

Moana Pasifika general manager Kevin Senio told The Breakdown<\/em><\/a> that "eighty per cent of the team will have to be eligible and\/or have played for Samoa, Tonga or Fiji."<\/p>\n

That meant those Moana Pasifika players "can't play for the All Blacks or Australia," Senio confirmed.<\/p>\n

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But Turinui said plenty of questions still remained over the expansion franchise.<\/p>\n

"The big thing about Moana Pasifika is that it's very much New Zealand led," Turinui told Stan Sport's Rugby Heaven<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n

"Kevin Senio… also works for the New Zealand Rugby Players' Association.<\/p>\n

"So he knows the environment and he's saying they will have 80 per cent of players who are eligible to play for Tonga and Samoa and that's about as direct a link as we can find to those two unions at the moment.<\/p>\n

"There is a genuine fear that it just becomes another New Zealand franchise. It's great to hear some info saying that's not the case but it isn't really cut and dried and clear for everyone at the moment."<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Full story behind Wallaby's NZ rugby flirtation<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Legend's brutal call on Super Rugby coach<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Super Rugby's finals race takes shape<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The second expansion team, Fijian Drua, is a simpler model.<\/p>\n

The Drua – who have previously played in Australia's NRC competition – will be based in Fiji and funded by World Rugby.<\/p>\n

Former Wallabies assistant coach Simon Raiwalui – now Fiji's general manager of high performance – will oversee the Drua.<\/p>\n

"It's an exciting time," Turinui said.<\/p>\n

"It will be a genuine, direct pathway for Fijian players in clubs, through to Drua and into the Flying Fijians national team. This will be the most important thing that's happened to Fijian rugby in decades…<\/p>\n

\"'Air<\/p>\n

"The big thing is both teams, their entry has been led very much by New Zealand Rugby at the moment and they alone, without Rugby Australia."<\/p>\n

RA chairman Hamish McLennan and chief executive Andy Marinos are understood to be in New Zealand for meetings with their Kiwi counterparts.<\/p>\n

RA has expressed tentative support for the Pacific expansion.<\/p>\n

Horan, meanwhile, hoped that the Drua would play in Super Rugby AU to start the season, with Moana Pasifika joining Super Rugby Aotearoa.<\/p>\n

That would give both competitions six teams and three games each weekend before joining forces for a combined trans-Tasman plus tournament.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"Because what's really important for Australian rugby \u2013 and some of it might be fool's gold \u2013 but we get two Australian teams winning every weekend with our Super Rugby AU competition," Horan told Rugby Heaven<\/em>.<\/p>\n

"It leads us then into playing the New Zealand teams and I think it takes us a while to get some momentum and we're better prepared then when we go and play the New Zealand teams. It will depend on the broadcasters of course but I think the setup at the moment is very good and it works very well."<\/p>\n

Turinui said the two Pacific teams would deliver high tempo, high octane rugby.<\/p>\n

"Great ball movement, amazing athletes and just tries and individual exploits that nobody else can do, from these players. That's the exciting thing."<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And Stan Sport commentator Sean Maloney added that a few Australian players might be quaking in their rugby boots after the news.<\/p>\n

"You've only got to ask some of the poor blokes who went over to Lautoka and Sigatoka through the NRC and got destroyed \u2013 young blokes from Aussie in the NRC," Maloney said.<\/p>\n

"They were ridiculous. Some of the stuff they strung together through the early part of NRC and then up until 2019 \u2013 they were going over to places like that and getting destroyed. And there were massive crowds as well.<\/p>\n

"In Lautoka for that final back in 2018, there would have been 12,000 there, it was huge."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Wallabies Morgan Turinui and Tim Horan have expressed their excitement at the news two Pacific Island teams are set to join an expanded Super […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60896"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60896"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60898,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60896\/revisions\/60898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}