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Nucifora backs expanded S14 playoff season
By MARC HINTON - RugbyHeaven | Sunday, 18 May 2008
Nucifora backs expanded S14 playoff season - New Zealand's source for sport, rugby, cricket & league news on Stuff.co.nz
Departing Blues coach David Nucifora firmly believes Friday night's epic victory over the Hurricanes at Eden Park should be held up as a shining advertisement for the folly of the current Super 14 playoff system.
Some of us have been saying this for years, but after a night when two of the better New Zealand teams stood toe to toe and duked it out over a fabulous, and furious, 80 minutes of football, Nucifora issued a plea for some sanity in terms of the finals.
It is time, damnit, growled the Blues coach whose side was nudged out of the mix when the dust cleared from South Africa this morning, to extend rugby's Super 14 finals to six teams and end this merciless cutoff at a brutally unforgiving four sides.
You see the pulsating round-robin finale at Eden Park was in most people‘s eyes a playoffs match. Dubbed a "quarterfinal" all week, with both teams chasing victory to enhance their semifinal prospects, the occasion did not disappoint. The best Kiwi crowd of the year - 37,352 -rolled up and witnessed a stirring contest of test match-like intensity. It really was that good.
It was an unfortunate by-product of such a magnificent match, won 19-17 by the Blues, that it actually failed to significantly enhance the finals prospects of either side. The Hurricanes' bonus point left them the better placed of the two, though both would have faced some anxious moments between late last night and the early hours of this morning as the Waratahs, Stormers and Sharks launched their bids.
There is a major overhaul of this Super 14 planned, and depending on who gets who's way in the revamp, the competition may not be recognisable when its repackaged for 2010. But Nucifora is adamant that Sanzar can significantly enhance the product immediately by adding one more week, and two more finals teams.
"It certainly needs to be looked at," said the coach who will return to Australia soon, most probably to head up the ARU‘s high performance unit. "This competition is too tough. It is one of the toughest in the world because of all the extraordinary factors that make it up. A fact of [this match] is both teams could miss out on the semifinals, and that would be a shame. Both teams probably deserve to be in the finals.
"Four teams out of a 14-team competition is tough. It comes down to this every year, and probably a six-team finals playoff would be a better scenario. I think people would see some great football in a six-team finals race."
Blues skipper Troy Flavell, who spoke about the pride he had in the way his men responded to an occasion of high intensity, agreed. "There's not much room for error. Teams tend to lift their performances for playoffs, so it would be great for spectators as well."
Exhibit A, said Nucifora, was played out before what may have been Eden Park's most involved and intense crowd in donkey's years.
"People spoke about it being a quarter-final, and you saw the intensity of that game, you saw the crowd that was out there. That was probably as good an advertisement for an expanded finals format as you could see."
While he was on his soapbox, Nucifora also threw out another plea that had some validity about it. If his team did get nudged out of the finals mix overnight, the critics should think twice before characterising this Blues season a failure based purely on that.
"All you guys know how close it is. You look at this side, and we're far from failures. We've played some great football. People forget we lost 11 players from last year's semifinal team. There's not too many other teams in this competition that can lose 11 players and then turn around and contest a semifinal spot the next year. So I'm incredibly proud of what we've achieved this year under those circumstances. Hopefully we'll be remembered for the type of performance we put in [against the Hurricanes] rather than anything else."
Nucifora, who was scathing of the no-try call on Jerome Kaino's second-half lunge in the corner, conceded that this was a time when you looked back on the lost opportunities that inevitably come back to haunt you.
"We've beaten three of the other New Zealand teams, and should have beaten the Crusaders as well. That quite a good achievement. Obviously you look back on things that got away and little things you could have done better, but this game is a good way to remember this team if we don't go any further."
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