[ad_1]
Former Wallaby scrum-half Nick Phipps believes that the best the northern hemisphere has to offer would struggle in Super Rugby Pacific due to the pace of the game.
The southern hemisphere tournament is renowned for its speed and attacking ambition, while those in Europe have stereotypically placed a big emphasis on set-piece.
However, that arguably could be considered an outdated view with some of the elite club sides – the likes of Leinster, Toulouse and Bordeaux-Begles – regularly playing spellbinding rugby.
There is no doubt that elements of the northern hemisphere game is more attritional and according to Australian journalist Iain Payten, stats show that Super Rugby is quicker.
Quicker than URC and Top 14
“The key stat that gets talked about a lot at Super Rugby Pacific in the head office and even amongst the referees is game duration,” Payten said on Stan Sport’s Inside Line podcast.
“Not ball in play because that can be skewed by a bunch of different factors. It’s literally like first whistle to last whistle.
“Generally speaking you’re looking at, doing well, Super Rugby last year was about 91 minutes – you don’t count half-time.
“You’ve got an 80-minute game and then you’re talking about how much time and stoppages, and that’s about four or five minutes quicker than the URC or Top 14.
“The referees are on board with that and you can actually see they kind of get miffed if there’s stoppages that they don’t want.”
Ma’a Nonu claims South Africa ‘hit the jackpot’ with northern hemisphere move as Super Rugby ‘suffers’
That prompted Phipps, who earned 72 Wallabies caps, to chime in and make a bold call.
It has long been debated about which hemisphere has the stronger club teams and the scrum-half very much reckons the power lies with the south.
Purposefully slowing the game up
“I was watching the Six Nations three or four weeks ago and the opposition nine, the one without the ball, he was down having a break pretending he was injured.
“[Referee] Ben O’Keeffe was like, ‘get up, get up, well fine, we’ll go on and start the scrum’. Ben O’Keeffe got slammed for that. The potential is there to do it if you give these referees the opportunity.
“I would argue that you couldn’t drop the best five club teams of the northern hemisphere into Super Rugby and they’d survive. Whereas, we could drop our best five in the northern hemisphere and they’d do really well.”
READ MORE: The STAGGERING cost to watch every British & Irish Lions match in Australia revealed
[ad_2]
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source link
