Super Rugby Pacific CEO Jack Mesley has shut the door on a possible return to the tournament for South African sides.
While the Bulls, Lions, Sharks and Stormers have settled into life in the Vodacom URC after their exit from Super Rugby in 2020, the Cheetahs have expressed a desire to rejoin the southern hemisphere competition.
“I’m so outspoken about Super Rugby because of the way they play. I’m a fan of their style,” Cheetahs coach Frans Steyn said last year.
“If the Crusaders came to play the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein, I promise you the stadium would be full. People in South Africa still love the New Zealand teams.”
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But Mesley made it clear that any nostalgia for the old days will not shape Super Rugby Pacific’s future.
Asked on the DSPN podcast with Martin Devlin whether there were plans to replace the defunct Melbourne Rebels or consider new teams, Mesley was emphatic. “No. None,” he said.
“Our focus right now is largely because Super Rugby has had so many guises, so many changes. We need fans of rugby in this region to understand our comp. Who are our teams? Who are our players?”
Mesley stressed that stability, not expansion, is the priority.
“Clubs, financially, are not necessarily in the strongest position,” he said. “We’ve got a job to solidify and really contain and fortify what we have now.
“There are no secrets, we don’t have resources coming out of our ears. I want every 60 minutes of an hour spent strengthening our competition today versus 30 spent looking for pots of gold in faraway lands that maybe don’t even exist.”
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Former players in Australia and New Zealand have argued that the absence of South African teams has hurt the Wallabies and All Blacks, with the physical edge once provided by SA opposition no longer a weekly challenge. But Mesley rejected the idea that Super Rugby was healthier with South Africa involved.
Pressed on whether he would welcome SA teams back, his answer was blunt. “No.”
Asked why, he replied: “If you go back and look at the data, those games did not rate well. They did not attend well. They did not rate like we’re rating now. They did not attend like we are attending now.”
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Mesley suggested that memories of the South African era are clouded by sentiment.
“I think there is a romance associated with the South African days,” he said.
Podcast host Martin Devlin joked: “It always is about the girlfriend who leaves, mate.”
Mesley laughed and delivered the final word: “Even a South African one.”
Photo: Phil Walter/Getty Images
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