2017 Super Rugby season

2017 Super Rugby season
Countries Argentina (1 team)
Australia (5 teams)
Japan (1 team)
New Zealand (5 teams)
South Africa (6 teams)
Tournament format(s) Conference and knockout
Official website Official site
2016 (Previous) (Next) 2018 →

The 2017 Super Rugby season will be the 22nd season of Super Rugby, an annual rugby union competition organised by SANZAAR between teams from Argentina, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Africa. It will be the second season featuring an expanded 18-team format, following the competition's expansion from 15 teams prior to the 2016 season.

After 17 rounds of matches between 23 February and 15 July – with Rounds 15 and 16 split due to the British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand – four conference winners and four wildcard teams will progress to the finals series, which will consist of quarterfinals, semifinals and a final on 5 August.

Competition format

The 18 participating teams are divided into two geographical groups, each consisting of two conferences: the Australasian Group, with five teams in the Australian Conference and five teams in the New Zealand Conference and the South African Group, with six South African teams, one Argentine team and one Japanese team split into two four-team conferences – an Africa 1 Conference and an Africa 2 Conference.[1]

In the group stages, there will be 17 rounds of matches, where each team played 15 matches and had two rounds of byes for a total of 135 matches. Due to the British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand in June and July, Rounds 15 and 16 were split; Round 15 of the Australian and New Zealand Conferences will be played on the weekend of 3 June, with Round 16 of the New Zealand Conference scheduled for the following week. The South African Conference Round 15 matches will be played on the weekend of 1 July, with the Round 16 matches for the Australian and South African conferences scheduled for a week later.

Teams will play six intra-conference matches; in the four-team African Conferences, each team will play the other three teams in their conference at home and away, while in the five-team Australasian Conferences, each team will play two teams home and away and once against the other two teams (one at home and one away). The other nine matches will be a single round of matches against each team in the other conference in their group, as well as against each team from one of the conferences in the other group. For 2017, the teams in Africa 1 will play the teams in the New Zealand Conference, while the teams in Africa 2 will play the teams in the Australian Conference.

The top team in each of the four conferences will qualify for the quarterfinals. The next three highest-ranked teams in the Australasian Group and the next highest-ranked team in the South African group will also qualify to the quarterfinals as wildcards. The conference winners will be seeded #1 to #4 for the quarterfinals, in order of log points gained during the group stages, while the wildcards will be seeded as #5 to #8 in order of log points gained during the group stages.

In the quarterfinals, the conference winners will host the first round of the finals, with the highest-seeded conference winner hosting the fourth-seeded wildcard entry, the second-seeded conference winner hosting the third-seeded wildcard entry, the third-seeded conference winner hosting the second-seeded wildcard entry and the fourth-seeded conference winner hosting the top-seed wildcard entry.

The quarterfinal winners will progress to the semifinals, where the highest seed to reach the semifinals will host the lowest seed and the second-seeded semi-finalist will host the third-seeded team.

The winners of the semifinals will advance to the final, at the venue of the highest-seeded team.

Standings

The current conference standings for the 2017 Super Rugby season are:[2]

2017 Super Rugby standings

Australasian Group
Pos Team P W D L PF PA PD TF TA TB LB Pts
1 New Zealand Blues 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 Australia Brumbies 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3 New Zealand Chiefs 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
4 New Zealand Crusaders 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
5 Australia Force 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
6 New Zealand Highlanders 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
7 New Zealand Hurricanes 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
8 Australia Rebels 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
9 Australia Reds 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
10 Australia Waratahs 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
South African Group
Pos Team P W D L PF PA PD TF TA TB LB Pts
1 South Africa Bulls 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 South Africa Cheetahs 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3 Argentina Jaguares 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
4 South Africa Kings 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
5 South Africa Lions 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
6 South Africa Sharks 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
7 South Africa Stormers 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
8 Japan Sunwolves 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Australia Australian Conference
Pos Team Pts
1 Brumbies 0
2 Force 0
3 Rebels 0
4 Reds 0
5 Waratahs 0
New Zealand New Zealand Conference
Pos Team Pts
1 Blues 0
2 Chiefs 0
3 Crusaders 0
4 Highlanders 0
5 Hurricanes 0
South Africa Africa 1 Conference
Pos Team Pts
1 Bulls 0
2 Cheetahs 0
3 Stormers 0
4 Japan Sunwolves 0
South Africa Africa 2 Conference
Pos Team Pts
1 Argentina Jaguares 0
2 Kings 0
3 Lions 0
4 Sharks 0

Overall
Pos Team Pts
1 New Zealand Blues 0
2 Australia Brumbies 0
3 South Africa Bulls 0
4 South Africa Cheetahs 0
5 New Zealand Chiefs 0
6 New Zealand Crusaders 0
7 Australia Force 0
8 New Zealand Highlanders 0
9 New Zealand Hurricanes 0
10 Argentina Jaguares 0
11 South Africa Kings 0
12 South Africa Lions 0
13 Australia Rebels 0
14 Australia Reds 0
15 South Africa Sharks 0
16 South Africa Stormers 0
17 Japan Sunwolves 0
18 Australia Waratahs 0

Round-by-round

The table below shows each team's progression throughout the season. For each round, their cumulative points total is shown with the overall log position in brackets:

Team Progression – Australasian Group
Team R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 R12 R13 R14 R15 R16 R17 QF SF Final
Blues
Brumbies
Chiefs
Crusaders
Force
Highlanders
Hurricanes
Rebels
Reds
Waratahs
Team Progression – South African Group
Team R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 R12 R13 R14 R15 R16 R17 QF SF Final
Bulls
Cheetahs
Jaguares
Kings
Lions
Sharks
Stormers
Sunwolves
Key: win draw loss bye

Matches

The fixtures for the 2017 Super Rugby competition were released on 20 September 2016:[3]

Round One

Round Two

Round Three

Bye/s: Bulls, Rebels

Round Four

Bye/s: Force, Stormers

Round Five

Bye/s: Chiefs, Hurricanes

Round Six

Bye/s: Brumbies, Jaguares, Kings, Sunwolves

Round Seven

Bye/s: Cheetahs, Crusaders, Lions, Rebels

Round Eight

Bye/s: Force, Highlanders, Sharks, Waratahs

Round Nine

Bye/s: Blues, Reds

Round Ten

Bye/s: Bulls, Hurricanes

Round Eleven

Bye/s: Brumbies, Kings

Round Twelve

Bye/s: Chiefs, Stormers, Sunwolves, Waratahs

Round Thirteen

Bye/s: Jaguares, Reds

Round Fourteen

Round Fifteen (Australia and New Zealand)

Round Sixteen (New Zealand)

Bye/s: Blues, Crusaders, Highlanders

Round Fifteen (South Africa)

Round Sixteen (Australia and South Africa)

Bye/s: Cheetahs, Lions, Sharks

Round Seventeen

Finals

Quarterfinals

Semifinals

Final

References

  1. "Outline of the Super Rugby competition structure" (PDF). All Blacks. 1 May 2014. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
  2. "SA Rugby Log – 2017 Vodacom Super Rugby". South African Rugby Union. Retrieved 20 September 2016.
  3. "2017 Super Rugby Schedule Announced" (Press release). SANZAAR. 20 September 2016. Archived from the original on 19 September 2016. Retrieved 19 September 2016.

External links

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