Newsable: Sir Graham Henry says Super Rugby needs to level playing field

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World Cup-winning former All Blacks coach Sir Graham Henry believes Super Rugby needs an operational transformation to retain interest in the competition, echoing the concerns of his successor Steve Hansen.

The 2023 iteration of the competition comes to a head tomorrow night, when the Chiefs meet the Crusaders in the Super Rugby final in Hamilton.

The occasion is a farewell on several fronts, most notably for Scott Robertson, the Crusaders’ coach, who will take over the reins at the All Blacks following this year’s World Cup.

The Crusaders are aiming for their seventh consecutive title, while the Chiefs’ last piece of silverware came more than a decade ago.

Henry tells Stuff’s podcast Newsable that, while there’s been some excellent rugby on show this year, there is a sense of unevenness in the competition as a whole.

“We’ve had some great games, we’ve had some mismatches as well.

“I see New Zealand and Australian rugby are looking at having a separate organisation to run Super Rugby and have a draft system. I think having even teams is really important and some of the teams haven’t been that competitive because they simply haven’t got the players to be competitive.

“So I think that’s a good step in the right direction, going forward.”

Last week on Newsable, World Cup-winning coach Steve Hansen backed the idea of a revamp of the Super Rugby system, saying increased player trading between franchises and potentially even a player draft could help make the competition more interesting.

And Henry agrees, saying it would help level the playing field.

“I think there should be a trading system, if you like, to make sure the sides a reasonably even.

“if you look at the contract finance for each team there’s quite a big difference between, say, the Crusaders and the Highlanders.

“That reflects the quality of the two sides – so having equal finance for each team going forward so that results in a pretty even competition I think would be a positive thing.”

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