Nick Cain column: Nothing Super about these new franchises

It’s the start of the new, expanded Super 18 season next weekend, but the rumblings of discontent south of the equator over the enlarged format have become volcanic. The first and biggest problem is that only one of the three new franchises has a truly competitive squad.
Where the new Argentine franchise, the Jaguares, have succeeded in signing 20 of the players in the Pumas squad that played electrifying rugby in the 2015 World Cup, the other two franchises, Japan‘s Sunwolves and the cash-strapped ‘new’ South African franchise, the Kings, have a lame-duck look about them.
This has led to fears that the new structure – which has an Australasian group made up of the Australian and New Zealand conferences (each comprising their existing five teams) and a South African group, with two conferences of the five existing South African teams with the Sunwolves in one conference, and another featuring the Kings and Jaguares – could be disastrous.
The Sunwolves have had a shambolic start with Mark Hammett, their Kiwi coach, consigned to taking his first full training session on February 8, just 19 days before their inaugural match in the competition at home to the Lions.
Worse still, unlike the Jaguares, the signs are that the Sunwolves have not managed to capitalise on the massive feelgood factor generated by Japan’s most successful World Cup campaign. Instead of being snapped up by the Japanese Rugby Union (JRFU), five of the biggest Japanese stars – who became household names after their epic victory over South Africa – will not be playing for the Sunwolves this season.
Japan’s charismatic full-back, Ayumu Goromaru, has signed for the Queensland Reds, the Brave Blossoms World Cup captain Michael Leitch has returned to New Zealand where he will play for the Chiefs, scrum-half Fumiaki Tanaka has returned to the Highlanders, No.8 Amanaki Mafi has hitched himself to the Bath bandwagon, and wing Kotaro Matsushima has moved to Melbourne to join the Rebels. So far, the Sunwolves, Asia’s first Super Rugby franchise, have managed to sign only 11 of the 31 players selected by Eddie Jones in his Japan World Cup squad. With some leading Japanese internationals opting to stay with their clubs in the Top League, the fanfare for the Sunwolves has been lukewarm at best.
Inevitably, there are fears that they will fast become the Super 18’s whipping boys, and their ability to attract support will be closely scrutinised. The Sunwolves decision to play two of their seven matches in Singapore, rather than Tokyo, might also be a case of trying to run before you have mastered walking.
It is staggering that the JRFU have not maximised on their World Cup uplift by ensuring that the Sunwolves were as bristlingly competitive in their first season in Super Rugby as the national team were on the global stage last autumn.
However, rather than insure that they signed Goromaru and back-rower Leitch as talismanic figures around which to promote the Sunwolves, they have presided over the assembly of a squad in which a third are journeyman overseas imports. This leaves the Japanese franchise as the one with the least home-grown players in the tournament.
The Kings, based out of the old Eastern Province stronghold of Port Elizabeth, also look as if they are on a hiding to nothing. Following a series of furores around financial mismanagement – including players not being paid – the South African Rugby Union have had to set up an umbrella company to manage the Kings’ fiscal affairs.
That tightening of the Kings belt probably explains why they do not have a single present or past member of the Springbok squad on their roster going into the new season. Furthermore, there are fears that with the massive South African player drain to Europe, those that have signed for the Kings will not be able to cut it at Super Rugby level.
There are estimates that as many as 270 South Africans are playing on pro contracts around the world – the equivalent of nine elite 30-man provincial squads. With the bulk of those opting for lucrative European pay packets because of the advantageous exchange rate against the Rand, there are growing fears that the provincial depth in a country which once appeared to be a bottomless well, is now in danger of drying up.
By contrast, the Jaguares look well-prepared to give a good account of themselves against the best of the New Zealand, Australian and South African sides. They look formidable in the forwards where they can field virtually a Test pack, with Argentina’s World Cup captain Agustin Creevy at hooker, Ramiro Herrera at tighthead, young locks Guido Petti and Tomas Lavanini, and back- rowers Pablo Matera, Leonardo Senatore and Facundo Isa.
Add to that an adventurous backline which took the World Cup by storm, featuring exciting runners like wing Santiago Cordero and centre Jeronimo de la Fuente, as well as the experience of play-makers Juan-Martin Hernandez and Nicolas Sanchez, and scrum-half Martin Landajo, and the Jaguares will have teeth.
They have already bared those fangs with a 49-28 win over the Lions in Johannesburg in their final warm-up match before the competition proper, scoring seven tries to four. If neither the Kings nor the Sunwolves can match the competitive edge of the Jaguares the overall picture will be one of a Super Rugby expansion which has over-reached itself.