Sunwolves and Jaguares - The New Super Rugby Teams

You may or may not be aware that next seasons SR competition is expanding to include two new countries teams, one from Japan and one from Argentina. They'll all play in the South African conference and will mean the competition expanding to playing games in Japan, Singapore and Argentina.


SUNWOLVES
The Sunwolves are the team created for Japan, their squad will include 10 of the of the Japanese players from the RWC, which is a little disappointing, but financial troubles have plagued them and made recruitment difficult. Their name was picked by fans to incorporate 'the land of the rising sun' and wolves, which are bad ass. I tip them to lose a lot.

Coach: Mark Hammett, former Hurricanes coach and DoR of Cardiff Blues

Squad:
Forwards: Ryuhei Arita, Timothy Bond, Andrew Durutalo, Ziun Gu, Shohei Hirano, Shota Horie, Yoshiya Hofsoda, Keita Inagaki, Shinnosuke Kakinaga, Takeshi Kizu, Yamamoto Koki, Faatiga Lemalu, Tomas Leonardi, Shinya Makabe, Masataka Mikami, Liaki Moli, Tsuyoshi Murata, Hitoshi Ono, Eddie Quirk

Backs: Derek Carpenter, Atsushi Hiwasa, Daisuke Inoue, Amanaki Lotoahea, Paea Mifi Poseti, Tusi Pisi, Yusataka Sasakura, John Stewart, Yu Tamura, Harumichi Tatekawa, Riaan Viljoen, Akihito Yamada, Ryohei Yamanaka, Hajime Yamashita, Yuki Yatomi

Stadium: They'll split their games across two staduims, one in Tokyo and the other in Singapore

Kit:

JAGUARES
The Jaguares will be Argentinas offering to SR, they've been around in other forms for a while playing and winning in the Vodacom Cup (taking the title in an 11 game unbeaten run) and then after that the Pacific Rugby Cup (winning it both seasons they played). They've got a good mix of very experienced players from the national team and young talent in their side. Their name is inspired by the animal on the Argentina Crest, that all Argentine teams wear, and because it's bad ass. I tip them to dominate.

Coach: Raul Perez, a promising assistant coach for the National team and ex Argentine flanker, he's assisted by another Argentina player Felipe Contepomi (you may have heard of him).

Squad: Matias Alemanno, Santiago Cordero, Agustin Creevy, Jeronimo de la Fuente, Santiago Gonzalez Iglesias, Juan Martin Hernandez, Ramiro Herrera, Facundo Isa, Martin Landajo, Tomas Lavanni, Juan Manuel Leguizamon, Pablo Matera, Julian Montoya, Martias Moroni, Lucas Noguera, Javier Ortega Desio, Guido Petti, Nicolas Sanchez, Leonardo Senatore, Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro, Joaquin Tucullet, Gabriel Ascarate, Emiliano Boffelli, Santiago Garcia Botta, Juan Cruz Guillemain, Tomas Lezana, Manuel Montero, Ramiro Moyano, Matias Orlando, Rodrigo Baez

Stadium: They'll be based in Buenos Aires at the Estadio José Amalfitani

Kit: tbc

Jaguares look like contenders. Sunwolves... not so much.

To save time do you think they can get aircraft with built in gyms?

It will probably take a while before either team makes a sustained impact on the competition - the Jaguares almost certainly sooner than the Sunwolves (cool name, though). But the important thing for rugby - especially in the run up to 2019 - is that it gives two more nations access to top class club competition.

It does make me start to wonder whether the NH needs to do something similar with existing club competitions feeding into a franchise-based "super" competition later in the season and then internationals... but getting there would be almost impossible given the patchwork of ownership and club/province/region-to-union relationships.

There is an article in the Fail (Western Mail for anyone that doesn't know), that states only players playing in Argentine will be selected in the future, they (Fail) quite often make things up, but they reckon most of those refused offers from European Clubs in result of that sanction.
Oh for us to to do the same.

What happened to all the foreign talent playing at japanese clubs - are they still in the country?

GavinDragon wrote:What happened to all the foreign talent playing at japanese clubs - are they still in the country?

Yes. There was a good photo showing the height difference between Etzebeth and Hata the other day.

https://twitter.com/RugbyBanterPag3/status/677812007421235201

GavinDragon wrote:What happened to all the foreign talent playing at japanese clubs - are they still in the country?

Standard club vs country thing I think. I doubt if the RFU set-up a Super Rugby team in England the likes of Bath or Northampton would go, fair enough, here you are- help yourself to Francois Louw or George North to help you get started. They want to keep the players they paid for.

I was surprised to see that Japan's men of the hour Goromora and Leitch werent in the squad too.

yappysnap wrote:I was surprised to see that Japan's men of the hour Goromora and Leitch werent in the squad too.

They are signed to the Queensland Reds and the Chiefs respectively.

After backing the Jaguares to win super rugby at 20/1 i have managed to convince myself that they are the only team capable of winning. Very balanced squad with experience of playing with each other and I know Fernandex lobbe/imhoff/ayerza are not in the squad however the large player base they can choose from gives them options.

The sunwolves will struggle as will the Kings, however with the exodus after the world cup I dont think the teams (especially NZ) will be as strong

so how many teams are playing super rugby next season and what is the format?

GavinDragon wrote:so how many teams are playing super rugby next season and what is the format?

From what I gather
18 teams split into 4 conferences,

1 . 5 current New Zealand teams
2. 5 current Australian
3. Africa 1 = Bulls, Stormers, Cheetahs and Sunwolves
4. Africa 2 = Argentina, Sharks, Lions and Kings

All group winners go into quarter finals, with the next best african side and the next 3 best Australia/NZ sides.

Dont ask me who plays who, but there are 15 regular season games.

One thing that might affect the jaguares is that Argentina have 4 test games(2 against france) in June before the finals.

So it is a little like the NFL. Teams have a schedule of fixtures but are in a table with people from their conference.

Wish Europe would hurry up and follow suit!

Best.Kit.Ever !

Although i would have thought he would have gone to the Jaguares, can't wait to see how former Edinburgh's Tomas Leonardi gets on with the Sunwolves

Is he the guy in the photo with the ginger beard?

Nope, not sure who is that!

Must be Ed Quirk. A flanker who was with the rebels before.

Cheers Whocares, I remember Quirk when he played for the Rebels. Hopefully he'll help this team.

So were the Jagauares formerly a club team, or Argentina A team? Either way their team looks good, best of luck to them and Sunwolves - I'ma start watching super rugby again now because I think with the introduction of these two it's set to become more bad ass...

They were a club team, the Argentina A team were also called the Jaguares though

Two wins in a row in NZ for the Jaguares. On a roll.

They are definitely doing well but with one team is it enough to maintain the national team competitive. But it does look like they will be able to do ok against Australia anyway