Matt Burke gives blunt verdict on absence of South African clubs from Super Rugby and its impact on Australian rugby

Ex-Wallabies and Waratahs full-back Matt Burke believes the absence of South African sides from Super Rugby has impacted Australian rugby, especially in dealing with the physical aspect of the game.

Soon after rugby union turned professional in 1995, Super Rugby was launched in 1996 and the leading clubs from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa participated in the tournament.

It was a very successful competition which lasted for more than 20 years with clubs from Argentina and Japan also allowed to participate during that period.

However, after the Covid-19 pandemic struck, which curtailed the 2020 Super Rugby tournament, it forced a rethink in New Zealand and Australia, with travel being notably impacted.

New Zealand Rugby opted to break away, establishing the domestic Super Rugby Aotearoa tournament, before they and Australia joined forces to set up Super Rugby Trans-Tasman and then Super Rugby Pacific.

South African teams now part of the United Rugby Championship

Meanwhile, South African sides were forced to go their own way with their four leading franchises – the Bulls, Lions, Sharks and Stormers – joining the United Rugby Championship.

In the past, former All Blacks like Israel Dagg and Murray Mexted have expressed their displeasure at the decision which led to South Africa’s departure from Super Rugby and now Burke has echoed their sentiments.

While appearing on the DSPN podcast with Martin Devlin, the show’s host spoke to Burke about the different approach brought to the game by South African sides with their physicality and asked the legendary Wallaby whether the current Super Rugby competition is good enough to get Australia‘s players up to the standard required at international level and he replied: “It’s a good question because when we played back in the day of early Super 10, Super 12, 14, 15, I think I may have played Super 8, back in the day, I think it was, when it was only, sort of, a couple of teams.

“The difficulty is the understanding of how to play and when you’re playing South Africa and we used to, and your boys as well, used to tour, two, three weeks at a time and so you’d start to understand the level of intensity over there.”

Burke highlighted how popular rugby is amongst South African fans and agreed that the immense physicality displayed by teams in that country was something which Australian – and New Zealand sides – were usually prepared for, unlike his nation’s current crop of players.

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“Maybe this new crew doesn’t know what it means to play South African rugby,” he said. “Oh, it is the be-all and end-all and you go over there.

“The fans are fanatical, the training (sessions), there’s fans watching you at training, so there’s always people around you and maybe the microscope, maybe the new crew understands that we’ve got to go over there, it’s going to be difficult, but to play against that South Africans and, as you said, just the muscling up, I think, is probably the big one.

‘Had good understanding of what was coming our way’

“So, because we maybe had a good understanding of what was coming our way, that elevated your level of competitiveness in the physicality and the brutality in amongst that world (of) rugby.

“Like, it is, from what I can see now in the change, from what was our day, is the brutality of that, the contact now, like, it is on. You know, these blokes are coming out and making shots that we were but nothing of the like of this one here.

“So, everything changes, everything gets better, everything gets bigger, stronger, faster.

“You can never compare eras, but certainly what I’d say from this mob at the moment is that without the South African blokes in there, I think we don’t understand the week-to-week physicality that is needed and not taking away anything from the trans-Tasman Conference.

“I think it’s brilliant and, as I said, we always pride ourselves on playing against New Zealand teams and playing well against them, but the South Africans offered a different way of playing the game.

“You know that brutality and sometimes when you get that first hit and your eyes are as big as a dinner plate, you’re thinking ‘What’s going on here?’

“So, because they don’t have that, maybe that’s just that one of those things that they need to learn to be able to get more and more.

So, maybe a learning curve for down the track is that you will need to play more of those South African games. How are you going to do that in a system where it’s only, you know, Australian New Zealand?”

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