Aisle be back:Hurricanes v Sunwolves

We’re now officially in the down trou part of the season.

That’s where teams manage to drop a match they should never drop.

Usually, at this point it’s the Chiefs who do this, while the Highlanders grind out narrow wins to remain in touch.

It doesn’t typically happen to the Crusaders, and the Canes make a point of getting their humiliation out of the way first up, and always overseas.

The Blues, of course, are way past that now, having actually no longer any trousers of any description and not even a trip to K Mart scheduled to buy some more.

The logic for dropping these games is not surprising. Tiredness and complacency and coming up against a team that really wants it more than you is a potentially lethal combination.

I don’t think the Lions match this weekend comes into down trou territory; they probably had their own version of that last weekend in losing to the Reds. Who does that?

I took last week off, and you’d have to think the Canes did the same, until the last few minutes.

The Sunwolves have developed a knack of staying close and tenacious, but it won’t do to risk the same output against the Lions.

They clearly aren’t the team of last year’s semis drubbing, but I’m picking the Canes will switch back into high gear for this one. Time for a statement

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I am sorry for Crusaders fans trying to troll the Canes, who must be the worst team these days to troll. Not like those old days when you could rely on at least two or three meltdowns a season.

I mean seriously, they bumble along for 70 minutes , threatening to confirm Southern suspicions that they’re overrated. They might even fail to score the bonus point against the Sunwolves.

Then BOOM. Next thing the Canes have the BP and even improve their points differential. And their Saders survive a 13-man scare in Canberra but at the cost of a bonus point.

It’s really cruel. I can’t help enjoying it though.

Finally when it comes to trolling , what about the Waratahs. They could break the 100-year drought for Aussie teams in Super rugby this weekend against the hapless Blues.

They could. So NO pressure on you Tahs.

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The leaking of SANZAR’s vision for Super Rugby shows some predictable thinking and some batshit crazy stuff.

I have written before that there is an inevitability to the competition expanding, most probably into the United States. Money, if that is on the table, will talk as it always does.

That’s doable I think if they just treat it as a separate conference with no or minimal crossover during the course of the season. There is no way the travel expectations of Super Rugby can be stretched further. This all assumes you can create four semi-viable franchises or more in the US.

On the other hand, keeping it quite separate will not mean somehow there wouldn’t be an impact on the other conferences.

It certainly would widen the employment opportunities of fringe players around the world. That won’t do much for the quality and depth of the stronger traditional teams.

In the crazier category is a Southern Hemisphere Lions concept, or a fan-chosen All Stars side. That all smacks of the desperate. If you’ve ever seen the NFL’s Pro Bowl, it’s a very odd exhibition match played in Hawaii. I am not sure from my limited reading of this as to what they hope to achieve with such a beast.

Still, by 2030, a lot will have changed, including you and I.

Kevin is a lifetime Hurricanes fan. He and his partner are on a two-year Volunteer Service Abroad posting to Vanuatu's Espiritu Santo island. He's working on a project to build a South Pacific World War 2 museum on the site of an enormous Allied base on the island. Check it out at www.southpacificwwiimuseum.com