Steve Tew Happy with restructuring of competition
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The 2013 ITM Cup will be played over an extended competition window of nine weeks with a reduction in mid-week fixtures.
The New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) announced that following consultation with provincial unions, the competition will begin on the weekend of 17 August 2013 and will run for nine weeks followed by semi-finals and finals.
NZRU Chief Executive Steve Tew said there had been overwhelming support from ITM Cup unions to start the competition a week earlier to help address concerns about mid-week fixtures.
Matches will no longer be scheduled for Tuesday evenings, and teams will now only have one short turnaround in a season, rather than two.
"There is still a very clear desire for ITM Cup to retain a standalone window in order to preserve the windows currently for both club rugby and Super Rugby," said Tew.
"Starting a week earlier is a sensible solution that doesn't compromise those dedicated time-frames.
"The competition will still conclude at the end of October and we have retained the play-off structure which has been hugely popular with fans and unions.
"We saw this year that heading toward the play-offs, almost every team had something to play for."
The finalised 2013 ITM Cup draw is expected to be released in February.
Comments
Capedcrusader says...
@APV1
Have always found your comments insightful. Of late you appear to have jumped on the kiwi bashing bandwagon. Shame really
The thing is your opinion on such matters is irrelevant.
NZ rugby will continue to set the benchmarks & you'll have to settle for a very occasional upset with plenty of dire rugby in between. Never mind we'll think about you when our teams have us shaking our heads in disbelief at their ability to provide a higher quality of rugby year after year after year
Posted 13:09 17th December 2012
APV1 says...
Now all we'll here is how long the season is.
Posted 10:28 14th December 2012
fiwiboy says...
Isograford, the ITM schedule is being compressed to avoid it conflicting with the extended Super rugby season. It's already accepted that the ITM Cup is playing second fiddle to Super rugby but judging by the standard of rugby this season and last, the ITM Cup is closing the gap with Super rugby. The ITM Cup (not sure about the Currie Cup) is the ideal feeder competition to Super rugby. Two Japanese Test players are making their Super rugby debuts in 2013 thanks to the ITM Cup (both played for Otago) not to mention US Eagles prop Eric Fry for Manawat, several Australians, a couple of South Africans, a Kenyan and a Englishman or two. The standard of youngsters won't dip. If anything, they will be encouraged to develop by the ABs. The current ABs may not be allowed to play for their province during test season but they are still involved with their home teams (ie Aaron Smith was water boy for Manawatu this season as much as he could).
Posted 10:16 14th December 2012
rugby_rockstar says...
I'll say one thing for NZ rugby, they resolve disputes FAST. Kinda puts Europe and S.A. to shame.
Posted 08:20 14th December 2012
Isograford says...
Why the ITM cup has to be worked around the All Blacks schedule and rushed through to a finish makes no sense because none of the All Blacks even play in it these days.
Eventually this will just lower the standard of youngsters coming through if they can't go up against the best in the country. One day the NZRU will wake up at realize this.
Posted 06:42 14th December 2012