Tough season for the Tahs: Waratahs captain Michael Hooper talks to teammates during the loss to the Hurricanes this season. Credit:Getty Images Pity the people trying to hold back the tide in the southern hemisphere. But what are the SANZAR nations doing to help themselves? The tale behind the butchering of Super Rugby is enough to make an Otago farmer run for the hills. Or a Queenslander reach for a Bundy and Coke. It used to be the best provincial competition in the world. It is still the hardest. Just ask Argentina's Jaguares, whose heads haven't stopped spinning almost two months after their first season with the big boys. The travel, the intensity, the pace, Super Rugby is a bastard of a competition in which to compete. But the best? Not by a long shot, and certainly not since the powers that be traded an uncomplicated 15-team, three-conference model for something so hard to follow that it is under review after just one season.

Generally the complaints are about integrity and credibility. South Africa do not like the competition because their teams play each other too much, which means it looks to broadcasters like a glorified Currie Cup, the country's third-tier competition, and they already have one of those. Australia do not like it because there are fewer derby matches and New Zealand do not like it because the finals system dilutes their dominance. Interestingly broadcaster Fox Sports reported 2 per cent increases in ratings for Australian games and 13 per cent increases for New Zealand games. Yet viewer feedback has been uniformly negative, because fans find the format difficult to follow. The latter group are the only ones who did not have a direct hand in its design. They would be forgiven for wondering if the competition is so bad now, why was it agreed to in the first place? The story goes back to 2013, when 15 teams from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa played each other once and their compatriots twice, home and away. The SANZAR partners were happy with the format but the South African Rugby Union was under intense political pressure at home to find a spot for the Southern Kings. Accommodating South Africa's needs spelt death for the three-nation, 15-team structure. It was the same year Argentina joined the Rugby Championship and took a seat at the SANZAR joint venture table. While the chairmen and chief executives of the three big unions plotted expansion plans with the next five-year broadcast cycle on the horizon, Argentina made the not-so-subtle point that their future in the Rugby Championship would make little strategic sense without a corresponding spot in Super Rugby.

SANZAR announced expansion plans and speculation mounted the following year that an Asian team was in the frame as well. Japan won the tender at the end of 2014, fending off a challenge from a Singapore-based Pacific Islands team coached by Tana Umaga. With the three new teams agreed, it became a matter of how the competition would look. Australia and Argentina were open to a round-robin tournament but New Zealand and South Africa baulked at a structure that would keep teams on the road for four or five weeks at a time. New Zealand proposed the model in use now and SANZAR and each of the member unions took it to market in 2015. With the exception of Japan, who under the terms of their tender agreement are effectively paying to compete in Super Rugby, the new model made the other nations bucketloads of cash, thanks to keen interest from Europe and British broadcaster Sky Sports. The exchange rate alone on that component of the deal delivered the four nations $50 million in spare change to divide amongst themselves. ARU boss Bill Pulver announced a 148 per cent increase on the previous deal, in New Zealand Tew was "thrilled" and SARU boss Andy Marinos, now SANZAR chief executive, was also pleased. But at what cost did the joint venture pursue the broadcast dollar and to what end? The money was eye-wateringly good but it's almost all gone, soaked up by each union's pressing domestic agendas. A source close to the deal told Fairfax Media that the five New Zealand clubs were all predicting losses over the next five years. It appears a production line of left- and right-foot kickers will deliver you the Bledisloe Cup year after year but it won't deliver you from financial realities. In South Africa the pressures are political but no less intense. Springboks coach Allister Coetzee and his successors face the prospect of fulfilling World Cup expectations within a restrictive quota system, while broadcaster SuperSport is clamouring for a better product.