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Last Super 14 Series starts in Sydney tomorrow

2010-02-11

Sydney - The last season of Super 14 kicks off on Friday with New Zealand's Canterbury Crusaders and South Africa's Bulls once again the teams to beat.

The southern hemisphere's annual provincial championship will be re-shaped and expanded to 15 teams from 2011, but for now the focus remains on 2010 with six local derbies featuring in the opening round.

The Crusaders have won seven of the 14 Super rugby tournaments contested since the game turned professional after the 1995 World Cup, including three of the past five.

They made the semi-finals last year despite being without the services of their goalkicking flyhalf Dan Carter and their long-term coach Robbie Deans, who defected to Australia.

The Crusaders will be without their captain, Richie McCaw, who has been given the first three rounds off to rest, for their opening match against the Otago Highlanders on Saturday, but such is their depth that All Blacks loose forward Kieran Read has been able to take over as skipper.

Read said the opening match of the season was always an uncertain time for every team in the competition, no matter how successful they had been in the past.

"You haven't got the analysis tools that you have later on, but you have just got to be prepared," Read told the New Zealand rugby website allblacks.com.

"The team that's best prepared themselves is going to win rather than the team that knows the opposition the best."

New Zealand teams have dominated the competition, with the Auckland Blues winning the title three times and Wellington Hurricanes, Waikato Chiefs and Highlanders reaching the final once each.

South Africa and Australia have provided one winner each, the Bulls and ACT Brumbies, who have both won the tournament twice.

The Pretoria-based Bulls gave South Africa their first Super 14 winners when they beat the Sharks in the 2007 final, then won it again last season, defeating the Chiefs in the decider.