O’Sullivan slams Super 14 clubs’ ‘hybrid game’

FORMER Ireland coach Eddie O’Sullivan has launched a stinging attack on the Southern hemisphere’s Super 14 describing it as a dud and, due to the glut of free kicks, admits he can’t be bothered watching it.

O’Sullivan, Ireland’s most successful coach of the modern era and who recently took over as the United States head coach, admitted on an Australian rugby podcast last night that he had lost all interest in the Super 14.

“I’m not that taken by the whole thing,” he said. “I don’t agree with the law changes. The dynamics of the game I don’t like. It just doesn’t do anything for me.”

O’Sullivan made his comments during a ruggamatrix.com podcast, which also included former Waratahs coach Ewen McKenzie and his one-time deputy Les Kiss, who is now the Ireland defence coach.

“The giveaway is that I have recorded a lot of these [Super 14] games, and I end up deleting them without watching them, because I just don’t have the energy to look at them,” O’Sullivan said. He said the experimental law variations had led to the decline in standard.

“The law variations with the use of all the free kicks, I just don’t agree with. It makes the game different. It’s a hybrid game that is being played.”

O’Sullivan, who was part of Clive Woodward’s coaching staff during the British and Irish Lions tour of New Zealand in 2005, added that teams not being allowed to ruck had led to the breakdown becoming a mess. He is one of many who believe safe rucking should be reintroduced. “The idea of going off your feet at the breakdown is not part of the experimental law variations, but it is being blamed for teams not running with the ball, as though it is too risky to run, so you had better kick it,” O’Sullivan said.

Meanwhile Australian Rugby Union chief John O’Neill said if SANZAR agreed to a fifth Australian team in an expanded Super 15 tournament some of its players could come from New Zealand.