TUESDAY, 1.30PM:
SANZAR has turned down a SA Rugby Football Union request to include an extra local team in next year’s Super 12. Sanzar said on Monday it resolved in the meting in Melbourne to suspend any talks over the inclussion of an extra team until 1999.
Springbok coach Carel du Plessis has expressed his disappointment at Sanzar’s decision: “I am disappointed there won’t be a fifth team as I think it would have been good for our rugby,” he said.
The fifth team was part of a compromise between Sarfu president Louis Luyt and the four SA provincial unions who opposed the Super 12 regional format that was aggreed upon by Sarfu.
The Super 12 coaches and administrators are against any format which will move away from the current fone, in which teams play each other once. It is believed that the South African request was complicated by the fact that Australia also wanted an extra team.