{"id":603120,"date":"2026-05-25T14:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T14:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/603120\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T14:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T14:46:11","slug":"ex-all-black-claims-prem-and-urc-stronger-than-super-rugby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/603120\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-All Black claims PREM and URC ‘stronger’ than Super Rugby"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Former All Blacks and Wales international Shane Howarth insists that Super Rugby has fallen behind the European leagues.<\/p>\n

The southern hemisphere competition was once the standard-bearer, particularly when it had the best of New Zealand, Australia and South Africa going head-to-head.<\/p>\n

However, with the latter departing and aligning their club game with the north, and a number of Kiwis and Aussies taking the financial riches on offer abroad, that has impacted Super Rugby<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Crusaders v Chiefs thriller<\/p>\n

There are still plenty of thrillers on offer but much of the best quality has been delivered by the New Zealand outfits, as evidenced by the Crusaders\u2019 victory over the Chiefs.<\/p>\n

Many consider that the Top 14 leads the way in the north while the Investec Champions Cup remains the acid test for all top clubs, despite losing some of its lustre, but Howarth reckons that the south has even slipped behind the United Rugby Championship<\/a> and PREM Rugby<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe European leagues are stronger. The English Premiership, the United Rugby Championship are stronger than our Super Rugby,\u201d he told The Rugby Run on Sport Nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s got a whole bunch of South Africans playing in it, it\u2019s got a whole bunch of Kiwis and all sorts playing in it, so that\u2019s I think closer to Test match rugby than what Super Rugby is at the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen again, the Crusaders-Chiefs game on Friday was a hell of a game. I don\u2019t want to say with the Aussies, but when you get two strong New Zealand sides, it\u2019s closer to Test match rugby.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of games in Super Rugby at the moment that are blowouts where teams can dominate another team.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a matter of how we get Super Rugby back closer to Test match level with it not being all home derbies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018URC is a very, very low level\u2019 \u2013 Ex-All Blacks would bench Jordie Barrett as he must \u2018prove himself\u2019 again<\/a><\/p>\n

Stephen Donald controversy<\/p>\n

Just last year, All Blacks hero Stephen Donald caused controversy by stating that the URC was of a \u201cvery, very low\u201d standard in comparison to Super Rugby, but Howarth, who played for Sale and Newport in the north, has taken the opposite view.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a country of five-and-a-half million, it\u2019s amazing that we\u2019ve been able to sustain five teams as long as we have,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really sad about Moana Pasifika but that\u2019s what happens when you haven\u2019t got a huge population that can fund tournaments like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, we\u2019re just in the wrong part of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Ex-All Black\u2019s Ruben Love plea to Dave Rennie after Ian Foster and Scott Robertson fly-half failures<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former All Blacks and Wales international Shane Howarth insists that Super Rugby has fallen behind the European leagues.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[348,620,50,21002,5903,101,74606,56,54,16296,55],"class_list":["post-603120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-home-page","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-premiership","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-super-rugby","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-rugby-championship","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}