Wynne Gray: Hopes high for taut Super season

Super Rugby begins in a month. Kick-off in February always felt a month too soon and that sense is not helped by the hangover from last season's troubles when the complicated format was given the red card.

The tournament has downsized to 15 teams across three conferences but with the action halting for June internationals, the champion will not be crowned until August.

The hope is that there will be much stronger rivalry throughout the series with particular heat coming on the Australian sides. They had an appalling 0-25 round-robin tally against the NZ teams, ructions about culling the Force and rising concerns about the quality of administration across the game before Raelene Castle replaced Bill Pulver as chief executive.

Rejigging the competition has brought its scheduling issues and after the series starts with a February 17 round in South Africa, the Highlanders and Blues open the New Zealand challenge a week later.

There is then a wait until round seven in the last weekend of March before the first of the transtasman clashes between the Rebels and the Hurricanes in Melbourne. That will be a test on many fronts with former Force coach Dave Wessels switching to coach the Rebels who will take on one of the favoured Kiwi sides.

His signing is seen as a coup in Australia after the advances he oversaw at the Force, then rebuffing overseas offers to carry on his development programmes with the Rebels who won a solitary game last year and finished last.

They have bolstered their roster with proven players like Will Genia, Adam Coleman, Ben Daley and Dane Haylett-Petty and make their 2018 start at home against the Reds, then it's the Sunwolves, Brumbies, Waratahs and Sharks before the first comparison against a NZ side.

The pressure is on the Australian sides after the ARU appointed former Wallabies fullback Rod Kafer in the middle of last year to oversee a national coaching advisory group and development strategies.

Across this side of the Tasman that sort of focus will settle on coach Tana Umaga and the Blues who finished last in the New Zealand pool but could claim a better results chart than the Brumbies who finished top in Australia.

The Blues skip a meeting with the Brumbies this season and have a fair wait until their first duel with an Australian side when they play the Waratahs in round 12 in Sydney.

After two Kiwi derbies, the Blues fly to South Africa in round three where they play the Lions and Stormers. Games soon after against the Chiefs and Highlanders are split by a trip to play the Sunwolves in Tokyo and the Blues end round robin play with away matches against the Hurricanes and Crusaders.