madflyhalf ha scritto:Come si fanno i playoff a 6 squadre?

How will the new Super 15 format work ?
The format for the Super15 is not yet completely set in stone because the dates have not yet been released but this is what we know so far. Once the fixtures are released it will make more sense.
There will be three pools or geographic conferences each containing five teams - see table on the right.
Australia, South Africa and New Zealand will each host one pool and the new 15th team will participate in the Australian pool.
The new team is from Melbourne and they are the Melbourne Rebels.
The tournament will start in late February each year with a couple of exceptions.
In 2011 and other world cup years the tournament will start earlier to make space for the world cup.
British and Irish Lions tour years (ie. 2013) could also see the tournament being forced to start two to three weeks earlier.
Super 15 Phase One
The tournament will start with a series of teams playing the other teams in their own conference. Teams will not travel out of their home country at this stage and they will play each team in their conference. (4 Matches per team)
Super 15 Phase Two
After the first round of conference games the teams will then play four of the five teams in each of the other two conferences. Under this format it is possibly that a team such as the Bulls could miss out on playing the Crusaders one year as the teams will play four of the five teams in the other conferences. They could however meet in the play offs.
These eight games will be a mix of home and away games as they are with the Super14. (Another 8 Matches = 12 in total so far)
Super 15 Phase Three
The tournament will then return to a conference format again and another round of domestic challenges as in Phase One but with the venues reversed. This means that each team in a conference will have a home and an away match with their fellow conference teams by the end of the tournament. (Another 4 matches)
Once these three stages are complete teams will have played a total of 16 round-robin games.
A winner from each conference will be determined from the results in the previous three stages. Each conference will have one winner and therefore Australia, South Africa and New Zealand will each be gauranteed to have one team participating in the finals..
Super 15 Phase Four
NOTE: Due to 2011 being a Rugby World Cup year the June Internationals appear have been suspended across the board.
The Super15's fourth phase is not really a stage of the tournament at all as the tournament takes a break in June when the All Blacks, Springboks and Wallabies will host tours from international teams - historically from the Northern Hemisphere - these are usually known as the June tours. Once the June tours are complete, the Super 15 resumes and the finals start.
Super 15 Phase Five/Finals
The new format for the Super 15 finals is an expanded format and will feature six teams rather than the Super14's four team format. The six teams will be made up of the conference winners and the three next teams with the highest total number of points. The top two ranked conference winners get a first round bye in the playoffs.
The expanded finals is expected to start in July and will therefore finish in early August.