US Super League breaks with tradition in 2002

America's premier rugby competition will now be split into three conferences that will transcend the usual geographic boundaries.

Two of the conferences will consist of six teams, while the other will comprise five sides. Previously there were two conferences, Eastern and Western, both of which had eight teams.

Every club in the six-team conferences will play all other teams in their conference once, plus there will be an inter-conference matchup for every club, except for those teams in the third conference who will have two inter-conference games.

Again the League has set aside 'bye' weeks, one being the Easter weekend and the other at the end of the season. The latter can be used for any make-up matches that might be incurred because of bad weather during the regular season.

As was the case in 2001, eight teams will qualify for the play-offs, but this year there will be a major difference. The top two finishers in each conference will go through to the post season, plus there will be two wildcards. The next two best finishers will get the wildcards, although only one wildcard spot will be awarded in any conference.

Rugby Super League chairman Keith Engelbrecht said 2002 promised to be the most dynamic season yet, "With the inclusion of the New York Athletic Club (NYAC), we felt that we had to revamp our schedule accordingly.

"It looks like being an incredibly competitive season and we're very excited about it. The standard of our games will continue to improve and we're confident of producing a top class brand of rugby as we've done in the past."

Mr Engelbrecht said that the RSL competitions committee followed certain guidelines when setting up the new conferences including seedings from the 2001 season, a balanced travel schedule and the de-emphasizing of traditional geographic rivalries.

The 2002 Super League season is scheduled to kick off on March 16th.