Can we really blame the NZR for the disintegration of the Super Rugby competition? 
This is what South African rugby union is trying to do.
They’ve pinned the blame on the NZR, saying they’re planning to head over to the European Competition instead of the Southern Hemisphere competition because of NZR’s plans for next season. 
Because NZR was planning for a trans-Tasman or local completion rather than including South Africa or Argentina.  
But come on, they have been talking about doing this for years now. This is not a surprise 
Obviously they might have brought their decision forwards. That certainly seems to be the case given they had signed up to the broadcast deal for another five years just a few months ago.
But so what? Covid changed things .
A lot of the best laid plans have been disrupted and abandoned because of Covid.
As we’ve said before, Covid accelerated a lot of things that were already going to happen and this looks like one of them.
That’s not to say everything’s fine. Everything is not fine. 
This has the potential to be a bad situation for New Zealand Rugby. The South Africans take a lot of revenue away with them. 
They also take away the best of the competition; arguably they are the only teams worth playing in Super Rugby.  The Australians teams aren’t flash.  The Argentinians aren’t flash.
And also, let’s not make too many excuses for New Zealand rugby here. Clearly, they need to rethink their approach to other unions.
SA might not really be right in blaming them but that comes from somewhere. Clearly, South African ruby is annoyed at New Zealand Rugby.
And so is Rugby Australia. They’ve said Australia-NZ rugby relations are at their lowest ebb. 
Much of that probably has to do with the high and mighty way NZR thought it could dictate the way the Super Rugby comp would run, and everything else would simply have to fit in.
So, they might want to rethink that approach.  But this isn’t their fault entirely by the looks of things.