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Speaker 1: Heather Duplessy Ellen. So changes are coming to Super Rugby.

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Speaker 1: The playoffs have been reduced from eight to six teams.

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Speaker 1: Once three of those teams are knocked out, there will

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Speaker 1: be a lucky loser from the losers who makes it

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Speaker 1: through to the final four. And for families this is

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Speaker 1: good news. There will also be three Sunday afternoon games.

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Speaker 1: Jack Mesley is the chief executive of Super Rugby.

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Speaker 2: Hey Jack, Hi, Heather, how are you?

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Speaker 1: I'm very well, thank you. Do you reckon that what

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Speaker 1: you're doing with the finals and the playoffs is enough

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Speaker 1: to get us interested again?

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Speaker 2: I certainly hope so, Heather. I think we're really excited

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Speaker 2: about the new finals format. We think it's going to

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Speaker 2: bring a lot of interest at the back end of

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Speaker 2: our regular season and certainly provide lots of compelling content

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Speaker 2: throughout the final series.

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Speaker 1: With the new format, did you think about going further?

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Speaker 1: Did you think about doing things like allowing New Zealand

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Speaker 1: based players to go and play in Australia and be

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Speaker 1: traded and stuff like that.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm new in the role, as you know, Heather,

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Speaker 2: and as is the board. We're certainly looking for all

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Speaker 2: opportunities to grow Super rugby specific So at the moment,

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Speaker 2: certainly nothing's on the nothing's off the table. But right now,

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Speaker 2: you know, our key focus has been to reinvigorate the

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Speaker 2: Final series with this new six team format and we're

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Speaker 2: super excited by that.

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Speaker 1: So you sound like you've got an Australian accent?

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Speaker 2: Do you? I do? Do?

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Speaker 1: I mean you would admit that the Australian teams suck

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Speaker 1: and basically need New Zealand players to make them competitive.

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Speaker 2: Well, are you sure about that the Australian teams. Some

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Speaker 2: of the Australian teams had a great season and we

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Speaker 2: saw some great rugby content throughout last season and I

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Speaker 2: think with some of the announcement the Aussie teams are

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Speaker 2: making at the moment, the squads are shaping up really well.

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Speaker 2: And you know, I think what this six team finals

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Speaker 2: format actually does is make sure rather than eight teams

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Speaker 2: as we've previously had, and as fans have sort of

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Speaker 2: told us that they're not that in love with the

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Speaker 2: eight team format, it's going to make sure that the

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Speaker 2: best teams play the best teams and that's going to Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that's going to provide some great content and we hope

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Speaker 2: that the six teams are made up of teams from

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Speaker 2: all around the Pacific, be that Fiji with the Drewer,

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Speaker 2: and be that the Australian teams or indeed Minor PACIFICA

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Speaker 2: and the New Zealand club. So you know, we want

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Speaker 2: the best teams to get into the top six and

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Speaker 2: we want them to go absolutely hammer and tongs to

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Speaker 2: provide some unbelievable rugby content come the back end of

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Speaker 2: the season.

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Speaker 1: Jack, I've been told that the Sunday afternoon games use it,

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Speaker 1: will lose it. If we don't attend them, you'll just

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Speaker 1: scrap them and go back to Saturday evening games. Is

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Speaker 1: that right.

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Speaker 2: I'm a huge fan of Sunday format. We've got to

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Speaker 2: make sure that they work both for crowd build but

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Speaker 2: also for our great broadcast partners. So yeah, we want

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Speaker 2: people there for daytime rugby. We want families to get

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Speaker 2: out and see our amazing athletes juke it out, but

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Speaker 2: we want to make sure that our broadcast partners are

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Speaker 2: happy with it as well. So you know, I think

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Speaker 2: we've all worked together to get some Sunday fixtures in there,

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Speaker 2: and we wanted to work for all of it, all

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Speaker 2: of all of the ecosystem the broadcasters, the clubs and fans.

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Speaker 1: How will you know if it's a success.

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean, these days we have lots of data

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Speaker 2: to be able to measure success across those different elements.

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Speaker 2: So we'll be watching that really carefully and hopefully be

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Speaker 2: able to tell it a great story.

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Speaker 1: Jack, it's good to talk to you. Best of luck

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Speaker 1: with it. That's Jack Measley, Super Rugby's chief executive tool.

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