We have, after a long and gruelling yet at the same time incredibly short season, arrived at the last home-and-away round of Super Rugby Pacific, and the truly exciting thing about the competition is that every team is still in contention for a finals place, as long as one is willing to get reasonably creative with one’s forecasts.

For example, the Highlanders can still make the top six as long as they win with four bonus points and other results fall their way, as can the Drua. The Western Force is still in with a chance if they can post a big win over the bye.

Somewhat less realistically, the Waratahs may sneak into the playoffs if they beat the Blues in Auckland, but even that is not impossible in a strictly theoretical sense. And then, of course, every team knows there is always a chance that the top five teams might all get disqualified for doping violations, so that’s something for fans to hang on to.

FINAL WEEK SCENARIOS WITH FINALS ON THE LINE

Among the top teams there are a variety of permutations. Depending on their performance this weekend, the Brumbies could end up losing in a semi-final, or losing in a final. The Reds could still finish anywhere from fourth to sixth, though nobody knows what the difference is. And for the Chiefs, there is a wide variety of possibilities when it comes to which team they will humiliate in the final. As I said, exciting times.

Reds Coach Les Kiss. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

But couldn’t these times be a little bit more exciting? Isn’t there a way we could make the final round of Super Rugby Pacific a real EVENT? The kind of event that other sports have, like rugby league’s State of Origin, soccer’s FA Cup, and boxing’s ex-footballers staggering in confusion around a ring.

SRP could definitely use a little bit of hype. Studies show that among the under-45 demographic, Super Rugby now has a brand recognition slightly below that of the John Laws album “You’ve Never Been Trucked Like This Before”.

People just aren’t tuning into the competition the way they did back when it had the natural advantage of being the only domestic sporting competition where you could see South Africans getting hurt. These eyeballs need to be brought back to what is, as we of cultured tastes know, one of the top ten rugby union competitions in Australasia (at this time). And years of experience have taught us that the best way to popularise anything is through cheap, contrived gimmickry. But here I’m proposing something even more radical than “Super Point”.

What I am suggesting is that the final round of SRP before finals is turned into a festival of jeopardy and tension, by introducing elements that ensure no team is safe.

For example, right now the Chiefs, Crusaders and Brumbies, even if they don’t know the precise final ordering, will be feeling pretty secure in knowing they’ll definitely be around in the finals, as the top three teams.

But what if they didn’t know that? What if there was a risk that they might end up getting dumped out altogether, if things didn’t go their way in the last round? What if, in fact, we were looking forward to this weekend knowing that under certain circumstances, the ladder could be entirely reversed, with the bottom team becoming top, the top team becoming bottom, and the team in sixth staying exactly where it is?

A thrilling prospect, no? And all it would require would be Super Rugby Pacific to tweak the competition rules so that if a team managed a pre-determined, yet secret, accomplishment, it would flip the ladder upside down. So, for example, if on the weekend the Highlanders score a try through a movement with more than 20 passes, a big siren goes off at the ground and it’s announced that they are now on top of the table and the Chiefs are at the bottom.

BUT that could be reversed again, if the Chiefs subsequently drive a maul more than 50 metres. But then the Highlanders could flip it yet another time if one of their players can catch a kick-off in the waistband of his shorts. And so on. It’s kind of like rugby UNO. The entertainment value is clear.

(Photo by Michael Bradley/Getty Images)

But yes I do realise that such radical vision might be too much too soon. There are less drastic steps we could take. Like setting a random timer on each game in the last round, and whenever the bell goes off, it becomes Next Try Wins. Or specifying that for every team not in the top six, a win counts double, just this once. Or simply rewarding the team that comes seventh with a special trophy for being the Best Failure. It could be a replica of the actual Super Rugby trophy, but with big dent in it to remind the winners that they shouldn’t be proud of themselves.

One very easy way to make the last round more exciting is to play every game at the same time. It would be even more exciting if they were also played on the same ground. Think of THAT: one hundred and fifty players, with three balls, careening around the field, wreaking utter havoc. Even better if everyone had to wear the same uniform. Or, indeed, no uniform at all: hello ladies.

There’s no one perfect solution here: it’s all about brainstorming. My point is, the final round should be both a celebration and a climax. We need something to add spice to the proceedings. Because if we don’t institute some ridiculous hoopla of some kind, then all we will be relying on to attract viewers is the game of rugby. And we already know that doesn’t work.