For most Northern Hemisphere rugby pundits, Super Rugby Pacific has gone from must-watch to background noise. That is the blunt assessment of Ireland's Bernard Jackman, the former Leinster hooker turned analyst, who admitted on the DSPN podcast this week that the southern game's grip on his attention has slipped badly.
Asked directly how he views Super Rugby Pacific now, Jackman did not soften it.
"I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I've kind of lost a bit of love for it," he said. "And even chatting to all my friends and rugby pundits over here, it's just kind of gone off our radar a little bit. We don't watch as much as it as we did."
Jackman, who grew up watching Super Rugby as the benchmark for the global game, said the absence of South African franchises had hurt the competition in his eyes, and he and his fellow Northern Hemisphere analysts had drifted toward the Top 14 instead.
"We grew up with it. It was the best rugby in the world," he said. "But the South Africans gone out of it - it just doesn't seem to have the same edge to it. I could be totally wrong. But certainly in the Northern Hemisphere we're now watching more Top 14, which we never would have in the past. We would have watched Super Rugby. And that's me as an absolute rugby junkie. Yeah, it's kind of gone off our radar."
For Jackman, the league that has filled the gap is unambiguous: France's Top 14, in his view, is now the most competitive professional rugby competition on the planet.
"It's much more competitive in France. Anybody can beat anybody," he said. "It's the race for the top six. Every weekend is sellout. There's relegation, there's jeopardy. For me, that's the most competitive league in the world. Also, it's where the most money is - TV money, crowd, sponsorship, player salaries."
The conversation pivoted naturally to Leinster's Champions Cup final against Bordeaux, where Jackman believes Leo Cullen's side go in as genuine underdogs for the first time in years. He is convinced Bordeaux are the strongest team in the competition - "amazing halfbacks with a big pack" - but argues the arrival of double World Cup-winning coach Jacques Nienaber has changed Leinster's identity.
"Jacques Nienaber, the old Springbok World Cup-winning coach, the British and Irish Lions series winner, has brought the Springbok defence to Leinster," Jackman said. "They don't attack in the same manner they did before, but we know the Boks know how to win knockout rugby. And I think everyone in Leinster wants that defensive effort to be the key to hopefully winning our first European Cup since 2018."
A second thread Jackman picked up was the late-season form of All Black Rieko Ioane, whose first season at Leinster has been heavily scrutinised. After a slow start, Jackman believes the wing has timed his run perfectly.
"This is money time in Ireland. The best players get ready for knockout rugby," he said. "I just think over the last three weeks, Rico has performed much better. He's had a big impact in games. He made a choice-saving tackle last week to keep Leinster in last play of the game against Toulon to force a turnover."
He also expects Ioane to finish on the wing rather than at centre, suggesting James Lowe's return from injury will push the New Zealander wide.
"To be honest, he's been better on the wing," Jackman said. "He's very physical, he wins collisions and he gets you over the gainline. The criticism I would have at centre this year has been his distribution just hasn't been at the level that we saw last year with Jordie Barrett."
Jackman finished with a plea for change inside Irish rugby's tightly controlled eligibility system, arguing that more young Irish players should be allowed short stints abroad - even in Super Rugby - without losing their international eligibility.
"If you guys are allowing Jordie Barrett and Rico Ioane to come to us, why wouldn't we try and find a way of giving our players exposure to something different?" he said. "It's a little bit safe for me. It's a little bit protected."
