Jon Harris is struggling to get excited about the Tri-Nations, which starts this Saturday when New Zealand play Australia in Auckland.

I sit here looking ahead to the Tri-Nations opener between Australia and New Zealand on Saturday and realise that there is hardly a stirring of excitement within. Perhaps it is because the matches between these two teams are not of great interest to me. If I watch them so be it.

But then I think that a week later South Africa take on the All Blacks in the first of two back-to- back tests in South Africa, and again no excitement.

So perhaps it's me, my inherent fear of losing to the Blacks or the Aussies, and I don't like to face that prospect.

Yet, after a chat with some of my rugby mad mates, I realise there appears to be a similar lack of interest in the upcoming Tri-Nations tournament.

What could be the cause of this disinterest? Is it just that South Africa are only playing next week and that the excitement will only start to build from Sunday after the pipe-opener? Possibly. The media are limited in their coverage of the Tri-Nations at the moment, preferring to focus on the opening round of the Currie Cup, and more specifically the solid performance of Western Province this last weekend.

Is it that the South African camp are still collecting themselves after a tough and bruising series against the British and Irish Lions, on and off the field, and are enjoying a respite from the attention of the media? Taking stock of injuries (and lest we hope too much), plotting the strategies against the Antipodeans. I say this cynically, not because I have no faith in the coaches, I believe they deserve some more time, but rather because sometimes they do play and manage as if no strategies have been devised.

Perhaps this has contributed to my moderate interest in the Tri-Nations. Maybe I am emotionally drained as a supporter, exhausted from giving of myself to my team. I'm secure in the knowledge that man-for-man we have a team worthy of their World Champion status, but insecure about the unpredictable display in selections, attitude, performance and situation management. Can I face another two months of our team's efforts being reduced to nothing by the hungry opposition press, more interested in hanging on the lips of Peter de Villiers than judging their performance?

I'm sure all of the above has a bearing on this apparent lack of interest. I'm sure that when the tournament starts in earnest, i.e. is when the Boks play, we'll all be sitting on the edge of our seats, wearing our Bok shirts in front of the television in the early morning.

Still, there's a nagging feeling that the Tri-Nations is old hat, that the Southern Hemisphere needs something new. Our tournaments all seem to be yesterday's news. The Super 14, ho hum. Soon to be the Super 15, more of the same. Is it not the same with the Tri-Nations? The British & Irish Lions series was a breath of fresh air. There was something for every rugby fan. Hard, almost brutal rugby from both teams; the interest in watching a selection squad from four vastly different nations gel into a team of friends and comrades; the media manipulation of the wily visitors versus the media naivete of the hosts; the resurgence of scrumming as a facet of the game both for player and spectator alike; the birth of new stars like Tommy Bowe, Jamie Heaslip and a few others. The Lions tour had it all, and to confound everyone, there are some calling the future of the concept into question.

Competition staleness is a serious condition for us armchair viewers. There is so much to choose from that it all merges after a while and we lose track of what competition we're watching. The Tri- Nations is still the big one, even bigger than the Six Nations, but as difficult as it is to say, it is normally all about the All Blacks, with the other two countries standing an outside chance of becoming champions by upset, or default if bonus points play a role. Champions by any means are still champions anyway, look at the last World Cup.

By contrast the Six Nations has, you guessed it, six teams, four of which contest for line honours, one can upset any of the top four on their day, and the sixth, well they're trying hard. Nevertheless there is a lot of excitement and the champions are seldom decided before the last round. There is national pride at stake, and rivalry between the nations which is deep-rooted and intense. The French don't much like the English, the Irish don't like the English, the Welsh, even the Scottish don't like the English. The Italians, well they're a nation of lovers and are just there for the game. All of that makes for a keenly contested competition.

By contrast the Tri-Nations sees the World's best team between World Cups, New Zealand, dominate their traditional rivals. Yes, home ground advantage sees the home nations win more than they lose, but the upsets always seem to come from the All Blacks (with the exception of the Bok win in Dunedin last year).

The interesting thing about this year's Tri-Nations is that the Southern Hemisphere teams were not as dominant against Northern Hemisphere opposition as is normally the case. New Zealand were beaten by France in one test and run close in a second. Australia were solid in their tests, perhaps showing potential as dark horses, but also far from convincing. South Africa shut the British & Irish Lions out within two tests, but allowed room for speculation with their strange replacements in the first test and wholesale changes for the final test. The perceived underperformance of these nations may be dampening the excitement of the spectator.

Also are the Southern Hemisphere teams starting to pay the price for leaking so many of their top players to the North, especially New Zealand? Are they being viewed by their fans as a second string outfit competing against 'those other two teams'?

What would the level of interest be if all three Southern Hemisphere teams had run over their opposition in these recent internationals? Nothing less than fever pitch as we all weighed in with our forecasts of who was the best.

Once the competition kicks off the interest levels will rise. News of the teams and what they say and do will start to fill the pages of our favourite newspapers and websites, and the contest will as usual generate a tremendous amount of interest and fervour. The marketers may argue that these are the first signs of rigour mortis. If interest in the competition needs to be kick started by any means, jumper leads or a push start, then the battle for the viewer's attention is already lost.

But how does one measure loss of interest? The ticket sales for the stadiums will still be acceptable. The television ratings within target range. Gut feel does not count. The administrators and television gurus will definitely not pay any attention. If they are finally convinced that the competition needs resuscitation, then they'll just expand it. Bring in Argentina or the Pacific Islands. Ho hum.

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