Anyone making sense of the nations championship. The Spring / Autumn tours between north and south.
This is something that has been going on for years on how to get a fairer comp off the ground.
Like the URC and the failed Super rugby expansion, this one has the same markings or stink of the previous attempts to try and expand rugby to the wider masses.
On one hand I think it is a great idea, get teams committed to send their best teams, but Rugby has one fatal flaw and that is that you have competing local competitions.
6 Nations
Championship (Tri- Nations)
World Cup
The throw in the Lions series that rotates every 4 years.
Not to mention the new greatest Rivalry tour that has now started.
So where does it leave room for expansion or a meaningful rugby.
There are massive gaps in world rugby from the 6th team to the 1st team, but unless you are Rassie and allowing an underperforming Aus team to beat you every single time he decides to gamble means that there are still something, but then Wales that has fallen so far behind.
Yet, we have France, Ireland, SA and New Zealand. England has potential, but Scotland seem to have their number but will never really beat the top 3. So it is a question of the top 3 then the next 3 and that is where it pretty much ends. So what is the point then trying to play a global league when these unions are failing for decades now to come competitive.
What has world rugby really done?
USA can't seem to get any fans or a proper league, they keep starting and failing. The are using grounds fro rugby that doesn't look like a rugby stadium, from astro terf hockey fields with no stands to having to travel great distances just to play.
Japan has a lot of money in their corporate league. Not really professional
Fiji, Samoa and Tonga are propping up NZ, Aus and their rugby league teams.
Arg can never seem to get their local team off the ground and Italy is stuck with two teams.
What I would like to see world rugby do is actually work with sponsors to bring rugby to some of the outer regions.
Let's take south America.
They have Argentina, Urugaya that actually had a decent team. Why need get 4 professional teams or at least 3 professional teams from each country, Then go to Brazil and Chile and fund 2 professional teams there. They have the makings of 10 teams and run a home and away comp that would give them 18 professional games. 20, if you can semi and final.
The other overlooked region is Romania and Georgia . I just saw an announcement between them and Spain that they want to form their own annual cup. Which great news. Where is world rugby.
Why not say to Italy you go play amongst those teams, but each country needs to have 3 professional teams and as part of the deal, run grass roots programs like we had in SA with those orange balls. Ireland ran summer tag rugby comps which was a huge success bring players through.
Rugby has some of the best culture around any sport, but why can't we sort this out?
Australia rugby was best when they had 3 teams, 2 is to few and four in some countries are too many.
Irelands problem is that all their top players go to Leinster.
Australia had the traditional rivals of Queensland and NSW. Giants, but they then threw in ACT. All on the east coast and with a boost of Super 12, they became extremely hard to play against but also amazing quality of rugby and players.
So why can't world rugby sort it out?
