Expanding the Six Nations and allow "lesser" nations compete

The Lost Sheep

stadedublinois wrote: »

It would depend on the system, but if there was a European superrugby competition, of say 20 teams, I couldn't see there being more than 2 or 3 teams from each of the pro 12 countries (I don't like the idea of one team from a country, effectively having the international team as a club team but we'll see how it works with Argentina and Japan).

Just based on population you couldn't have the same number of teams from Ireland and Wales as France and England.

For example you could have:

3: Ireland
3: Wales
2: Scotland
2: Itlay
5: England
5: France

My main point though is that European rugby can't fix its problems by implementing/creating the SH model.

You would have tiers as we in Ireland would be foolish to lose a professional set up. Of course we in Ireland and Wales wouldn't have same number of sides as England/France and yes I agree we cant fix the issues here by simply copying and following the model used down in the SH

Losty Dublin

The Lost Sheep wrote: »

How are Georgia nowhere near close to be considered for entry to 6N? They don't need more games against our A teams they already are beating them. They need full tests against us, Scotland, Italy.

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I'm not disagreeing that Georgia deserve a step up but they are a long way off 6N standards; their November test against Ireland and RWC results against NZ and Argentina have shown that. Their time will come but there's no need to rush it just yet.

bilston

The Lost Sheep wrote: »

Expanding the pro12 would be great especially if we could use it in future to expand again and have European league with 2 divisions????
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The Pro 12 has an opportunity here IMO. We need to get away from the Celtic League and make it a broader pan European league. Add a Romanian side plus a Georgian and suddenly you are up to 14 teams. There seems to be more and more talk of a 3rd Scottish team and maybe in the near future some sort of Basque team could be created and all of a sudden you have 16 teams and then you aren't too far away from being to have 2 leagues with promotion and relegation. By increasing the number of professionals available to Georgia, Romania and Spain etc you are bound to improve their national sides as well.

bilston

endabob1 wrote: »

On point 2 , this in theory looks a good idea but most of the Georgian Squad and a lot of the Romanians are playing in France, so the club side would be weak unless it could repatriate some of the bigger names, this seasons European challenge cup qualification tournament is a good idea but I actually prefer the idea of a pro12 expansion IF those sides can be competitive, given how comparatively weak the Italian sides have been, that is a big IF.....

Hopefully increased funding would entice some of those guys back to their home country.

On the Italian point, yes it's a fair point but I think Georgia in particular would have more potential as rugby seems to be a very big sport there. I was reading (admittedly on wikipedia) that they get 10,000 to some of their club matches. The AIL hasn't been able to say that for almost 20 years!

WarZ

Losty Dublin wrote: »

I'm not disagreeing that Georgia deserve a step up but they are a long way off 6N standards; their November test against Ireland and RWC results against NZ and Argentina have shown that. Their time will come but there's no need to rush it just yet.

Ireland have lost 60-0 to NZ before. NZ trash a lot of teams. Italy, Ireland, Scotland, France have all been on the receiving end before. Why hold it against Georgia?

Quin_Dub

bilston wrote: »

The Pro 12 has an opportunity here IMO. We need to get away from the Celtic League and make it a broader pan European league. Add a Romanian side plus a Georgian and suddenly you are up to 14 teams. There seems to be more and more talk of a 3rd Scottish team and maybe in the near future some sort of Basque team could be created and all of a sudden you have 16 teams and then you aren't too far away from being to have 2 leagues with promotion and relegation. By increasing the number of professionals available to Georgia, Romania and Spain etc you are bound to improve their national sides as well.

This is a good idea, but the transition would be very difficult..

Going from 12 to 16 teams in the league means another 8 games for each team.. where are the free week-ends for that?

You'd have to move to some kind of conference system with two groups of 8 playing round robin followed by the top 4 from each going to a knock-out comp (and perhaps bottom 8 playing in a plate or something).

The challenge there would be making the two groups even quality wise..

Lots of tradition and resistance to be worked through , but if there are truly aspirations to expand the game then something has to give in terms of the existing competitions and structures..

subfreq

errlloyd wrote: »

I said this in another thread, I have no problem with 8 nations in theory, but I'd want the rugby championship to follow suit with Japan and the PI teams.

I don't think we should be compromising on the standard of rugby we play regularly while the best teams in the world operate a closed shop.

Totally agree and to include the Pacific Islands timed with a review of the current laws on those who want to change the country they have declared for would be perfect.

It would strengthen the Super competition because pacific players would need to have their season timed with the Rugby Championship.

Southern

NZ, AUS, SAF, ARG, JAP, FIJI, SAM, TON

Northern

IRE, FRA, SCO, WAL, ITA, ENG, ROM, GEO

The Lost Sheep

Losty Dublin wrote: »

I'm not disagreeing that Georgia deserve a step up but they are a long way off 6N standards; their November test against Ireland and RWC results against NZ and Argentina have shown that. Their time will come but there's no need to rush it just yet.

Are they really? They are very dominant in the 2nd tier(won 7 of last 8 ENC) and only narrowly lost to Scotland in 2011 world cup. They need more tests in November/June. They are not a long way off 6N standards at all

bilston wrote: »

The Pro 12 has an opportunity here IMO. We need to get away from the Celtic League and make it a broader pan European league. Add a Romanian side plus a Georgian and suddenly you are up to 14 teams. There seems to be more and more talk of a 3rd Scottish team and maybe in the near future some sort of Basque team could be created and all of a sudden you have 16 teams and then you aren't too far away from being to have 2 leagues with promotion and relegation. By increasing the number of professionals available to Georgia, Romania and Spain etc you are bound to improve their national sides as well.

We probably do need to get away from Celtic League as the population isn't there to help support the league when you compare it to English/French leagues

CatFromHue

errlloyd wrote: »

Just while we're all here can we bust one myth.

There is plenty of time for an 8N. The current competition is played over 7 weeks, a game a week and not a bother. Even if it wasn't the rugby championship is 6 games and spans 3 continents. (7 games for Australia and new Zealand). They make time in their seasons becuase their internationals rarely play a level under super rugby. The only real reason we can't do that (I mean gradually phase internationals out of the pro12, AP, T1) is the French and English clubs would kick up a fuss.

If there could just be a little bit of cooperation between the leagues, European cup and unions we could solve this easily. It's only an extra two games a year.

The internationals don't play in the Currie or ITM Cup as there's enough games in the Super XV for them to get a good season out of. This model is starting to creak already with some of the AB's having staggered starts. I don't know what's going to happen with the expanded Super comp.

Up here we can't do that as there's not enough games in the HEC to make a season so the guys have to play Pro12 and that makes a mess. The way our season is set up at the moment is a mess.

Last season there was 36 weeks from the first Pro12 game to the last regular season Pro12 game.

In that 36 weeks there was 22 Pro12 games, all 9 (6 pool games, QF's, SF's, F) HEC games, 3 Autumn Internationals, 5 6N games, and 1 Ireland A game.

I'm not including Summer tours or Pro12 play off either.

We aren't getting the best out of our players up here as our season is all over the place. We actually dilute the quality by asking them to play in 3 different competitions at the same time.

bilston

Quin_Dub wrote: »

This is a good idea, but the transition would be very difficult..

Going from 12 to 16 teams in the league means another 8 games for each team.. where are the free week-ends for that?

You'd have to move to some kind of conference system with two groups of 8 playing round robin followed by the top 4 from each going to a knock-out comp (and perhaps bottom 8 playing in a plate or something).

The challenge there would be making the two groups even quality wise..

Lots of tradition and resistance to be worked through , but if there are truly aspirations to expand the game then something has to give in terms of the existing competitions and structures..

Yeah, ideally you'd want to move straight from 14 to 20 teams (2 leagues of 10), that would be a challenge. 16 or 18 teams are too many for one league and not enough for two divisions.

But just on your last point, I don't think there is much tradition to the Pro 12 so that hopefully wouldn't be a factor.

AbusesToilets

None of this will happen until there is a proper realignment of the European season. You simply can't look past the burden the domestic leagues place on the players. The Top 14 is out of control these days and fixing to get worse.

WR needs to organise the season globally to allow for proper playing blocks. Then you could accommodate changes to the international set up. A European wide club league, combing the 3 main leagues would be best imo. You could follow that with folding the 6 Nations into the Rugby Europe set up.

penybont exile

CatFromHue wrote: »

Our season is too long already though so I don't see where they could fit these games into it.

I'm still not convinced that playing top teams regularly is the main driving force behind nations getting better.

There's a strong argument that Italy and Argentina were stronger than they are now, or around now, before they got into the 6N/4N

I saw Wales play Argentina in 1976 in Cardiff.

Wales fielded an extremely strong side that day and only won the match with a last minute penalty. Not bad considering NZ were the only team to beat Wales in Cardiff during that decade.

Argentina had some excellent players in that team including Hugo Porta who would be up there with the best 10's who have ever played the game.

Goldstein

We need the Germans to go a bit rugby mad. If they could be more competitive in ENC 1A and even manage a few wins in this cycle and not get relegated that would be a great start towards their qualification hopes for Japan 2019.

KingBrian2

Nah! Just go to the local Irish Rugby League if you enjoy rugby.