What risk was that?
it would be interesting to see "when" during the yearly calendar, something like this would be designed for.
Depends on the format it takes and the number of teams involved.
If it were a full blown 16-32 team tournament you'd need to set aside 5 or 6 weeks minimum like we do for the (National Team) World Cup so we would probably have to shorten the leagues substantially.
If it were a 2-4 team knockout or round robin it could be held over 2 or 3 weekends so there's a bit of space there with the recent reduction in EPCR/English Premiership/URC games. Think SR is now 17 rounds, including playoffs?
In the formation of every business venture there is a risk, in terms of professional club rugby in Europe the unions and many private investors would have gone bust had the public not gotten behind the tournaments
SR is 18 rounds including playoffs.
assuming its a 16 team competition?? 4 from URC, Top 14, Premiership and SR.. play off in 2 groups where the draw would be made beforehand so that teams in their own league dont meet in 1st 2 rounds.
2 groups of 8 teams = QFs - Sfs - group final - overall final Group A winner v group B winner
so thats 5 weeks given to it, including final
i think the organisers would prefer some kind of group stages though, and run a competition like the RWC which would take up 7 weeks.
I understand that but I don't see what was different between Europe and the SH. When pro rugby was launched in 95/96 everyone was taking a risk.
I'm fairly sure it's 14 regular season, 11 home or away + 3 Derbies + 3 playoffs but we won't fall out over 1 round :) the point is that a 2 week tournament would fit in their calendar
For a 7 week competition you would likely need to axe the Champions cup or remove half the rounds from the domestic leagues and remove a few SR games.
Such a situation would be a huge financial hit to the 37 non-participating top tier clubs (12 URC +7 EP +10 T14 + 8 SR)
while you are correct that there are 17 games per team to final, there are actually 15 rounds in the regular season as rounds 6, 7 and 8 are abridged with only 4 games in each round.. so stretching 2 rounds into 3 weeks.... meaning the regular season is 15 rounds long and not 14
but hey, whos counting 😅
on the club competition, i certainly wouldn't like to see an expanded version akin to the RWC. the likes of the chiefs playing castres wouldnt attract me at all. leave it as the best v the best.
In the last 72 hours there has been stories that a coach England hired to improve the culture amongst the senior squad, is considering quitting after just 6 weeks on the job. And also hat England's head doctor has resigned.
To top that off, Eddie Jones' closest advisor accused the CEO of the RFU of leaking these stories to the press in order to tarnish Jones' reputation.
All that stuff could potentially be ignored if England had shown any indication of progress in the last two years. But they've been steadily regressing in performance. Things are becoming incredibly toxic and I'm not sure Jones will still be England Head Coach for the World Cup.
The ideas of 7+ week 16 team competitions are very very unlikely to happen with how tight the calendars are already. None of the domestic leagues are going to agree to losing the 5+ games a season that would be required.
At most I could see the URC, T14, Premiership and Super rugby winners all playing each other once in a 3 week mini season. Thats reasonably fair, would only be the best teams/league winners so easy to market, and could probably be squeezed into the calendar.
@Blut2 I agree that it should be small but the problem with it being just the winners of the domestic competitions is it could mean the European champions aren't there. Also I imagine that SR will want more than one representative so that they get a bigger slice of the pie. Australia will probably want a guaranteed place as well.
I'm seeing a lot of defenders of Eddie Jones around and its pretty baffling, I don't see how his England team can be considered anything other than underachieving. Writing off multiple years of rugby under the guise of planning for a world cup is nonsense too, and surely pretty bad for the financials.
Eddie has done a good job of convincing the English media (up to now anyway) and possibly the RFU that no rugby matters except for the Rugby World Cup, and equally that his development of the squad necessitates tinkering the line up frequently, an inevitable by-product of which is losing 6N games and Autumn Internationals etc, all because he managed to do that last time out.
The Aussies could very well argue that but then the Saffers, Scots, Welsh, and Italians would justifiably argue the same. Which would very quickly dilute the quality of the teams and end up with a 9 team tournament (SA, Sco, Wal, Ita, Ire, Eng, Fra, Aus, NZ) which would be unworkable due to the number of games required.
Not including the European champions would probably be seen as a good thing by the leagues - only having the league winners qualifying would help rebalance some focus away from the Heineken cup at the tail end of the season. Leinster's more relaxed attitude to the league in recent years when they were far more focused on winning in Europe probably wouldn't happen for example.
Take the European champion plus the URC, Premiership and Top 14 Champions (or runner up if they've already qualified via The EC ) and then 4 from Southern Hemisphere - 1 each from Australia and NZ and the next best 2.
8 teams played as a straight knockout cup over 3 weekends.
If it's been sold as a club "world cup" then any reason most of us are excluding the winners of the japanese league?
There is a large viewing public there that competition organisers would like to target
Fair point - The perception, which may be outdated and/or inaccurate is that the Japanese league isn't at the same level at the other Pro-leagues.
Do those teams ever play any Super Rugby teams , even in pre-season to get a feel for the level they are at?
yes they do, rare so far but id imagine this will get more popular:
reds won 55 - 30 btw
highlanders played the wild knights previously too IIRC
Wasn’t the club World Cup being mooted as once every 4 years. Where it would replace the group stages of the European Cup. Can’t see why ERC would agree to that unless their champion was involved. More so unless they were gaining revenue from it.
They want to talk about an entirely unasked for club tournament, but still can't manage a properly constructed global calendar.
Interesting theory on what may happen next week
murmurings that Eddie Jones is getting the chop.
I'll believe it when I see it.
I read over the weekend that the playing squad has been consulted and will form a key part of any decision regarding his future. If he is sacked it could well be at the behest of some very fed up players and staff.
Speculation game: If sacked does he sit on his hands until he starts the USA gig or does he pick up a contract with someone through to the World Cup?
I can't see him in any position in a tier one team, apart from either the wales top position or in there as a "consultant" to shake things up.
He might eventually face the sack because of all the chopping and changing he's been doing, which would be deliciously ironic.
This is a bit mad. Hope he's alright.
He's been found alive!
https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/sport/rugby/2022-12-05-bok-star-sbu-nkosi-finally-located/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1670229129
Bulls have released a statement saying that this is not true https://twitter.com/dylmjack/status/1599710039778164736
WTF.
I think I read something recently that said part of his contract excluded him from taking another gig until after the World Cup.
They would effectively be putting him on gardening leave until after the WC with a big pay-off and not "firing" him.
i suppose that makes sense.
it would be very unethical, unfair, weird for a coach of a team to have been the head coach of the opposition only 8 months previous to the RWC
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