Saffas going?
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@canefan said in Saffas going?:
@jegga said in Saffas going?:
This story has rolled around at some point every year this century, I'm sure the 6n teams will be stoked to get on a long haul flight to play on hard grounds in the height of summer.
So its agreed this is just the saffas posturing for a bigger slice of the SANZAAR pie? Steve Tew is barely out the door and it's all hitting the fan....
Probably is, kind of tedious though. It reminds me of the league players saying they'd switch to union when their contract was up for renegotiation .My favourite was when Willie Mason said the all blacks were interested in him.
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@Stargazer said in Saffas going?:
Quite a lot (relatively speaking) of fans follow their national teams to 6N away games; that will be near impossible if they play in South Africa.
Wait... what? It's near impossible to get to SA from the UK?
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@Bones said in Saffas going?:
@Stargazer said in Saffas going?:
Quite a lot (relatively speaking) of fans follow their national teams to 6N away games; that will be near impossible if they play in South Africa.
Wait... what? It's near impossible to get to SA from the UK?
It won't work without a major rejig of seasons
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@canefan said in Saffas going?:
@Bones said in Saffas going?:
@Stargazer said in Saffas going?:
Quite a lot (relatively speaking) of fans follow their national teams to 6N away games; that will be near impossible if they play in South Africa.
Wait... what? It's near impossible to get to SA from the UK?
It won't work without a major rejig of seasons
Ok...were you meaning to reply to someone else?
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@taniwharugby said in Saffas going?:
I expect if this happened, we would finally have no choice but to select players from overseas, although we'd probably just have to pick up those not snaffled up by the Euro teams.
Might not be the worst thing.
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Sooner or later SA will join 6 Nations and Heineken Cup, probably at expense of Italy. Too
much commercial pressure for this not to happen.My guess is that Super Rugby will be replaced by a new Aus, NZ and Pacific competition. The Rugby Championship will become a US, Argentina, Japan, Aus, NZ competition.
NZR will be forced to introduce their own version of Giteau's law.
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I agree about the Giteau rule. We’d have no choice but to select abroad.
But I think it’s optimistic to think that the Japanese and US will be keen to throw money at a passing concern for very long.
The ability to retain players will be based on money, we all agree on that. But the money will only be forthcoming if there is a palatable product for Asia and the Americans.
If NZ hammer everyone. If Argentina hammer everyone, who wants to see that? NZ and Argentina and no one else.
Anyone thinking the islands will be part of the plan is deluded. They aren’t part of the plan currently and there money around. How in the fuck are the remaining And soon to be much poorer RC unions going to prop up completely broke and corrupt Island unions?
Where we are headed in test rugby is meaningless games like football friendlies and only world cups mean something. The NH Club scene will become the be all end all.
Yes I’m being negative. Hoped to be proved well and truly wrong.
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I think I can speak on behalf of the majority of 6N supporters.
We neither want nor need SA in the competition.
And SA feel thesame way.
It's posturing.
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@MiketheSnow I've read the same reaction from French rugby fans on French sites and social media, but some are afraid it will happen because of the huge sums of money involved.
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If SA do this and dissolve the TRC it could be a blessing.
The NZRU could move to a model similar to what Notre Dame/BYU use in college football. Set their own schedule from start to finish and use the box office draw of the ABs to leverage better deals for their away games.
At least to start we would probably have to deal with a very weak slate of home fixtures to make that work.
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This post is deleted!
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If this were to happen it'd hurt short term but we'd get over it. It'd mean an end to SANZAAR and Super Rugby involving SA teams due to the overlap, but that's not the end of the world.
We should sidle up to Japan and get a couple of combined Top League teams into Super Rugby, with the Top League running completely separately. This would replace SA's broadcasting revenue. As a sweetener to the Japan RU who'd previously not backed the Sunwolves, we release a quantity of NZ players to boost their sides and up everyones' revenue. Also takes the pressure off NZR's contracting monies, but we'd need to change eligibility rules so that these Kiwis were still available for the All Blacks. I think that model solves a number of problems.
The Rugby Championship becomes NZ, Australia, Argentina and Japan. JANZAR.
Meanwhile I'm not sure when SA think they'll be able to play NZ and Australia, unless they become an in-bound tour in place of a NH team, which in itself is a bit of a win as an occasional three test series vs SA would create huge interest. We could go there also, so lets say every two years we play them either home or away, or it could even be that two of three tests are played in one nation.
But for a start I'd flip SA the bird and not play them for a couple of years at all.
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The expression "where there is smoke" springs to mind, but I am still giving no credence to this supposed 7 Nations plan.
It doesn't strike me that many of the NH teams are in favour (and I base this on zero actual fact, more gut feel).
Equally, I am not sure there is that much unhappiness with The Rugby Championship from SA Rugby. The travel factor has long ago been accepted.
SA Rugby's possible, and most likely probable issue will be about cash. They need LOTS more of it as the player drain attests to. Maybe they can get more from a 7-Nations deal, maybe not. (I don't think it will resolve the exodus issues anyway).
Plus the seasonal timing doesn't work well. SA based players will end up having a 12-month season. Too big a workload, not much more pay.... can't see that going down a treat.Nah - I think we'll be staying put.
The trick for SANZAAR is to find a format / way to massively increase revenues for all the participating Championship nations. Because it's not just SA that is feeling the Euro / Pound pinch. -
Maybe some kind of cycle where the teams only play each other once and the whole tournament and it's hosted by one country, so each country gets it on a 4 year cycle? Or maybe 2 countries can host it at a time with a 2 year cycle?
Opens up more leeway for tours, etc, plus can also still have extra Bledisloes.
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@Billy-Webb Maybe we can play in both tournaments (7N & RC). There are 46 SA players in the English Premiership alone. Rassie can select the NH base players for the 7 N and the SH players for the RC.
Myself would love to see the old rugby tours. Pretty sure an All Black tour to SA will produce more money then the one off RC test.
We can return to CC rugby. We saw this weekend the best crowd in S15 when the Bulls played the Stormers. The PRO14 is another example. We saw the best support when the Cheetahs and Kings played each other.
The attendance at Ellis Park this weekend was shocking.