In Europe the game is based on club rugby and this is and will be it’s strength. Australia’s top down system of Gold Coast retreats and special contracts whilst ignoring the club roots of Rugby will lead to our reservoir of talent drying up and quickly. Stop whingeing about ELVs, get out from in front of your plasmas and join a club.

My summation of each clubs attendance is –
Bath – Very good in relation to capacity, full houses so far
Gloucester – Pretty good, getting about 75% of capacity
Quins – Pretty average – getting around 66% capacity
Leeds – Atrocious, only around 30% capacity.
Lecister – Very good, 90% capacity
Irish – Very average, just over 50%
Wasps – prety good, 80% cap
Newcastle – very very ordinary, just over 50% cap
Northhampton – doing very well with 90% cap
Sale – pretty decent with 70% cap
Saracens – difficult to judge with 2 matches at Twicks (doubleheader) and Wembley. Normal home match terrible.
Worcester – pretty reasonable at 80% cap.

The subjective rating I have given is in relation to the home ground capacity, thats not really a true reflection to some degree of how poorly attend the GP is. The incredibly small capacity of some of the grounds defies belief for a pro competition.

From those stats on the GP site there have only been 3 sellouts at true home grounds. The double header opening weekend was well attended as you would hope as was the Saracens match at Wembley.

How many matches a week are shown on TV?

Are the costs of renting Twicks/Wembley or other large stadia too prohibitive to do any more than a couple of times a year?

I wont even comment on the pathetic crowds in the Magners League, goodness me, how do these teams not go broke? TV obviously keeps them afloat but the figures are scarily poor.

Do supporters prefer to go to the HK matches instead?

In all honesty I have heard the game is going from strength to strength but on these figures there is a long way to go before any can so the game is flourishing I would have thought.

If you were from a small Island in the Pacific and someone told you you might be playing England at the home of rugby but you wouldn’t make any money would you go?
Im sure the PIs costs were covered so it wouldn’t have cost them anything, they were already in the UK for that time period.

Contact with? Thats a vague term.
We have everyday contact with Tonga and Samoa, their largest concentration of population is our largest city.’

I’m pretty sure that the majority of the PI players have played at Twickenham, and given that the entire reason for starting the PI team was to make money I can’t imagine that the administrators simply allowed their players to turn up for a financial loss. I can’t imagine they simply had enough money and decided to play for pride. We’re talking about flights, food, hotel costs, kit bills etc.

By contact I obviously mean regular games against these teams. When is the last time that NZ entertained teams other than England, France, Ireland (and recently Italy) during their June tests? The crux of the matter is that the Sanzar attitude has been far mroe insular than the European attitude.

If you were from a small Island in the Pacific and someone told you you might be playing England at the home of rugby but you wouldn’t make any money would you go?
Im sure the PIs costs were covered so it wouldn’t have cost them anything, they were already in the UK for that time period.

Contact with? Thats a vague term.
We have everyday contact with Tonga and Samoa, their largest concentration of population is our largest city.

Just out of curiosity, does the Roar Police have a high starting salary? Are there any fringe benefits beyond a misguided sense of self-satisfaction, and does the ego needed to sustain this high-end position clash with you antiquated Calvinistic approach to semantics?

I didn’t make a cheap shot. Based on your posts that I’ve seen it was a perfectly valid question.

My clarity is just fine. Yours needs work.

In any case, England has appeared in 3 WC finals, won 1 and is one of only 3 nations to have held the 1st place IRB ranking. Australia is not one of the other two countries. Not only that but England has a domestic competition with increasingly rising attendances, a history that effects tribalism and passion, and which also allows the test side to play a running brand of rugby that Australian supporters used to lecture was the preserve of their test side (but which in fact was only seen in 1984 and inconsistently since then). Whilst Australian rugby has long been geared toward professionalism English rugby has achieved just as much success (in fact probably more) with a system that has been geared toward holding them back. Currently, Australian rugby has a host of crapulent Super sides who play crapulent rugby, and a test side which has just picked up a 3N wooden spoon whilst playing the most boring rugby of all the top tier rugby nations. That doesn’t strike me as a position of strength and I guess the Australian fans agree which is why they are shunning the game.

Hang on, first you say if Carter, Kahui and Smith had been fit, he wouldn’t have been selected, now you add Toeva to the list. However, the argument still stands, all those mentioned are 13′s, McAlister was your only other natural 12.

Although, having said all that, Smith played in the second test, with Toeava on the bench and Toeva started in the first game, so your argument doesn’t really hold up. Either that, or you haven’t done the research.

Francis Baron discussing the fact that the PIs weren’t entitled to a slice –

“Any Test played outside of the IRB official tours window require a voluntary agreement between the two participating unions and all the issues of cost sharing come into it, so you have to agree a financial package.

“We are very proud of our record here. We always provide financial assistance to the Pacific Island teams when they come here. We have helped Samoa and Tonga.

“We haven’t had a request from the Pacific Islands yet but if we did get one we would listen to it sympathetically.”

Listen to it ‘Sympathetically’? lol. If Sympathy wasn’t free the RFU wouldn’t give that either.
The PIs were bascially told if they wanted a slice they needed to come to the RFU with cap in hand.
How noble. Do you think the PIs put money before their pride and went and begged the RFU for some of it? Nope of course not.

More contact? Last year the ABs played the Samoan team in Taranaki and they took the gate.
Its easy to have a game against Argentina in England when all their players are based in Europe.

A kit drive? are you serious? you think things as small as a kit drive to smaller nations is something limited to the north?

Im sorry KO, but the RFU are not the White Knight you think they are.
Like ive said over and over again, all the major unions are out there gorging themselves on the big dollars without seeing the big picture (NZ are one of the worst), but i dislike your holier then thou theme.

Copied my Baron quote from here -
http://www.rugbyheaven.com.au/news/england/england-to-play-all-blacks/2008/01/24/1201025043147.html

I have.

“It has nothing to do with superiority of either Hemisphere.”

That’s what I have been saying for months, but when you say:

“That is opinion only, maybe lesser opposition allowed them to dominate? Again merely a different opinion.”

You are therefore implying that you believe Southern Hemisphere players are better.

What would the point be in England playing any of the minnow nations you mention? The teams would gain absolutely nothing from the experience, as we saw the last time that England played Romania. These nations are developed by the 2nd 6N tournament and financial assistance from England (Mr Broadfoot’s famous Romanian kit drive campaign springs to mind), and the fact that the Romanian teams are exposed to a lower tier of European rugby in the Amlin Cup. What has England done recently to assist developing nations? They played Argentina twice and allowed the first game to be played at Old Trafford so that the Argentines would recoup more money. In broad terms the European teams have had far, far more contact with Canada, Argentina and the Pacific teams over the past few years than any of the Sanzar nations.

The PI team didn’t get a cent? Then why would they play a game at Twickenham if they are rewarded with zero pounds. I don’t believe that.

The Pacific Nations Cup has only existed since 2006. Assistance to the Islanders would be having their own Super franchise, or being entered into the 3N.

There are players who have adapted and done well. The poor form of the guys you mentioned cannot be explained. There could be many personal factors as to why these guys havent adapted well. Some do and play well, some don’t and fall down on their face.
It has nothing to do with superiority of either Hemisphere.
I have not implied or commented that SH players are superior.
By the way you didn’t reply to my note that McAlister would not have seen a black jersey this year had we not been so decimated in the mid field this year. A guy with AB history is always going to be picked over new blood when trophies are at stake. His form was poor before he left the north and was poor when he returned. That says absolutely nothing about the rugby in either hemisphere.

Well, it depends. McAlister’s the only other natural 12, unless the selectors wanted to call-up someone like Bateman or Brett, so he may have got into the 22 on that assumption, as well as his versatility, as he can cover 10, 12 and 13. Possibly wing also.

But how do you explain the inconsistant performances by the likes of McAlister and Chris Jack? De Villiers has played very poorly since coming over, but we can’t make a judgement until he’s settled in properly.

Players that succeed in Europe are the ones who work hard and adapt to the style of rugby and the culture, not necessarily the ones who have the most natural talent.