Is there room for a second division Rugby Championship?
Roar Pro By Football United, 10 Sep 2012 Football United is a Roar Pro
- Tagged:
- Rugby Union, The Rugby Championship
Related coverage
The inclusion of Argentina into the Rugby Championship has got me thinking about the state of International Rugby on this side of the world.
Despite displaying their obvious competitiveness with the big teams, the ‘minnows’ that everyone was raving about during the World Cup have once again been hidden away in obscurity due to their lack of involvement in major tournaments.
Some of these countries are involved in obscure tournaments such as the Pacific Nations Cup, which does not have half the prestige these nations deserve on the world stage.
Those without short memories will remember the scenes of 2011 where Samoa pushed RSA and Wales to the edge to get a win, Japan giving France a real scare by playing a highly entertaining game of fast recycling of the ball and Tonga finishing the job against Les Bleus. So why can’t they be part of a top tournament as well?
A possible way of gradually including these nations is to have a second tier under the banner of the Rugby Championship, running during the same window as the main competition.
The ability of some of these teams (with a full strength squad) to match it with the top tier means that promotion and relegation is viable as well, meaning all of a sudden there is more to the original Rugby Championship, with no more questions regarding weak World Cup years squads, as finishing last could have actual consequences.
Player release is the tricky issue and the IRB needs to look at bringing in actual player release windows to help ease these tugs of war over players. Any tournament without its stars is a sub-standard tournament.
Here’s a possible international weekend broadcast schedule (AEST), with a second division:
Friday: Samoa versus Tonga 5:30 PM
Japan versus Fiji 7:30 PM
Saturday: USA versus Canada 12:30 AM
Australia versus New Zealand 7:30PM
Sunday: Argentina versus South Africa 9:00 AM
Looking to join The Roar team? We're searching for an experienced Group Sales Manager to lead our team in Sydney. Yes, this does mean you get to work with the site all day long! If you're a digital media sales star, we want to hear from you. Apply now.
Passionate about your union? Then sign up to The Roar's brand new daily union email, delivering Roaring articles directly to you day-in, day-out. You'll love it!
Click here to join now!
- Explore:
- Rugby Union, The Rugby Championship
September 10th 2012 @ 7:18am
sheek said | September 10th 2012 @ 7:18am | Report comment
FU,
There is indeed a Pacific Nations Cup involving Japan, Fiji, Samoa & Tonga, won this year I believe by Samoa.
Previously it also included Australia A & New Zealand A.
Involving USA & Canada might be pushing the travel boundaries too far. Same with South Africa A & Argentina A.
September 10th 2012 @ 7:36am
Working Class Rugger said | September 10th 2012 @ 7:36am | Report comment
Both the US and Canada are scheduled to join the PNC from next year.
September 10th 2012 @ 7:40am
AndyS said | September 10th 2012 @ 7:40am | Report comment
Is that right – that is a very encouraging move!
September 10th 2012 @ 7:51am
CizzyRascal said | September 10th 2012 @ 7:51am | Report comment
That’s going to be a heck of a lot of travel for Unions struggling for money!
September 10th 2012 @ 8:26am
Ian Whitchurch said | September 10th 2012 @ 8:26am | Report comment
And God Forbid the rich unions help out the developing ones !
September 10th 2012 @ 8:31am
CizzyRascal said | September 10th 2012 @ 8:31am | Report comment
I think you’ll find there really aren’t very many rich unions. Maybe only the RFU.
September 11th 2012 @ 1:46am
mickybly said | September 11th 2012 @ 1:46am | Report comment
Good point CizzyRascal – just because the SANZAR nations are 1, 2 and 3 in the world, doesn’t mean they have money to spare – in fact quite the opposite, especially for Aus and NZ. Surely this is what the IRB is meant to spend the money on from the RWC proceeds?!
September 10th 2012 @ 7:39am
Pogo said | September 10th 2012 @ 7:39am | Report comment
The predecessor of the Pacfic Nations Cup was the Pacific Rim Championship, which did in fact include the USA and Canada. It was split up, with the USA and Canada entering the now defunct Churchill cup instead.
September 10th 2012 @ 7:18am
AndyS said | September 10th 2012 @ 7:18am | Report comment
I have wondered the same in occasion, with an initial grouping of NZ, RSA, Aus, Arg & Samoa, with the second group being Fiji, Tonga, Japan, Canada & the US. I’d probably go a promotion/relegation play-off though, at the promotion candidates place for a payday even if they didn’t make it.
September 10th 2012 @ 7:36am
AndyS said | September 10th 2012 @ 7:36am | Report comment
Ignoring the current Championship teams and substituting the respective A teams might make for a more balanced and competitive tournament – essentially upscaling the old Pacific Nations Cup. As Sheek correctly notes above though, the travel would be a major consideration and would realistically require significant engagement with both the US and Japanese markets to make it feasible, not to mention the IRB. Likely a “small steps” scenario over a long while…
September 10th 2012 @ 7:49am
CizzyRascal said | September 10th 2012 @ 7:49am | Report comment
I actually think the Pacific Nations Cup is good and helps the nations at the level they are at. The most important thing for them at the moment is to keep getting high quality opposition during the touring windows.
Having it on during the same window Rugby Championship won’t work unless the majority of the players are playing for Super Rugby sides.
September 10th 2012 @ 8:07am
Rob9 said | September 10th 2012 @ 8:07am | Report comment
I think the inclusion of the US and Canada to form this Pacific 6 Nations is a very positive step in the right direction for the game in this region. Obviously it’s going to go some way to raising the profile of the tournament and the profile of the game in these new markets. Plus the competition is (roughly) pretty even so all games will be tough contests and all teams have a good chance to achieve successes in the tournament.
But to involve these sides in more meaningful competition more often, I’d like to see them mixing it with the big boys in hemisphere cups in between RWCs. In the south the tournament could involve 2 groups of 4 with the top two progressing to the semi finals. Groups could look like this-
Group A:
NZ
Argentina
Samoa
Namibia
Group B:
Australia
SA
Fiji
Tonga
September 10th 2012 @ 8:44am
Football United said | September 10th 2012 @ 8:44am | Report comment
yeah that would be good to see. we need another big tournament outside of the RWC, just to get the minnows more involved with top level rugby.
September 10th 2012 @ 8:32am
Sailosi said | September 10th 2012 @ 8:32am | Report comment
Would Australia drop down to the 2nd division to allow for Samoa to play in the 1st division?
From next year the Pacific Nations Cup will involve USA, Japan, Tonga, Canada, Fiji and Samoa.
I think the majority of matches will be played in one country.
September 10th 2012 @ 8:36am
sheek said | September 10th 2012 @ 8:36am | Report comment
FU,
I would suggest something like this:
South Pacific Conference (5) – Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Australia A. New Zealand A.
North Pacific Conference (5) – USA, Canada, Japan, Korea, China.
South America Conference (6) – Argentina A, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Peru, Brazil.
Southern Africa Conference (5) – South Africa A, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania.
Northern Africa Conference (5) – Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Kenya, Uganda.
From a travel & cost perspective, I think this would work much better. Obviously, the bones of all these comps I think, are already in place.
September 10th 2012 @ 5:32pm
nk7792 said | September 10th 2012 @ 5:32pm | Report comment
What’s the point of divisions where one team is a guaranteed winner? South America and Southern Africa would be walk overs for the top spot and the lesser sides will gain nothing from being thrashes 100-nil by Argentina A and RSA A. You can’t have such a gaping gap between the competitiveness of sides. And financially, I doubt there will be any interest in most of these conferences, thus making them unviable as a competitive sporting product.
The developmental approach to getting the lesser sides involves is a good idea though. But not at the cost of a top flight tournament like the Rugby Championship.
September 13th 2012 @ 9:41am
sheek said | September 13th 2012 @ 9:41am | Report comment
Guaranteed winners isn’t relevant.
Giving the lesser nations regular competition, especially against say one high level team (even an A team) is designed to lift standards over a period of time.
September 10th 2012 @ 8:39am
Johnno said | September 10th 2012 @ 8:39am | Report comment
Here is an article on proposed pacific nations cup
http://www.fijilive.com/sports/news/2012/05/irb-mulls-over-expanded-pnc/27320.Fijilive
September 10th 2012 @ 9:04am
Rhys said | September 10th 2012 @ 9:04am | Report comment
Expansion of these competitions is potentially a great thing, but it needs to go further than the countries that have been discussed so far.
One of the problems with the development of the game globally is not enough countries having regular games together as teams, against any sort of quality opposition. At the moment, its very difficult for many countries to develop their playing standards, particularly those that just fail to qualify for the world cup. It’s pointless having 15 or so strong international teams if the rest are so far off the pace they have no chance of getting within 50 points.
Now obviously I don’t have the financial answer to this, so it is very easy for me to say, but if rugby wants to be strong globally, we need to develop ourselves to having up to 40 or so international teams that are at least competitive; obviously the bottom ones out of that group will never beat the top ones, but there needs to be competition for those middle of the road teams, to make them at least work to qualify for things like the RWC. With that in mind, I would propose that each of the following nations needs some form of regular competition for the game to develop worldwide. These are either established rugby nations or ones who at least show potential now or in the past (southern hemisphere and pacific rim nations only):
AUS, NZ, SA, ARG
Uruguay, Brazil (recent developed partnerships with the Crusaders), Mexico, Chile, Peru, Paraguay, USA, Canada, Japan, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, PNG.
That provides 17 nations from this group, not necesarily saying what the competitions should be or how they should be structured, but these are ones I would idenifty as priorities for regular competition.
Looking at the northern hemisphere, the following are the six nations countries, plus all team in divisions 1a AND 1b of the european nations cup (18 nations)
England, France, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Georgia, Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Moldova, Poland, Sweden, Ukraine.
Already there, we have 35 nations…which is much better than the maybe 20 competitive countries we have now, some who are still admirably compeitive without any form of regular competition, apart from RWC qualfiying.
September 10th 2012 @ 9:06am
Rhys said | September 10th 2012 @ 9:06am | Report comment
Add Namibia, Zimbabwe and Kenya to that!
September 10th 2012 @ 9:10am
Johnno said | September 10th 2012 @ 9:10am | Report comment
The long term goal of rugby I would say is to have about 50 competitive teams by about 2050. It takes time but there is development everywhere, the IRB is investing in rugby far more progressive than the ARU. Global rugby is booming, madagascar got 40,000 to a world cup qualifier vs Morocco.
They have targeted many countries for high performance money eg China ,India,Mexico.
-1 thing why i worry about June test window having a future is player welfare and club VS Country issues
Clubs which pay the bills will increasingly want there players fresh and to get an off season and pre-season.
September 10th 2012 @ 9:21am
Johnno said | September 10th 2012 @ 9:21am | Report comment
Rugby 50-60 team plan:
-Europe: Will be able to sustain about 25 teams, coutnries like Porutgal,Spain,Belguim are rising rapidly. Spain is now in top 20 has overtaken Namibia SPain is massive large coutnry so heaps of potential there just look at there soccer and basketball teams.
-Asia-pacific- About 20 teams and 4 billion out of the world 7 billion population massive expansion
-Americas – about 10 teams consistently USA/Canada/Mexico/Argentina/Brazil/Chile/Uruguay/Columbia/Peru/Paruguay/Venuzuala all making good progress and have the population to progress further
-Africa will be able to get 10 teams going consistently to and are making good progress.
September 10th 2012 @ 1:10pm
HardcorePrawn said | September 10th 2012 @ 1:10pm | Report comment
Similarly, I’ve always been disappointed that Rugby has never attempted an event like Football’s European Championship: a regional competition that would allow some of the even more unfamiliar “minnows” a chance to take on the bigger boys.
A 16 team comp involving the 6 Nations (or perhaps their development or B teams) and the best from the ENC might be just the thing to engage the public in countries where rugby is seen as a secondary, or even smaller, sport.
If that sort of competition could then be applied to other geographical regions, with the Pacific/Asian market probably having the greatest potential, then all the better.
As for a second tier to the Rugby Championship (still an awful name!), the idea was suggested by some in the NH media a while ago for the 6 Nations but was dropped as soon as it was suggested. It was proposed that there would be relegation and promotion between the tiers. Obviously no-one in any of the Unions that could potentially be wooden-spooners were going to agree to that!
September 10th 2012 @ 1:15pm
Johnno said | September 10th 2012 @ 1:15pm | Report comment
Soccer’s euro chamipnship is continental not regional a big difference there. Rugby has euro HEK cup too in europe it is awesome.
-Travel time/player welfare issues is the big issue with super rugby expansion
September 10th 2012 @ 1:31pm
bananas said | September 10th 2012 @ 1:31pm | Report comment
Rugby already has a 2 Tier Champiohship. All Blacks in Tier 1, rest of world Tier 2.