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Picture this wedding scenario. Glasses are clinked and a multi-tiered wedding cake is brought out.
The bride and groom pick up a knife and make the first cut into the top tier. The groom cuts a slice and feeds it to his grateful wife. The onlookers start salivating over the elaborate icing and the moist filling inside.
More slices are cut and passed to guests at the two tables closest to the newlyweds.
The other tables soon realise the top tier has gone. As they watch the privileged tables tuck in heartily to their slices, they turn their attention to the second tier. It has no icing and the cake looks a lot drier.
The tables that receive those slices grumble to one another.
The tables at the back realise that the third tier is all that is left of the cake. What is more, there does not appear to be much of it. Certainly not enough to go around all the remaining tables.
The bride and groom then proceed to tear off chunks of the third tier with their bare hands and start throwing them at the rear tables. Those guests look on in both horror and shame as crumbs start raining down upon them.
When you look at the international rugby scene, it seems that there are a select few who seem to have more than their fair share of the good cake and get to eat it too.
If you belong to one of the premier tournaments, life appears very good in comparison to the rest. Not only are those who participate in either the Six Nations and Rugby Championship assured of gate revenue in those respective tournaments, they also get access to hosting or going on tours to the other side of the world.
Moreover, if those teams have domestic leagues and have access to regional provincial tournaments, they generate even more revenue through broadcasting rights and gate revenue.
The next tier below has it much worse. They have access to less prestigious tournaments but are invariably at the mercy of foreign clubs who have signed up their players and are reluctant to release those players for international duty. They rarely get games with top-tiered teams and are most likely to encounter them once every four years where they have no chance of competing evenly.
The third tier are fed the equivalent of the American Dream – the William Webb Ellis Dream. Any team, they are told, can rise to the top. Not all the teams have the same level of resources or access to the same opportunities so they are incredibly unlikely to do so, but that does not get in the way of a good tale.
The Rugby World Cup is a worthwhile event but it has the effect of marginalising certain teams and downplaying the rugby that occurs outside that four-year cycle, especially if you do not belong to a premier rugby tournament.
When I look at what Rugby Sevens has done to increase the profile and skill level of teams from all over the world, I see how far behind its bigger brother is.
With its Plate and Bowl Final format at every destination in the sevens circuit, teams quickly get exposed to playing teams from different tiers.
This autumn, Ireland plays Georgia at home and Scotland has toured the Pacific Islands. The fact that these types of matches occur so infrequently is a disgrace.
The fact that certain sides are forced to play games without their best players at their disposal because they have been retained by clubs is equally unacceptable.
Although I can see the appeal of club rugby, I feel that it is increasingly biting into the international calendar and that little is being done to stop its encroachment.
I enjoy watching Super rugby but supporting my native province is not like it was in the past. The Crusaders are filled with players who come from outside the borders of Canterbury. The players may be predominantly home grown but their connection to Canterbury has been so diluted, they are not really my team anymore.
When I see club rugby in France, Japan or the UK, I feel that disconnection even more. I am fine that many people do not care that their teams are full of foreigners. They are happy to see the best players turn out in their team colours. I can respect that.
But are they happy to see that collection of players turn out for their respective countries as well to ensure that they too have their best available players?
This growing incompatibility between club and country is exacerbated by the perception that a lot of international rugby serves no purpose.
When I try to explain to people in Madrid what the upcoming November internationals mean, they ask me what tournament it is. When I say that individual trophies may be at stake and all games go towards world rankings that are used for the following World Cup, they usually respond ‘ahh, it’s a friendly’.
To me a friendly in rugby is like saying a tackle is a hug.
Yet somehow I think they have a point. People can get behind the concept of the Six Nations or the Rugby Championship but outside these tournaments and the Rugby World Cup, how do you explain the rest of the international matches? What are they working towards?
I think it is time to do away with the June and November internationals as we know them. They seem to serve only a select number of teams and all the tiers below are excluded.
When you look around the world, there are rugby tournaments that are happening alongside the Rugby Championship and the Six Nations but completely independently of those tournaments. The European Nations Cup has no relegation or promotion between the Six Nations and neither does the Pacific Cup, the Africa Cup, the Americas Rugby Championship and the Asian Rugby Championship with the Rugby Championship.
The way I see it, you could reinstate certain fixtures that once existed to create regional tournaments that would culminate in a regional tournament every four years in between a World Cup cycle.
England, for example, used to be part of the now defunct Churchill Cup. The Baby Blacks and Australia A used to compete in the Pacific Cup.
Make three conferences: Europe combines with North America, Africa with the rest of the Americas and Oceania with Asia. Teams within that conference play a set of qualifying matches. Games like the third Bledisloe could also be nominated as a qualifying match to add some extra spice to the match.
The June and November internationals as we know them now become games where the teams play one another in the conference and the top-tier teams can use their representative sides like the Irish Wolfhounds, the New Zealand Maori, Australia A or the Baby Boks to play the lower-ranked teams.
None of these games must clash with club rugby games. All players must be released in time to prepare for these matches.
From these matches, depending on the rankings after those matches, the top teams get to play the top-ranked teams from other conferences until a regional conference championship is determined.
In conjunction with those games, you have a Plate and Bowl tournament that also determine ranking points.
This Conference Champions Cup, on all three levels, would occur every four years between the World Cup and the seedings for the following World Cup would be determined by the rankings after that event.
The tournament would be rotated around the different conferences and a share of the revenue generated by this event would be distributed among the teams much like what occurs in the Champions Trophy in football, i.e. the winners get the biggest share.
Feel free to pick further holes in my Swiss-cheese idea but the problem with the current international set-up is that there are teams who are artificially propped up in the top tier and lower-ranked teams do not get enough meaningful competition or opportunities to progress up the rankings.
I also do not like how we see too many games with the same opposition. Nations might appear to lose revenue from not visiting their cash cows but that can be compensated by revenue generated from the regional tournaments in terms of ticket sales and broadcasting rights.
We would also do away with this building for the World Cup mentality and dismissing all rugby that occurs outside that tournament. Rankings mean a chance to play in lucrative regional tournaments which, in turn, give seedings to the Rugby World Cup.
Top-tier teams would have to manage their resources but get the benefit of developing a larger pool of players. Lower ranked teams would get real opportunities to secure all-important ranking points and get exposure to more meaningful competition on a regular basis.
Call me an idealist or much worse, but something needs to be done to stop the encroachment of club rugby in the international calendar and having matches that go towards more than world rankings for a global tournament that currently only serves a select few countries.
We need to make a bigger cake and make sure everyone gets to enjoy some icing.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.