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The Rugby Championship should expand to include the six teams that currently participate in the Pacific Nations Cup – Japan, USA, Canada, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga.
With a tiered tournament structure this could be achieved without significantly decreasing the quality of the competition for the current teams.
In order to compete with the money being generated in European rugby it is clear that SANZAR needs to expand beyond its own borders.
While this is slowly happening with the inclusion of Argentina in the Rugby Championship and teams from Argentina and Japan in Super Rugby, I believe it needs to be accelerated at Test level.
Asia and the Americas represent significant growth markets for rugby, and SANZAR have an opportunity to help accelerate this growth and to benefit from it in the long term. With a 10-team Rugby Championship the potential to grow the value of the competition through increased sponsorship and global broadcast rights is enormous.
While it would be ideal to eventually have two evenly seeded pools of five leading into semi-finals and a final, the fact is the lower ranked teams are not currently strong enough to give the top teams regular competitive matches. At the same time these teams need the opportunity to play games against the top teams in order to improve.
With this is in mind, I would propose the following format.
Top group
Australia
New Zealand
South Africa
Argentina
Samoa (or whoever is highest ranked at the time of the first year of this format)
Challenger group
Japan
Fiji
Tonga
USA
Canada
Each group would play a round robin (four matches each – two home and two away), which would determine rankings for a quarter-finals stage. The top group teams would be ranked one to five, and the top three from the challenger group would be six to eight.
While the top eight compete in the playoffs the bottom two teams in the challenger group could play matches against developing tier-three nations such as Uruguay, Namibia, Chile and Hong Kong.
Playoffs
The quarter-finals would be one versus eight, two versus seven, three versus six and four versus five, with the home advantage to the highest ranked.
This would lead to the semi-finals and a final, with the highest ranked teams from the group phase playing at home.
Plate trophy/Top group playoff
Meanwhile, the losing quarter-finalists would playoff for fifth place and a spot in the top group for the next season. This would be in the same format as above, with two semi-finals and a final.
The advantages of this format is that it would keep the top teams playing primarily against each other, but also provide more meaningful Test matches for developing tier-two nations, and the chance to compete against the top teams if they’re good enough.
The quarter-finals would provide regular tier-one versus tier-two matches, which the SANZAR nations currently avoid in most years. It would also give all nations involved greater experience playing knock-out rugby, which is so important at World Cup time.
The way for rugby to develop quickly as a commercial sport in markets like Japan, USA and Canada is through their national teams. Test matches have to become meaningful events with big crowds, local broadcasting and sponsorship.
Increasing the profile of rugby at this level would help grow the game further at the grassroots, which ensures the sustained success of the sport. Kids need heroes to look up to and emulate.
This format would also provide a much needed boost to rugby in the Pacific Islands – where the NRL is now investing significantly. While the Pacific Island nations are not big new markets, what their inclusion would do is add to the amount of quality content the competition provides to broadcasters.
It’s time for SANZAR to open up.
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.