It is being widely reported in the press that some top club owners in England have been talking with their French counterparts about shifting the rugby union season in the north to the summer months.
It isn’t clear whether a wholesale move is under discussion, or whether they just want to reschedule parts of the calendar. The subject has come up, however, because the clubs are becoming increasingly frustrated at losing their international players for long periods.
For instance, during the World Cup, Leicester started their Premiership campaign without the likes of Flood, Croft, Youngs, the Tuilagi brothers, Castrogiovanni, Murphy, Cole, Waldrom, Deacon, Agulla, Ayerza etc. As a consequence, they lost six of their first seven matches and are only now putting together some wins to climb up from the foot of the table.
The benefits seem to be obvious. A clear separation of domestic and international fixtures; the opportunity to establish a global season and better playing conditions in the summer months.
Nevertheless, there’s a good deal of scepticism about whether any satisfactory deal can or should be struck. Mick Cleary in the Telegraph warns that competition from other sports and activities means that rugby might struggle to attract crowds – already a problem for some clubs. There’s no guarantee either that broadcasters will offer the same deal for TV rights.
Fran Cotton has also come out against the idea. He points out that pitches nowadays rarely throw up the mudfests of old, and worries that the professional game risks losing touch with the grass roots. Summer matches would also throw into question the future of tour schedules, in particular the Lions. He has called again for relegation to be scrapped to give more security to leading clubs.
Until now, it’s always been assumed that any move to a global calendar would involve some horse trading at the national union level and an all-encompassing solution.
The prospect now is for the clubs to take the initiative and force the unions to organize themselves in response. The reports haven’t mentioned any involvement by the PRO12 teams but the Irish clubs are a big draw for the Heineken Cup, so any major decisions would likely include them.
As it stands, the 2015 World Cup in England will force some scheduling changes anyway. Under IRB rules, the host country cannot run its domestic competition alongside the tournament. This has already led to discussions about bringing the season forward to August to get some matches in.
Few supporters in the north can really picture what the game would look like with a re-jigged calendar, despite rugby league having already gone down the same route. Most of us probably worry about what we might lose rather than what we stand to gain. The leading club owners might just be flexing their muscles to remind everyone of their importance.
If they really are willing to consider such a fundamental shift, however, we may well be presented with a fait accompli at some time in the future.
chris
Guest
Let European Amateur Rugby stay the same with autumn and winter and move Pro/semi-pro Rugby to the summer and make sure the Global season including comp's,tour's etc is no longer then 8 months as a contact sport like Rugby Union should have a season more like NFL then a all year round game like Soccer is in England Soccer seems to only go away for around 6 weeks. Plus we don't want to see the All Blacks playing games at Twickenham every year.
kovana
Guest
82K at twickers for a regular season match.. Quins are going good... .. Would it be too much if they had more matches there. Also, dont forget the Leinster Match at Aviva Stadium as well.. also the crowds for the Wembley match for Sarries also broke 40K. Not to mention the good crowds they get for the French top 14.
Brick Lane
Guest
Rude health: http://www.foxsports.com.au/rugby/world-record-crowd-attends-club-rugby-match-between-harlequins-and-saracens-at-twickenham/story-e6frf4pu-1226231849755
Bakkies
Guest
With exams a lot of Irish secondary schools finish classes in early June and don't go back till September. It's the height of the GAA season and will drastically effect player numbers for Rugby. The GAA doesn't stop junior seasons in the school holidays and they run blitz days and clinics which take up a large proportion of a day. Kids can manage to play both as it is but if Rugby changed to summer and it's a massive growth sport in Ireland the numbers will drop off big time. Clubs in rural areas have to bus their juniors around a lot during the season which can take a lot of the day up. The club I am close to also uses this part of the summer for IRFU tag rugby which gets massive numbers in Ireland and there are cricket matches played on the pitches too. Cricket takes up a whole day or even two days on a weekend and they need to use the clubhouse as a pavillion which makes it unavailable for rugby purposes. Juniors train and play on the Saturday and the senior J1 and J2 sides play on a Sunday from August till April/May.
Bakkies
Guest
Have you ever travelled to Europe?
Bakkies
Guest
US involvement in Super Rugby won't happen. Just look at the logistics problems to begin with. It takes 18 hours to fly from Perth to LA flying across Australia and then the Pacific.
Derm
Roar Guru
One point being overlooked here is that the big French ad English clubs assume that they call the shots or set the agenda. The reality is that for English premiership clubs certainly, there are very few big clubs. The big clubs - the most successful in terms of winning cups/championships at domestic and European level - are probably better picked from the European Cup ranking table. At the moment, the top 12 reads: 1. Leinster 2. Toulouse 3. Munster 4. Cardiff Blues 5. Biarritz 6. Leicester 7. Northampton 8. Stade de Francais 9. Perpignan 10. Clermont 11. Ospreys 12. Bath In his latest statement, Craig manages to acknowledge that there might be more names required at the top table than just English and French clubs. Any change in the seasonal structure is going to require more than just clubs from two national leagues to nod heads together.
Rugby Fan
Roar Guru
Bruce Craig, the money behind Bath, has been speaking again to the Telegraph: "He has called for a partition of the season, so domestic rugby can take place in its own regulated block of time, either in the summer or whenever it is agreed to be played. 'The fundamental is to have separation to that we can run our own businesses,” said Craig. “If you want rugby at club level to even have the possibility of being successful then you’ve got to look at change. If there isn’t any movement then I don’t feel club rugby can continue as it is. It’s impossible to run a business if you don’t control any of it in terms of competitions. We don’t seek conflict but, that said, the reality is that there probably will be if people aren’t sensible. We’ve got enough cards to play if it comes to that.' "...Craig proposes that the international bodies have 16 weekends of the year to run their competitions, be it the Six Nations, Tri-Nations or World Cups and Lions tours. There is usually an 11 or 12-game Test schedule for the leading countries.'That leaves 36 weekends for the club game, to be played where we see fit,” said Craig. “If that means the summer, so be it. If the Six Nations wants to stay where it is, fine. We don’t want to challenge that. We could have a 24-match league season including play-offs. Then there would be a nine-week European competition. Every fourth year the slot would be a Global Challenge competition, with, say, Toulouse playing the Crusaders, Leinster versus the Stormers or Leicester against Queensland Reds.' "...'We want diplomacy and dialogue, not revolution,' said Craig, whose plans run to individually managed programmes for each international player reintegrating into a club competition. 'But we’ve got to show club owners that there’s some light at the end of the tunnel. We just don’t want it all to be handed down to us as it is at the moment. The IRB rule with a rod of iron. It’s a dictatorship. We’re doing this, you fall in behind. So, let’s talk, let’s have a summit if needs be.'"
Matt
Guest
I think you'd still see a natural evolution of the amateur seasons, to match the school dates if Rugby became a NH summer centric sport. School and amateur teams could quite easily take a break during August and come back to it for the new year, as is done for the cricket season. The current UK summer holidays for schools are 23 July - 31 August, so a 5 week break. There are also single week holidays in October, June and February. Plus a 2 week break at Xmas time. So even currently there'd be breaks throughtout the season where schools aren't assembled to play. I'd probably suggest a two part playing season: Stage 1 - September to mid December (Maximum of 16 weeks of Rugby). This would include: - Pre-season fitness - School Sevens and/or Touch rugby season Break 1 - mid December to February (6-10 weeks) Winter training break - Weights, treadmills and indoor cone drills. All away from the freezing cold - Possible tours to warmer climate for XV per side pre season training Stage 2 - March to mid June (16 weeks) - XV per side season. Culiminaing in early summer finals rugby Break 2 - mid June to late Augutst (Summer break) - Off-season for Exams and School Holidays - SH tours for ambitious schools - Rep rugby for elite players Key points are: The creation of a dedicated Sevens rugby season, with a linking of the contact version of Sevens to the non contact version of Touch rugby. This will become an increasingly popular version of the sport as the Olympic inclusion draws closer and becomes a major attraction for players, Olympic Commitees and therefore Rugby Unions. This aligns of these two similar (7 per side) forms of the game, where speed evasion and passing are key, meaning non-contact for juniors can be a nurtering pre-cursor to full contact 7's later on). The possibility could also be opened up to evolve the rules of Touch to mimic 7's rugby more closely? The coldest months of the year are utilised for training and conditioning that can be done indoors. This means getting people to turn up to training will be easier and that field closures are no longer a big deal. If anything, knowing that you can turn up to train with your mates doing weights, running or passing drills on the cones should be something to look forward to in the depths of winter. A great way to get warm! Summer exams and holidays are avoided, so the social cricket season can still be accomadated and kids won't be forced to choose School grades over Rugby. The Sevens pre-season period also negates any ground sharing issue with cricket, as during summer Touch leagues and/or Sevens training can be done mid-week. A full length season can still be played, with the finals peaking as the weather builds towards summer.
Johnno
Guest
Bakies the match was played in Inverchaghill Otago, not in Sydney in 2010. That match was in very windy , Otago next stop Antartica. Cold winds, wet, ground drainage wasn't too bad, but they were playing Otago when most of the team had grown up in invercaghill south land, and in dunedien outage, so they were so used to that cold windy wet weather rugby.
Bakkies
Guest
Top 14 already finishes in June and starts again in late August. The AP and Pro 12 is played over a shorter window
Bakkies
Guest
The Rugby season may go in to December now but the Wallabies players don't play in Australia from October to December
Bakkies
Guest
''The waratahs themselves said we struggled out there tonight in hypothermic conditions vs the highlanders which they did, it was dangerous for them as they had no experience in cold weather '' That made me laugh. How about they grow a pair. Sydney doesn't get hypothermic weather.
Bakkies
Guest
Wrong. The AP has clubs stretching from Devon in the south west to Tyne and Wear which is close to the Scottish border. The amateur game is a lot bigger than loigs. The Super League might have a London club but that is just sugar coating. Exeter get bigger crowds than the London Broncos (they ditched the Harlequins experiement).
Bakkies
Guest
A lot of amateur clubs in England and Wales play on cricket grounds. Even in Ireland some rugby clubs have cricket played on it in summer. Automatic nogoer. In France there are several tiers below Top 14 and Pro D2 that clubs get promoted through to those comps. The whole country is on vacation in August which would be the business end of the season. That would effect crowd numbers and player numbers in the amateur leagues as people can't make fixtures.
adam214
Roar Rookie
Union has about as much geographical coverage in england as league does just swap the heartlands and you've got about the same.
B-Rock
Roar Guru
KPM - I think Matt is referring to US rugby playing in the NH winter rather than US involvement in SR in their summer. Rugby in summer just doesnt seem right to me - its quintessentially winter, just as cricket can only be followed in summer. This is perhaps an issue we havent thought about for US rugby gaining traction - I dont think it will lend itself to summer... plus baseball is almost as popular as NFL so its hardly like there is no competitors in the summer.
Bay35Pablo
Roar Guru
So they're going to shift towards what the SANZAR countries do. Again. Mind you, SANZAR had less tradition and baggae to have to work with then the North, who had a healthy international comp in the form of the European Cup that had to be kept. Fran Cotton? Blatherer.
Ben S
Roar Guru
'especially as the grassroots in England is very traditional and would rather the whole game were amateur.' Pardon? On what basis can you make this assertion? Which club do you play for? What committee are you on? Which side do you support? It's been well established that you have no grasp of the English game, let alone the actual amateur playing side.
Ben S
Roar Guru
'Then, playing rugby in winter is much more culturally ingrained than playing league was when they moved to the summer.' You're not responding to what Matt said and you're plain wrong.