Will South African rugby force a Super 21 by 2018?

Expansion is unlikely. NZ's ITM Cup and Super Rugby crowds have gone down enormously. See a recent Otago Daily times editorial for a discussion of this. Australian rugby is almost broke and has had to cut squads to just 30 players while also scrapping academy sides. Oz is not doing enough to support its existing teams. Expadning to more is not going to work. We don't have the money, the payers or the necessary level of public interest. The best outcome would be proper professionalism in Argentina that would allow two Argentine franchises to join 6 South African teams in a South Atlantic Super Rugby comp. Meanwhile NZ and Australia would set up a pacific Super Rugby comp. Travel costs and wear and tear on players would drop dramatically, and ratings would improve as all games would be played in a viewer-friendly time zone.

Oh Emric are you really a Kiwi? Because your post is so far from the truth it is farcical at best. Last time I checked the Ranfurly sheild was still attracting thousands of supporters. Please stop trying to fill this forum with outright lies

Perhaps, the first option is to develop a Super Rugby style American Competition, involving 4 Canadian, 8 US, and 6 Argentinian teams. The Argentinians need to embrace professionalism for these clubs, even if they are semi pro to begin with. The conferences could be North East, North West, South with 6 teams in each conference, play home and away in conference (10 matches), plus 2 from each other conference (4 matches). The Pampas XV could move to the Super Rugby Australian Conference (based in Adelaide??) as the main/ almost national Argentinian team (bring in the players from Europe), all Argentinian players in test sqauds should be drafted into the current Super rugby teams, to ensure that these players are on SH season. This could also happen to the Canucks and the Eagles players, by adding them to a Euroleague style competition and base them in Wales (North Wales) and Scotland (Aberdeen). This would expose the American players to a higher level of rugby.

I'd imagine the funding for any Argentine would come from the boost in the next TV deal primarily. I personally think with the move to include the likes of Chile and Uruguay in the top division of the Compenato Argentino they effectively have the bare bones of a possible conference option for Super Rugby in the future.

Rugbug New Zealanders want the ITM cup to be the no.1 competition in New Zealand we want Dan Carter to be playing in black and red of cant. Unfortunately our premier cimpetition has been regulated by the NZRU to nothing but a second rate development competition, none of the super stars of the game play in it anymore, the ranfurly shield once the pride of New Zealand rugby is nothing more then a joke now :( crowds of only a few hundred showing up to shield games which used to sell out grounds. The reality is our national competition is dying. We must move before it dies completely.

Sheek, the concept has never been a problem for me. I think I just need to be convinced that it could work financially to protect rugby in the Sth Hemisphere. I think the market in AUS could handle an 8 teams domestic comp to start with, if the new teams were built on top of the existing AUS Super teams, and with the test players playing (unlike the ARC). But I'm not sure if the same could be said for NZ or ARG. I'm sure you would look to reduce NZ's 14 NPC provinces down to 10-12. I can't see how it could be any less thru merges. But wouldn't that still be too many teams to finance even with the NPC being on centre stage? Wasn't this the reason the NZRU moved to regional franchises and Super Rugby in the first place? To earn enough revenue to finance the players in that many teams and keep your best players in the country might be difficult. And I'm not sure that a 3-6 week SR tournament (pre-season?) with only four of those teams from NZ will make up the difference. My take is that copying the European model won't work for the Sth Hemisphere for financial reasons. But I don't mean to discourage you. Perhaps there is something I'm not seeing, and I am happy to be corrected. Have you ever thought about submitting your proposal for a financial analysis?

Good points unless Argentina domestic rugby embrace pro rugby, Argentina which has so much rugby potential will not advance it will go backwards. Brazil and USA and canada and russia will over take it. Coming into the rugby championship this year will be good money but if they want to get there best players playing in it, they will have to embrace domestic pro rugby otherwise all there top players will stay in europe and japan and quite international rugby,w which would be so sad, but who can blame the players if they quit national duty. And they will ignore pressure from the IRB or Argentine rugby coz it is not illegal to retire from international rugby, or on test weekend windows, the euro clubs, will just get a medical certificate and say he was injured hamstring, and legally that holds up in court. And the IRB know if they keep annoying the euro clubs who pay these pro rugby players, they won't have a 6 nations or a world cup for that matter, so they wont back up the argue rugby administration who runs argentina rugby. Sad coz argentina could do better if there local leagues embraced 100% professionalism.

Russia have an indoor rugby field built into the side of a Mountain at Krasnyorsk ... which has two of the best teams in Russia. Several RWC Qualifiers and Six Nations B games have been played there. The weather isnt actually a problem.

I think the costs are prohibitive and the other issue is the dilution in the standards and the level of competition .. Its fine to talk about teams from Japan or Argentina or the US .. but is anyone in Japan or the US going to watch ... or care?And is anyone in Australia or New Zealand going to want to watch a low quality Japanese or US side .. when they are used to seeing All Blacks, Wallabies and Springboks every week. Part of the atraction of Super Rugby is the fact that each team has a few national team players and that the teams are from 3 or the top 4 rugby teams in the last 2 decades.

Regarding Argentina, they are still an awefully long way from ever being able to have a Super rugby team. Someone mentioned that Argentina have a two tiered National Provincial Competition ... they dont, they have the Campeonato Argentino, which is played before club rugby competitions. It is held in March and April,. and has 3 divisions, and 24 teams (this year it will have 28 with Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil being added). However teams are divied into pools of 4 ... and to win the final you only actually have to play 5 games, 3 pool games, a semi final, and final. If you love you only play 3 games, so it isnt a particularly demanding competiton. Additionally, due to player numbers, and strength, realistically only URBA (Buenos Aires), Cordoba and Tucuman have the ability to win, and they generally beat most of the other teams by a wide margin. The base of Argentine rugby is actually the URBA Top 14 ... the Top level of the Buenos Aires club Competition. Most high level players from other areas move to URBA to play, because of the higher standard of play, better coaching and work opportunities. However .... professional rugby still does not exist internally in Argentina. Last year the Pampas XV (basically Argentina B and comprised of Argentina based players) won the Vodacom Cup in South Africa (which runs parelell to the Super 15), but after the tournament the Buenos Aires Union banned any of the players playing for Buenos Aires clubs, as they thought it would be unfair for "professionals" to play against amateurs. The old farts are still in charge of Argentina rugby, and Argentina is still a long way from being capable of fielding a Super rugby team, and is the only country in the Top 10 rugby countries in the world that does not any form of profesisonal domestic rugby. The improvementes in Argentine rugby have bascially been down to their best players playing, and having success in Europe. European clubs liked signing Argentinians as many have Italian o Spanish passports, so dont qualify as foreign players, and dont have the same national team committments such as the 6 nations that domestica players have. An irony is that now that Argentina is in the Rugby Championship, some Argentinians have not had their contract renewed, Horacio Argulla, of the Leicester Tigers was told his contract wouldnt be renewed as he will probalbly be with the Pumas during the rugby championship and miss the first few months of the Premiership. Before a Super rugby team Argentina needs to reorganise its own domestic structure and provide some form of competative domestic profesisonal rugby to develop its players.

The same goes for Argentina .. they are happy to be in the Rugby Championship and have the Pampas XV (which is basically Argentina B) in the Vodacom Cup in South Africa, but domestic professional rugby does not currently exist inside Argentina.. I dont see how they could set up, or even find the funding to operate a Super Rugby team, especially when they would have to travel to 2 different contients for most of their games. First Argentina need to get their domestic structure right and form a professional domestic competition .... Interestingly in this respect Argentina faces the same problem as Australia .. city based clubs that are worried about losing their status and who have no interest in a new structure being implemented.

KPM & Johnno it be nice for once if you stop talking about the demise of RL it seems to be the both of you like to mention it alot yet when it bought it up on a previous post it got deleted by the mods for no apparent reason despite me calling both of you on it. Is the Roar protecting there rugby fans considering it is a pro-rugby site mainly from day one, if it isn't this comment should be published this time around.

No suprise to see KPM & Johnno deathriding rugby league once again it seems KPM can't help himself but mention NRL whenever he has the chance by hoping for it's demise despite what it's being through the past 100+ years you talk of destroying rugby KPM but didn't the QLD QRL opted to save the QRU along time ago instead of killing when it has the chance. If anything it's Rugby who being trying to kill RL from day one you have the likes of Jon O Neil, and others predicting every year this will be the year RL will die but it doesn't so please stop guys. RL will be here to stay whether you like it or not, DEAL WITH IT.

You don't know what I am getting at because you are looking through rose tinted glasses. If the SARU can see the huge anomaly that a 6th team in their conference and the possiblity of a very lopsided draw for some teams it could create, that is enough for me. The conference system worked last year due to the fact that there were an even number of teams in the each conference. What happens now KOG you have one conference that could have 6 teams and there is every chance many of the sides will not have to play the top teams from Africa therefore creating disparity on the final rankings on the tables. Missing one of the teams yeah thats plausiable missing two of the top teams not so much. The chances of teams not making the finals due to this fact increase significantly and you are deluded if you think the cream will always rise to the top in an unbalanced competition like that which will be created if South Africa expands its conference to 6. The SARU can see the unfair advantages some teams will have in this scenario hence they are also promoting a return to a complete round robin format and a return to a 4 team finals series. The SR conference system has been running for one year so its a bit rich trying to claim the talent always rises to the top.

They're in the middle of transitioning the Russian Prem. League (soccer) over to winter. Obviously after 10 years of playing threw summer they've seen the importance of lining up with their neighbours. Indoor stadiums, heated pitches, they'll sort something out to allign with Europe in Rugby too. And the place is hardly poverty strickend, the mining boom that's going on there with gold and oil dwarfs what we're experiencing here. There are and will continue to be corporate dollars there to fund elaborate stadium projects to fight the russian winter. Regardless, considering Russia's current position I think 20 years from now the best possible scenario would be 2 professional teams in the pro12. An indoor stadium in the countries 2 largest cities to play their club rugby from as well as internationals, thats a good platform to build from.