Each Super Rugby side should contribute three Wallabies

Is that to share the blame ......no other reason seems logical!

By pre-94 you mean pre-1972, that is to say pre-professionalism...

Actually we can't wait for the end of Super Rugby season as the English tour will come in beforehand, but it would be interesting to see how actual selections match up according to your very well considered approach Nobody. Watch this space :-).

That is another good option Nobody, kinda like Australia's Senate voting quotas. I'd be waiting until the end of the Super Rugby season to see where the points lie though. I'd also be allocating the two extra players according to who came closest to a full quota, to save the arguing and focus on more productive topics ;-).

Thanks Allanthus :-)

exactly - I recall the two guys called John Kirwan - the complete a@se who played for Auckland and that genius who played for NZ.

Nice bit of fun Boz. As someone mentioned above, obviously limited by having to start with the Force and find three players who are realistic contenders and then work from there, immediately forcing your hand, but... you still ended up with a half decent team!

Hmm, but why not acknowledge that sides that win more are more likely to have better players Boz? Shurely you don't think it's all the coaches' faults? If you want to consider a quota system I reckon something fair would be a minimum of one player from each team for every full fifteenth of the total Aussie points the team accrues. So at the moment, the current total points being 109 and ignoring the fact the reds have played an extra game (yeah, it'll even out in the end), teams would lock in one player every 7.27 points. So that works out as follows: Waratahs : 30 points = 4 Brumbies: 29 points = 3 Rebels: 23 points = 3 Reds: 16 points = 2 Force: 11 points = 1 Parochialism satisfied and players for any leftover slots can be argued about over drinks.

I'd still go Hooper at 7 ahead of McMahon - but otherwise agree with that starting 15. Beale would be in if fit, he's the only one. Kepu in if available. No Giteau or Mitchell in the 23 either. Bench (with Hooper starting): Slipper, TPN, Smith probably, Arnold, LTimani, Frisby, CLL (both Beale and Toomua out), not sure on no.23 - maybe Hunt, possibly Mitchell there I guess (left boot).

good column, but New Zealand has changed hugely since the eighties, in all ways. super rugby has changed the provincial bias as we know that they our(as in local boy)players may be playing for the highlanders or the chiefs(the two aarons for example), but the media push is for our region to be hurricanes supporters. so of course when it comes to All Black time, who cares where they come from ,or what colour they are. as an exercise,picking a shared team out of all super teams is something NZ,aus ans sth africa could do, rainy day exercise!! Id still rather see a nth vs sth super game played during the daytime at maingatanoka!

Yeah, I grew up in NZ until I was a teenager, we left in the late 80s, and the provincial rivalries were certainly very strong. The Ranfurly Shield matches between Auckland and Canterbury were as big a deal as a test match in those days! I can't remember it ever being carried into All Blacks selections but I was pretty young when we left, so I may just have missed that. However, I do think that a large part of the reason that the All Blacks have streaked ahead of everybody else in Rugby, is that they have genuinely embraced professionalism in a way that nobody else has. That includes a strict meritocracy, as far as I can tell the Super Rugby franchise from which a player come matters for nought to the All Blacks selectors. Robbie Deans made the comment that Australia was going to have trouble catching up with New Zealand in rugby until we put aside the interstate rivalries which still sit below the surface and bubble up regularly in the game here. I didn't think he was the best international coach but I do think he was onto something with that comment.

Good point Taylorman, with all the selection regarding quotas in the Springboks we are forgetting that historically the quota dramatically favoured the other group. There is nothing to say that by being forced to draw on their entire population, that over time the Springboks won't become even better than they are now.

Ta Highlander, Yeah, I went through a few different iterations based on three per team selection rule to see what would happen and it is actually pretty hard to get a side that stands out as not being able to be competitive. Just goes to show that there really isn't that much space between our best, second best and possibly even third best players in most positions, they are mostly good enough to wear the Gold.

Personally the state a player comes from has zero bearing on my selections. Currently the team I would pick 01 Sio 02 Moore 03 Holmes 04 Simmons 05 Coleman 06 Fardy 07 McMahon 08 Pocock 09 Phipps 10 Foley 11 Tomane (Horne if not fit) 12 Kerevi 13 Kuridrani 14 DHP 15 Folau 6 brumbies, 3 tahs, 3 reds, 2 force, 1 rebel the only variation is L Timani at 8 and move Pocock to 7 and drop McMahon from the 15 still leaves the proportions the same. I was a fan of Holloway but in the first game against a top hard team he failed to provide the physicality required and shows he needs to do more strengthening work as well. I have added L Timani as a genuine lineout option, he is very powerful, and has a good work rate now, just a bit slow for 8. But a lot better value than Palu or McCalman. He at least has an impact against top teams including NZ teams.

There are only 2 state based criticisms you read about re selections. Fans of every other franchise think too may Tahs are selected. Qlder's always think too few reds are chosen even if they have the most chosen or are at the bottom of the super rugby ladder. That said most aussie fans follow and watch their team the most, naturally. So they over value the players they see as performing for their team.

Rolf Harris might paint Cosby's portrait.

Nice thought process Boz, congrats Your side probably not materially different in performance to what will go against Poms in 1st Test, and actually gets new blood in on a form basis.

The New Zealanders may not be all that parochial in their opinions around Test selection in 2016, but it wasn’t always that way. On September 27, 1972, just back in New Zealand after almost four years in Australia, I went with an aunt to Lancaster Park in Christchurch to watch Canterbury play Otago in a Ranfurly Shield match (no NPC in those days). Two former All Black fullbacks took the field that day _ Fergie McCormick for Canterbury and Laurie Mains for Otago. I was intrigued to notice that every time McCormick touched the ball, the big crowd erupted in cheers. But whenever Mains went anywhere near the ball, a chorus of boos erupted. My aunt explained it. On June 26, 1971, McCormick had played his last Test for the All Blacks, against the rampant British and Irish Lions. He was replaced for the remaining three Tests of that series by Mains. More than a year later, neither player was the All Black fullback (Trevor Morris was the incumbent), but the Canterbury crowd was still resentful about the dropping of McCormick, and took it out on Mains. In 2016, the All Blacks are selected from the five Super Rugby regional franchises, based in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin but drawing their players from provinces throughout the country. This seems to have created a less parochial response to Test selections. In Australia, do we still bicker all that much about which state’s players get selected for the Wallabies? Hasn’t the creation of our own franchise system watered down the old NSW-Queensland rivalry? There is a lot of debate about individual players, rather than potential team combinations, but I wouldn’t have thought this was intensely parochial. Then again, you do hear mutterings about Waratahs players having the inside track for Test selection. I’m not sure how you can be a strict adherent to the merit principle and then seriously select a team based on a franchise quota. But then, it’s unlikely that Boz the Younger was being serious.

They worked pretty well for the Boks pre 94, do we know the impact of them now/

Aah yes the great man that all Americans could trust for generations, now being replaced by another great...Mr D Trump.