Roar Guru
Joined January 2007
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Last weekend, international rugby was played on three continents. In South America, the second round of the South America rugby championships, CONSURA, took place.…
During a recent tour of Iran, I looked into the state of rugby there. Perhaps unsurprisingly, no one in the general public knew anything…
There is an effort to improve the quality of Rugby in all regions using the promtion and relegation system.
In Europe, there are 7 divisions. The first division contains Russia, Georgia, Romania, Portugal, Spain and Germany. The fo;;owing six divisions each contain five national teams making a total of 36 nations competing. At the end of the 2009-10 season, there will be no promotion and relegation this time. The lower six divisions will be revamped to five divisions of six teams.
At the moment Hong Kong is touring Europe and gave been beaten by Germany andthe Czech Republic. The tour ends this Saturday with a game against the Netherlands.
Asia run a seven division competition involving 25 nations, also with promotion and relegation. The Asian Five Nations consists of Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore, The first and second division each have pools of four and there are four regional dividions, each with three teams.
Africa has 28 teams competing. The A division has four pools of four teams, the winner of each pool playing off dor the Africa Cup. The B division has two pools of six, and there is a Development division of four nations. As nations improve their positions in their respective pools, they will win promotion.
South America has two divisions, CONSURA and CONSURB. The A group contains Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Paraguay. However Paraguay withdrew from the past tournament and is likely to be replaced by the fast improving new power, Brazil.
The B section consists of mainly Central American and northern South American nations.
North America and the West Indies are catered by NAWIRA, a loose affiliation as Canada and the USA play in the Churchill Cup and the on/off again Pacific rim championship so NAWIRA is mainly the West Indes and Mexico.
So around the world, there is incentive for each nation to improve but it is up to them to organise their own destiny. As they improve their standings, funding will come. The same each nation will fight to avoid relegation.
Of course, some nations are of a very low standard. Already some have gone up and down the divisions like yo-yos but this process sees a gradual improvement in overall standards and each RWC seems to see a new nation make the final 16, ans 2010 will be no different. the standard and profile of Rugby worldwide is constantly improving with the exposure.
What about the rest of the rugby world?