SANZAR boss Greg Peters says global season and playing Super Rugby in unbroken format
SANZAR boss Greg Peters says global season and playing Super Rugby in unbroken format "holds appeal"
IAIN PAYTEN THE DAILY TELEGRAPH JULY 10, 2013 10:00PM
MOVING the June Test window to July as part of a new global season, and playing Super Rugby in an unbroken format could be step closer after SANZAR boss Greg Peters said the proposal “certainly holds appeal” for the southern hemisphere.
The International Rugby Players Association this week released a proposal to alter the seasons of the northern and southern hemispheres to better align, whereby the European seasons would begin a month
later, and the June Test window would be pushed back to the last three weeks of July.
The idea, which is proposed to start in 2016, would allow Super Rugby to finish in late June/early July, and not have the current scenario of a clunky three-week break to accommodate the Test matches.
Along with the world’s players, the UK premiership clubs tentatively welcomed the plan and Peters said given the sense of the proposed changes, he’d happily dive into discussions with the northern unions.
“The idea of moving June to July, in a SANZAR context, certainly holds a lot of appeal, for a lot of reasons” Peters said.
“We could complete the Super Rugby season without a break, which is something in an ideal world we would want to do.
“Then you would move straight into the international program, have a short break, the Rugby Championship, short break, and then the Spring Tours.
“We would certainly be interested in sitting down with the northern unions, and getting their views about whether it would work.
“And obviously we are interested in the views of the players associations as well.”
A continuous Super Rugby season would help fight off the increased problem of post-June apathy towards the competition.
Peters conceded “re-igniting” interest in Super Rugby after the three-week June Test window is a challenge.
“If you come back from June and you’re team has little or no chance of making the finals, they don’t have a lot to play for other than to disrupt other teams,” Peters said.
“It’s a difficult part of the year. We made sure the majority of the last few rounds were local derbies to keep a bit of fire in the competition, no matter what positions teams hold.”
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