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Under our current system the club and the national union are effectively part owners of national players, and there is no clash of schedules. Does this system of ownership need to change? probaly not is my opinion it's one of the things we do well.
My take on it is that unless test matches outside of six nations and tri nations become a part of qualifying for the world cup they will continue to decline in importance.
apart from the tier 2 or 3 nations World Cup qualification is uneccesary for top nations. Possibly for RWC seedings?
The IRB really needs to pull its finger out and come up with a worldwide test window
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Don't you wish the Force had fixtures like this!!!! This is how the Super 14, Tri Nations, Bledisloe Cup and the Heineken Cup Style comp could be run. 27 club games without finals. 11 different stadiums to visit in 4 different countries, GOLD!!!
This is my Regional side in Wales the Newport Gwent Dragons fixtures for the 2008/2009 season.
Includes the summer tests which are played mid season, not warm up games, as well as the Six Nations early next year.
Last edited by welshrugbyfan; 26-08-08 at 21:17.
hmmmm, met the Dragons last week before their game in Ireland... at The Giant's Causeway!!!
fermain, were they drunk?
lol, they seemed pretty sober to me. They had been training at Jordanstown campus fields.
The players walked down, the seniors stayed on the coach (or went into the hotel!!).![]()
I don't mind watching the NH matches as I don't really have any allegiance to any team and therefore the source of theplayers doesn't really matter to me.
However, purely for me, Super 14 would really lose something if due to expanding the seasons to match the NH, expanded squads required players from overseas to be included.
I love the fact that "MY team" is made up of only Australians and it would be a perfect day if we had the depth in Australia that each franchise was truely provincial and only had players from each state on their list.
I have no problem with other nationalities playing at all, but playing for their own country or provincial catchment area.
As I mentioned two years ago, at that time there was the equivelent of three full squads of SH origin players (including those who have chosen to exercise some dubious eligability claim) in the English Premier comp.
This is the actual reason that they can play so much football in a year it's because they have five or six International players each to fill the holes as required.
There is starting to now become a backlash, especially in France, but in England too, with too many Internationals affecting the Test Squad depths.
I totally agree there needs to be a deeper pool of SH players and more matches played however I believe this should be at the APC or combined APC/NPC club level with the S14 kept as the premier product that it is.
Match for match the South puts up just as good a product as anything the North has to offer, this should not be comprimised just for the sake of keeping up with Jones'....or Thomas', McDonald's or O'Toole's...
To me, Test Rugby should always remain the ultimate goal of all players and the ultimate honour for each Club producing a Test player.
"Bloody oath we did!"
Nathan Sharpe, Legend.
My problem with playing multiple competitions at the same time is that it inevitably leads to incidents of "team management" - not looking too good for one of the comps, send the kids out to play and reserve the top team for the other competition. Imagine playing the preseason and S14 matches in the same window...
I guess my perspective is from a more dollars and cents approach to the SH structure. I don't think that an APC competition can break into the Australian market against AFL, NRL and soccer, and possibly dilutes the income of Super14. Looking at NZ and SA with strong national competitions, they aren't able to pay enough to compete with the NH for player retention.
I think that an extended and expanded super rugby competition could make rugby the best "football product" in Australia and be the most successful in the market and offer the best way of developing future Wallabies.
I consider the issue of oversea's players seperate to this one, which is effectively buisness structure. I don't think it is keeping up with the Jones'. I do however think that for rugby to be as successful a sport it can possibly be it needs to have the best possible buisness structure as well as player development structure.
I think that the NH structure (2 levels of professionalism, clubs= main income) is simply better in the sports market than the SH (~3 levels of professionalism International Tests = main income).
Thought I'd add this again seeming there seems alot of support for the Red hand on this site.
Foxtel Saturday night, ESPN is showing the Heineken Cup clash between Ulster and Stade Francais at 10.25PM.![]()
Bugger - I swapped the Sport package for Movies whilst there were no Wallabies games on....
Match review, photos and video for this match on UAFC: UAFC - supporting Ulster Rugby
Dear Lord, if you give us back Johnny Cash, we'll give you Justin Bieber.
Heres a tip for everyone with Foxtel.
1. Push the TV guide button (Top left greenish coloured)
2. Go down to search programmes
3. Programme A-Z
4. Sport
5. Push the YELLOW button (down the bottom of the remote)
Booyakka all the games coming up get listed, should help with planning your social life.
Booyakka indeed. All those other sports options too.
Thanks heaps for the heads up WRLF. Being the tech head that I am, I've had Fox for 5 years and didn't know that. In fact I've only just sussed out the auto tune function since I bought a hard drive recorder a couple of months back.
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"The main difference between playing League and Union is that now I get my hangovers on Monday instead of Sunday - Tom David