The Raeburn Shield and Utrecht Shield

[Burgs]

Came across this on Insta and tracked it down.
Basically a Ranfurly for Test Nations.
Seems to be basically a passion project of one man, but perhaps there are more behind the scene.
Good luck to him/them, I think we all know a little about getting behind a common dream...

Home page- https://www.raeburnandutrechtshields.com/

Raeburn Shield on Wiki- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raeburn_Shield

Utrecht Shield on Wiki- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utrecht_Shield

Rugby's Lineal World Titles- Be a part of adding more fun and drama to international rugby

International Rugby is at its peak when all nations can compete for the same prize and would be improved by a central prize to act as a common thread between all nations unions which also provides something to fill the 4 year interim between our beloved RWCs

The Raeburn Shield (Mens) and Utrecht Shield (Womens) are Challenge Trophy’s put up by the current holders, or defenders, in every match they play home or away (in the same manner as a world boxing title).

The winner would either remain or become the holder.

It stretches back in this manner from the very first games of International Rugby Union for both the mens and womens games and the challenge shields are named after those first matches:

The first mens international in 1871 between Scotland and England played at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh.

The first womens international in 1982 between Netherlands and France played In Utrecht

At this stage the shield is building recognition globally with rugby fans and is not recognised by World Rugby we believe it should be and every person you share this website with and every like on our facebook page contributes to showing how this great concept should become reality.

Scotland and France became the first holders of these mythical shields and they have changed hands many times since then.

[tjs10]

Came across this on Insta and tracked it down.
Basically a Ranfurly for Test Nations.
Seems to be basically a passion project of one man, but perhaps there are more behind the scene.
Good luck to him/them, I think we all know a little about getting behind a common dream...

Yes it's pretty much one guy's passion project, but he is focusing on getting more media attention for it of late than he did initially.

He previously had some pretty sketchy "results" included in his men's list but, as I had actually done a similar exercise for my own amusement earlier, I shared my list with him and helped correct many of his mistakes (missed test matches, incorrect results, wrong run durations etc).

It's actually a good "unofficial" record of ongoing international champions, and there is the potential for upsets and/or unexpected title holders.

Potentially the hardest part is which games to include/exclude. Eg Tests vs British Lions, or Pampas XVs need to be ignored as otherwise the title could potentially be out of circulation for years. Plus, some sides award test caps vs Barbarians, and/or better nations' "A" teams for example. Some sides have also awarded test caps retrospectively. And thankfully the one time NZ played two official capped Tests on the same day vs different countries (and lost them both!) didn't affect the linear history. (3rd Sept 1949, in case you are interested...)

[Sheikh]

If you are interested, soccer has a similar idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unoffi..._Championships