Could a British and Irish league finally be ready for take-off?
Could a British and Irish league finally be ready for take-off?
Leinster v Saracens? Glasgow v Harlequins? Ospreys v Bristol? A British and Irish league is under discussion once more.
The only people that actually want this are the Welsh. The URC is working well, the prem needs to reign in the spending, and the Champions Cup needs to change to a format people understand. I'd go full knock out like a football cup personally. Sorted, no B&I league needed. But I do suspect NZ and Aus would like to see SA back in Super Rugby
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The vibe down here is probably a bit more nuanced, and the calls to have SA back are a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to less than stellar results so its hard to be sure how it might go down.
There's a few things people could probably stand to calm down & reconsider, in my opinion...
Firstly, before the SA clubs joined URC Ireland were doing very well, and Scotland were definitely on the improve. Of the original nations in that comp Italy have improved - but mostly on the back of one club, so a tight integration similar to the Jaguares and Wales are dire. So correlation/causation etc its not necessarily true that presence of the SA clubs are making those nations better, nor is it true that the lack of them is why NZ has been struggling.
Secondly, people are really forgetting how bad SA's clubs were in Super Rugby in the last couple of years before the competition fell apart due to Covid. In 2019 only 4 teams won more than 8/16 games, and none of them were South African. In 2018 it was both better and somehow even worse, where 4/5 NZ teams won more than 10/16, and no other club did with Waratahs, Lions & Jaguares all managing 9/16. And in both years the worse of the SA teams had negative points differentials too.
Thirdly, because of the time difference and South Africa's challenges holding night games, the matches over there were at awful times and have almost no benefit for the broadcasters this side of the competition. To make it even worse, because of the expense of flying all that way the touring structure would see your home team disappear for 3-4 weeks so you would go a month with no match in your home stadium.
I was pretty adament SA wouldn't add much to European rugby. But I've been proven wrong, they have enlived the competition and are no pushovers. Your comments about the timezones show why a club world cup won't work too. Though I would love to see a Champions Cup vs Super Rugby match annually
Yeah I think an annual, limited comp would be good - though i'd go with URC, SR, Prem, Top 14 and it'd be great to find some way to include Japan League 1's winner too. Though probably more than 2 games is too many.
I didn't mean to say that SA didn't add to Super Rugby - especially early on they were crucial to it, just to try to show that its not that they were really good that helped NZ, because they weren't.
What NZR & Super Rugby needs to try to encourage is another team or two to play like the Blues & Brumbies - because especially the former played a massively forward oriented, direct and physical game - very much the DNA of South African rugby.
Do that, then Japan League 1 has so many better opportunities for NZ if we would just show a bit of humility and try to fix that relationship more. They increasingly have strong clubs, they are in the same timezone as NZ and play at fairly similar times of the year, it is about a natural fit for NZ & Aus as SA joining the URC is.
Yes, Japan in Super Rugby makes a lot of sense to me. And Argentina with MLR (who should also invite some Canadians too). And I never thought you did say that about SA, but I did!
Argentina has a couple of clubs in SRA, weirdly there’s also a USA based club. I wonder if there’s a a bit of friction between that comp and MLR. To be honest, I worry about the latter’s competitiveness given the age of some of the veterans still playing, and how many never would be Super Rugby players are so good in it. Having said that, it probably is about as good as SRA so a champions cup style thing ought to work for them if it’s financially viable.