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Yeah Fiji look really strong. Their first XV is basically a tier 1 level team. They have a tough schedule at the world cup though so their depth will be tested then. I'd love to see them finish 2nd to us in the pool.

It sounds like Russia played a lot better against Canada than they did against the US though. The weather was probably a bit of a factor for them against the Eagles. Good signs they'll at least be able to put up a fight in the world cup. But yeah, I still expect the US will beat Canada...

USA Eagles beat Scotland 30-29 in Houston. Could be a very significant result to look back on in a few years. They now enter the league of tier 2 teams capable of upsetting tier 1 sides. How long til they are a genuine tier 1 nation?

Paying for fake followers is actually a really bad idea, people that do it end up destroying their ability to reach actual followers and potential followers with content. I think a lot of people who try to game these systems often don't realise that the people at facebook and google etc who work...

I'm pretty sceptical of those reported figures. 1.1-1.4 million average viewers is 4 times the average for Major League Soccer. Seems very unlikely in the first year of the competition. If the numbers were that high I think you'd see far greater growth in followers on social media for MLR and...

Fiji got dudded by the referee in that quarter final. In the lead up to England's winning try at the end he missed an England knock on, and awarded them a pretty dubious penalty that should have been a fair turnover to Fiji. The Fijians also shot themselves in the foot a minute or two earlier by...

Looks like Germany will be back to full strength for the remaining qualifiers. Should be enough to get them past Portugal, but it would still take a miracle to beat Samoa. They did beat Romania once last year though so they might be a chance of winning the repechage against Canada, Hong Kong and...

So do you still get this really long test season with nothing else (that anyone cares about) going on after June? Or does the national competition go into August/September but the test players aren't involved for the last couple of months of it? I think both these scenarios are not ideal...

Neutral fans could always support both Australian teams, or just watch it to see how their own players go, or so they can be informed in discussions about what the Wallabies team for the first test should be etc. I'd think of a short Super Rugby season more like the state of origin in rugby...

Perhaps it is possible for no one to compromise. The SANZAAR unions could focus on a shorter, more concentrated super rugby that is the ultimate preparation for test rugby. 10ish week competition with 2 Australian teams, 2 or 3 from NZ and South Africa, 1 from Argentina and possibly 1 from...

The only problem I can see with your idea of having this 3 match series in June is that it would limit the domestic competition to quite a small window of about 16 weeks - and that's starting in mid Feb. This would be okay for an 8 team competition (14 round home and away plus semis and final)...

My hope is that RA / NSWRU wouldn't run it. But I don't think you can compare the fortunes of amateur level teams with professional sides. A competitive professional team with PI connections that embraces the community in Western Sydney and plays exciting rugby would have a decent chance of...

I think you need to keep the Waratahs and Reds in the main competition. They are now essentially club teams with members, regular fan bases etc, and would need to be the foundation of a new tournament. So from that perspective it probably would be better if they changed to Sydney and Brisbane...

It wouldn't necessarily have to. I mean Western Sydney is still a part of Sydney just as it is a part of NSW, so changing the Waratahs to Sydney doesn't make a difference in that respect. The Waratahs can still claim they're a team for all of NSW, even if they have a team or teams staking out...

As long as the wages are better than the secondary leagues in Europe it wouldn't be any worse than it is now. There aren't limitless places for foreigners in the English Premiership, Top 14 and Pro 14. And that limit is already reached. Nothing will change until another professional league gets...

I think rather than having a Pacific Island team based in Western Sydney it'd be better to have a Western Sydney team that has some close affiliation with the Pacific Islands (or just Samoa and Tonga, as Fiji could have their own team). Western Sydney has 2 million people and any team there...

It's a decent idea if it includes a mechanism to even out the playing talent across the competition. A trans-tasman comp with 5 teams each (or even 4 Australian), and with current eligibility rules will continue to be dominated by Kiwi teams, just like Super Rugby is now. Then there's the...

Last year RA made $62 million in revenue from broadcasting, $27 million from ticket sales/matchday and $31 million from sponsorship. I'm not sure what % of the broadcasting revenue is generated by the test matches (I believe it's a majority but Super Rugby must be a reasonably large minority)...

How much revenue does the the A League generate and how does that compare to the amount of revenue the FFA makes from the Socceroos and RA makes from the Wallabies? The Wallabies play 6 or 7 home tests per year, and usually not all of them are huge drawcards. A double round robin domestic...

I don't think anyone would say that test rugby is not extremely important. From my perspective at least the problem is prioritising test rugby / high performance so much that the success of the sport as a whole is so dependent on it. It worked out great for the sport when the Wallabies were the...