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Yeah this is why I think it more likely that RA could at some point consolidate to just 2 Super Rugby teams that it funds directly (primarily from Wallabies generated revenue), and leave GRR or some other national competition to be run independently through the entire season with a larger number...

Depends how committed Andrew Forrest is. We know he has already had interest from individuals or groups looking to field teams in Western Sydney and Newcastle. If RA were to get off the Super Rugby train and do some kind of deal with him we could have an Asia-Pacific championship with 6 or 7...

I'm fairly agnostic about the best way to go about it. The MLS / Major League Rugby model could work. If existing clubs have the backing to step up into a national competition (and meet certain standards) then they could be involved, if private investors want to start new teams then that works...

I think Australia would likely only drop to 2-3 Super Rugby teams if the NZRU and SARU did the same. All the unions are under financial pressure and finding it increasingly difficult to hold onto players. And interest in Super Rugby is seemingly declining in all markets and indications are that...

I don't think that's necessarily true. It obviously wouldn't be a national comp full of top tier professional players - they'd all either play in the 2 or 3 Super Rugby franchises or overseas. But it could be a significant step up from the Shute Shield/QPR. And if Super Rugby were to become just...

I think that RA will work on the theory that people will continue to support the Wallabies regardless of what sits beneath it. They'll position rugby as being a big event sport rather than trying to compete week to week with the high frequency sports with geographical range like NRL, AFL and...

NZ have shown no appetite for a TT competition. I'd like to be wrong but I think further contraction of Super Rugby (played over 3 continents) is a more likely eventuality. Given the strength of test rugby (and especially if the Nations Championship gets the green light and brings in the...

Presumably they'll eventually get a 2nd MLR team. But even with 1 they've got a domestic pathway, and there's not much stopping Canadian players moving to the US to play for the other teams. As far as I know Canadians are not counted towards the teams foreign player cap.

This is how I see the problem. For Wallabies, All Blacks and Springboks home matches to get big crowds (and domestic ratings) they need to be playing against teams who people see as a competitive opponent. However, new opponents won't get to that level without regular competition against top...

Do SANZAAR have any cards to play here? Could they threaten to just play an extended Rugby Championship instead of the July and November tours? I guess not - they could probably just about replace the income from the July tours with an extended RC, but I don't think they could afford to risk...

A lot of those islanders and kiwis who have played state of origin in league would have played some league before moving to Australia. But do you really think this is such a big deal? For some of those guys you've mentioned it's completely obvious who they would play for in a state of origin as...

If it was 25% as successful as the league state of origin it would be a pretty big deal for Australian Rugby. And the one bonus it would have over the league state of origin is it would feed directly into the test season. So there'd be Wallabies spots well and truly on the line. I think you...

Fair point, though I think a State of Origin series would have more interest and commercial value and some or most of that could feed into the Super Rugby teams. Plus you'd have this nice funnel of starting with 4 teams in Super Rugby (5 including the Force in GRR), whittling that down to 2...

Something like that could work, though a final after a 3 round robin between 4 teams isn't really necessary. Perhaps a better option would be a state of origin series.

Seems strange they would give up a team based in the 2nd most populated city in the country. Edit - just realised Llanelli and Swansea are 20 minutes apart. From that perspective it kind of makes sense. But it'll be very difficult to get buy in from both sets of fans.

Uruguay beat the USA in the US on the weekend. Big win for them, especially given the improvement of the US in the last couple of years. I think the Americans were missing a handful of guys who play in Europe, but not too many. Uruguay got hammered 68-7 by Fiji in November though so it's hard...

You just know it'll go with 5 minutes left on the clock in a close world cup final.

I don't think it would be ideal having 3 team groups in rugby due to the bye weeks that would be required (not so much an issue in soccer as they can play every 3 days). If you had groups of 4 it'd be better to have 16 teams. Then you could have 2 European groups and 2 Rest of the world...

There's already a release window for the Rugby Championship now. But the clubs can and do still pressure players to make themselves unavailable. Nadolo just made himself unavailable for the world cup for this exact reason. And if a top player like him can be persuaded to skip a world cup, how...

The main problem is that almost all of Fiji's test team play for European clubs. If Fiji were to be in the RC those guys would either have to take a significant pay cut, or they'd make themselves unavailable for test selection. It'd only be possible if this were addressed - either by getting...