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Seems like a win/win either way. If he makes the All Blacks it'd generate some publicity for rugby in Germany. And if he doesn't make it he can play for and strengthen the German national team. On a related note, how do you think Germany will go in the world cup repechage?

That's good to hear. They certainly had an impressive win over Canada this year. Not sure what their potential is at the world cup though. Do they have any players in the top European leagues? You'd think with a fully professional domestic league that some of the top players would be recruited...

And Russia are fully pro right? Or more semi-pro? Surprises me that they haven't been better over the last few years if their league is fully professional. They're a bit of a mystery.

As for the fully professional world cup, wouldn't Namibia still have quite a lot of semi-pro players? And obviously it depends who qualifies from the repechage. Canada will probably win and they will be pretty much fully professional from 2019. But as far as I know Hong Kong are semi-pro...

Yeah I think with these 15 or so involved in MLR it means that the Union will be able to bring in some other guys into their own full time training environment. So come the world cup they should have a handful of European based players, 15 who played MLR and another 15 or so who were in full...

Hopefully Ontario can be as successful as the Toronto Wolfpack rugby league team has been (playing in the English Rugby League system). You'd think the Arrows would have the advantage of stronger grassroots, having Canadian players, and being in an American competition, but the Wolfpack has been...

It would be a bit different to a world cup though - no or very few knockout games, no matches between 2 European teams or 2 non-European teams and matches would be held in different countries. It's actually not that different to what the November window is now - just with a bit more structure...

I think Europe / Non-Europe (World) instead of North / South protects against this a little bit. But also, don't make perfect the enemy of good. You'll never get an absolutely perfect system. The world rankings is not a perfect system either. And a lot of the time the best 3 or 4 teams in the...

Easy solution would be to ensure the relegated team is replaced by a team from the same hemisphere or group. But I think it'd probably be easiest to relegate one team from each. That creates more opportunity for different teams to compete as well. So, for example Italy gets relegated and...

I think you'd just want to make sure you avoid the Rugby Championship sides playing each other in this tournament, with the possible exception of a final. But you could avoid it completely without any knock out games - just some kind of group / league to determine a top 2 and then a final...

Sounds insane. Why does he have such a problem with Josh? I think there's quite a big difference between him and Ben Volavola and it could be the difference between making the world cup quarter finals or not.

Ah that's a shame. Fiji really need a better 10 than Ben Volavola at test level. I think Matavesi is much better myself but he never seems to get picked anymore. Is there some issue between him and John McKee?

Does anyone know how similar the Drua squad is to last year? I think I read the 10 from last year got a contract in France. Guessing some others may have as well. And I think it's fair to say a few of these guys will get contracts after this tournament.

It's amazing how much talent Fiji produces. If the Drua can become a more professional organisation with a full season (WSR + NRC) it'll do wonders for Fijian rugby. No reason why they can't become a consistent tier 1 level international team.

Just started watching and have seen 2 Fijian tries in 2 minutes. The Fijian offloading ability is incredible but the Brisbane defence is horrific.

What could make things pretty interesting next year is if World Series Rugby does well in its first proper season. It will be head to head with Super Rugby and SANZAAR will be having discussions about the next broadcast deal. Would RA consider getting off the Super Rugby wagon if WSR showed...

I think it would be a little different. I'm not sure if QLD and NSW Country would be viable in a fully professional competition. I think the teams would need to be based in and named for major population centres / specific regions. And Sydney would need 2-4 teams. Would be an interesting choice...

What you have to lose is alienating the thousands of supporters of the team that gets cut. But one option would be for Super Rugby to get really concentrated (e.g. 2 Oz, 2 SA, 3 NZ, 1 Arg), and the rest of the Australian and NZ teams join World Series Rugby. WSR would not be as high level...

Problem is that the evidence suggests this doesn't really work very well (in terms of competing against the other football codes) unless the Wallabies are number 1 in the world, or in the argument. And how often can we expect this to be the case? We got the jump on everyone else at the start...

The German rugby schism ended before the Portugal playoff. So Germany were at something resembling full strength when they went down to Samoa (15-66 away and 28-42 at home). Presumably they should be a little stronger for the repechage as they'll have a much better preparation. From all...