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Yeah that's basically the argument. If it turns out the ARU have no legal right to cut a team next year, then doesn't that also mean SANZAAR have no legal right to cut an Australian team? If none of the teams are willing to merge then what option does SANZAAR have? Surely the ARU would...

I don't know. It seems to me that an agreement with the ARU about a SANZAAR competition is basically an agreement with SANZAAR by extension, because SANZAAR can't do anything without ARU support. How do you get around that?

But these teams have agreements with the ARU regarding a SANZAAR competition. Either these agreements extend to SANZAAR as a whole by default or the ARU have acted improperly in signing them? The whole reason I say the ARU and SANZAAR are effectively the same thing is because of the right of...

But you're talking like SANZAAR and the ARU are actually separate things when they're not.

Really? I'm not a lawyer or anything but that just strikes me as so inherently dodgy it couldn't possibly stand up. And if somehow that was possible no one would ever sign an agreement with the ARU or SANZAAR ever again.

I mean when they agreed to it at the SANZAAR meeting. Before the cut to 15 was announced they just said a decision had been made pending stakeholder approval. The ARU (and by extension SANZAAR) clearly didn't dot all its i's and cross all its t's before announcing it was a done deal. If it...

But there was an agreement pending stakeholder approval. Turns out the broadcasters might not be the only stakeholders who can stop this from happening. I guess you're right in a sense, but if for whatever reason the ARU are forced to come back and say they can't cut a team before 2020 and...

Well we've seen with the likes of the USA, Canada and Kenya at times that nations that you don't normally associate with rugby can become competitive relatively quickly. Germany and Japan becoming competitive will do more for rugby globally than Scotland and Wales being competitive. Keep in...

Shows how financially strong the RFU is when they can afford to sabotage their own event just to keep the local community around Twickenham happy with them.

It'll weaken the series a little in the short term as the two new teams that come in won't be as strong as any 2 of Scotland, England and Wales. But it'll benefit rugby globally to have 2 new spots available for non-traditional rugby countries. If this happens in time for next season I assume...

How can they? SANZAAR includes the ARU, it's not independent. I assume if the ARU are unable to cut the Force or the Rebels (or both) then by extension SANZAAR is unable to cut them.

The ARU is SANZAAR in a way though. In the sense that everything within SANZAAR has to be unanimous.

For 2 or 3 years the London event was sold out on the Saturday but then I think the local community made complaints and they decided to reduce the capacity for the event and promote it as more family friendly.

I hope we don't have the exact same teams as 2015. Kenya and Zimbabwe were both very close to qualifying ahead of Namibia last time so perhaps one of them could come through as Africa 1 this time. I also think Spain are a decent chance of getting through, either by beating Tonga in the playoff...

Read on twitter that they're looking to change to the North West Rams.

It's just not realistic to expect everyone to put the good of the game above the good of their team. To use your metaphor, for a lot of people the team is the whole house. This is just human nature. People are tribal. For many people, especially the most passionate fans, if you remove their team...

@Rebels3 It'd certainly be a better outcome than dissolving a team altogether! But like a lot of decent ideas it relies on the NZRU being on board. So what do you propose if they're not?

So you don't think rugby grew in Australia in the late 90's-early 00's period? I think if the level of success we had in that period had been maintained until now then rugby would not be struggling like it is. But I think that level of success was never likely to be maintained and I think it's...

Well it can work, but only when you're always winning. Growth at the grassroots is certainly influenced by professional level success. It works both ways. The problem is that rugby only achieves professional level success when our teams do well in major international competitions. In the...

The biggest problem in my mind is that if you look with a long term view it's very difficult to see any significant improvement in our 'high performance outcomes' (or in other words, international success) which the current structure relies upon entirely. Rugby has been trending downwards for...