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This is such a no brainer. It's like a WWE storyline at this point, Eddie is the perfect bad guy. Organise a joint press conference with Eddie and a couple of Wallabies / RA reps taking shots at each other. Start Michael Hooper and Quade just for the heat, or at least involved in some way. It...

I think they should add 1 extra European qualifier and 1 extra American qualifier and then select the rest through a repechage. The next best Asian and African teams have been too weak over the last few years. Kenya were hammered in the repechage tournament last year by Portugal and the US, and...

I think Italy suffer a little from almost only playing tier 1 teams. A better structure would have them, as well as others around that level playing close to an equal number of games against both higher and lower ranked teams every year.

Yeah I think it's an improvement for the majority of the top 24 nations. The biggest winners being Japan, Fiji and the bottom of the 2nd tier. It's the handful of teams just outside the top 12 that are maybe losing out a little bit.

I think it actually is worse in the years the tournament is played. At the moment a lot of the 6 nations teams will play a T2 team in the window, and then have a 4th game against the Wallabies or All Blacks outside the window. That won't be possible now, and I doubt the smaller teams will be...

There'll be 12 games per round, I'd guess they'll play 3 games on both Saturdays and Sundays, and no more than 2 games any other day. So that would mean at least 5 days of games per week during the pool phase.

When could they play these extra tests that the likes of Georgia could be involved in? Isn't the release window only 3 weekends in both months, and they'll need all 6 for the new tournament? I don't think playing tests outside the window is really an option for T2 teams with a lot of France...

While that's true for the lower ranked tier 2 teams, it's evidently not true for the top few. How are the likes of Georgia, Portugal, Samoa, Tonga etc supposed to improve if they don't get to play at least some games against better teams in the July/November windows or have realistic...

I think it'd be fine if the promotion/relegation was automatic, rather than through a playoff. 2 up 2 down every time would create so much more interest in both the battle to avoid relegation and the battle for promotion in the 2nd tier. With the playoff there is such a big advantage for the...

Yeah, it's a silly argument, obviously the Wallabies would be a lot stronger if there was only one rugby code and all the athletes suited to rugby played it from a young age. Plenty of people make the opposite dumb argument as well though - that if rugby league didn't exist the Wallabies would...

Should have been a penalty the other way, so it's a 6 point swing. It came up on the screen before the kick too, are TMO's not able to intervene on penalty calls?

I think it's just about expected value. They'll typically take the gimme shots at goal, because the expected value is pretty close to 3. But if it's wider and it's say a kick you might expect to make 50-60% of the time, then the expected value is only 1.5-1.8. If they kick for touch they must...

The points difference for each team in the pool really showcases this, by far the closest in the tournament: +85 (Wales) +5 (Fiji) -1 (Australia) -39 (Portugal) -49 (Georgia). And it's crazy that Wales biggest win in the pool was against us. You'd have got massive odds if there'd been a market...

On the other hand England were lucky to beat Samoa and Fiji have been a little better than Samoa pretty consistently. I think Fiji struggled with the pressure of expectation against Georgia and Portugal. Against England they'll be underdogs with nothing to lose and it wouldn't surprise me if...

That already exists (Rugby Europe Championship), but it doesn't give them exposure to the top teams. With seemingly no appetite to expand the 6 nations, having a larger European Cup once every 4 years (so keep the 6 nations and REC in the other 3) might be more palatable. Asia-Pacific Cup...

Portugal have been great all tournament, and brilliant to watch. Fiji not at their best, especially their handling, hopefully they can step up against England. But full credit to Portugal, they've been the surprise of the tournament and outperformed expectations in every game. Really feels...

The pool stage has really dragged in this tournament with the extra week. Looks more and more likely that we'll get 24 teams next time around, which will mean games on every day and a much better flow for the tournament. There's been articles suggesting it will either be 6 pools of 4 or a...

I was for continuing with Super AU as well but they've locked in Super Rugby Pacific until 2030. The question for at least the next 7 years is how we get the most out of that. Perhaps it could just become the champions league, or evolve into a more condensed rep competition, but I'm not sure...

Well you could even have the 5 current teams form the basis of the national competition, and create 2 new brands for the Super Rugby tournament. It'd be like in cricket where the Australian squad is largely separate from the big bash and other domestic competitions. It's not my preference for...

I think there are some reasonable middle ground options. Another option would be to just have 2 very concentrated elite teams in Super Rugby, which feeds into the Wallabies (and Australia A, who should play at least a handful of games every season), and then focus on building a national club...