The Future of World Rugby, including the Six Nations
There was an extremely good article in this month's Rugby World about the future of the Six Nations tournament, in which an extremely good suggestion was made, to include Argentina in an expanded 7 Nations.
In my opinion, this has fantastic value to spread high class rugby. Argentina are obviously not European, but their inclusion would give them meaningful competition and greatly assist their development. Air travel is now such that a trip to Argentina could easily be undertaken by the rest of the European countries. Each of the current Six Nations would travel there once every two years, and Argentina would have an annual tour to play their 3 away games on the trot.
The travel distances are not that much more than between Australia and South Africa in the current Tri Nations.
Ideally, Argentina and the Pacific islands would be included in an expanded Tri Nations tournament in the Southern hemisphere, but due to their own reprehensible behaviour and self interest, the SANZAR countires have ignored the possibilities. They are behaving as protectionists, in their own short term commercial interests without thinking of the future of rugby as a whole. For rugby to flourish as a world sport, and not just a minority sport played in a few countries, it needs to develop within new nations. It needs to be in the same position as football, where 24 different teams have been semi finalists, and a further 15 have been Quarter finalists (see: the RSSSF data). Compared, to this, 6 countries (S. Africa, England, Scotland, N. Zealand, Australia and France) have reached the Quarters in every tournament they have entered - only 12 countries have ever reached the Quarter Finals.
Argentina are very hard to beat at home, have fanatical support, are extremely
good in the forwards and reached the World Cup Quarter Finals in 1999. The world has already let Romania slip back to second class citizens. They were among the top 6 countries in the world in the early 1980s but were repeatedly refused entry into the VI Nations. Even now, Italy's place in the tournament seems under jeopardy. The future of Samoa, Fiji and Tonga in making a credible challenge is in doubt - they are being used as nurseries for the All Black and Australia and only get meaningful games during the World Cup. The Pacific Islanders team that toured before the last Tr-Nations tournament was competitive, if lacking in experience, but SANZAR missed a chance in including them in the expanded Super 14s, instead adding more teams from Australia and South Africa.
One annual trip by Argentina to Europe, with each of the European teams making a journey to Argentina once every two years, is hardly that much of a hardship! It would also guarantee each team 3 home games rather than 2 or 3 as present in the 6 team tournmanet. It hardly weakens the tournament either!
If rugby is to survive it cannot remain parochial and only played at the top level by a handful of countries. One interesting match will be the Heineken Cup match between Biarritz and Munster. Biarritz are a French Basque club, and they have mnoved the match to the nearest big football ground. This happens to be in Spain! They are playing in San Sebastian at Real Sociedad's ground. Probably the biggest competetive rugby match to have been played in Spain, and can only serve to increase the popularity and exposure of the game there.
Indeed, Italian rugby has come on such that this year's home games are being reported on the front pages of the national papers rather than being lost in the middle.
So, back to Argentina - they have been consistently good but need to be assisted by the rest of the rugby world to get decent competition and thus to develop.
In my opinion, this has fantastic value to spread high class rugby. Argentina are obviously not European, but their inclusion would give them meaningful competition and greatly assist their development. Air travel is now such that a trip to Argentina could easily be undertaken by the rest of the European countries. Each of the current Six Nations would travel there once every two years, and Argentina would have an annual tour to play their 3 away games on the trot.
The travel distances are not that much more than between Australia and South Africa in the current Tri Nations.
Ideally, Argentina and the Pacific islands would be included in an expanded Tri Nations tournament in the Southern hemisphere, but due to their own reprehensible behaviour and self interest, the SANZAR countires have ignored the possibilities. They are behaving as protectionists, in their own short term commercial interests without thinking of the future of rugby as a whole. For rugby to flourish as a world sport, and not just a minority sport played in a few countries, it needs to develop within new nations. It needs to be in the same position as football, where 24 different teams have been semi finalists, and a further 15 have been Quarter finalists (see: the RSSSF data). Compared, to this, 6 countries (S. Africa, England, Scotland, N. Zealand, Australia and France) have reached the Quarters in every tournament they have entered - only 12 countries have ever reached the Quarter Finals.
Argentina are very hard to beat at home, have fanatical support, are extremely
good in the forwards and reached the World Cup Quarter Finals in 1999. The world has already let Romania slip back to second class citizens. They were among the top 6 countries in the world in the early 1980s but were repeatedly refused entry into the VI Nations. Even now, Italy's place in the tournament seems under jeopardy. The future of Samoa, Fiji and Tonga in making a credible challenge is in doubt - they are being used as nurseries for the All Black and Australia and only get meaningful games during the World Cup. The Pacific Islanders team that toured before the last Tr-Nations tournament was competitive, if lacking in experience, but SANZAR missed a chance in including them in the expanded Super 14s, instead adding more teams from Australia and South Africa.
One annual trip by Argentina to Europe, with each of the European teams making a journey to Argentina once every two years, is hardly that much of a hardship! It would also guarantee each team 3 home games rather than 2 or 3 as present in the 6 team tournmanet. It hardly weakens the tournament either!
If rugby is to survive it cannot remain parochial and only played at the top level by a handful of countries. One interesting match will be the Heineken Cup match between Biarritz and Munster. Biarritz are a French Basque club, and they have mnoved the match to the nearest big football ground. This happens to be in Spain! They are playing in San Sebastian at Real Sociedad's ground. Probably the biggest competetive rugby match to have been played in Spain, and can only serve to increase the popularity and exposure of the game there.
Indeed, Italian rugby has come on such that this year's home games are being reported on the front pages of the national papers rather than being lost in the middle.
So, back to Argentina - they have been consistently good but need to be assisted by the rest of the rugby world to get decent competition and thus to develop.
posted by Jonathan | Monday, February 14, 2005
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