NH club rugby
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@taniwharugby Yes, he's in his fourth Top League season. After three seasons with Kintetsu Liners, he's now with Sanix Blues.
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@Stockcar86 Haha, that's a shocker. Lucky for him that Clermont beat Brive 62 to 6. All will be forgiven!
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@pakman Nice hat-trick, too! Haha, and Clermont-Brive wouldn't be Clermont-Brive if there weren't scuffles. Always a fierce local rivalry.
Stade Marcel-Michelin only has a capacity of about 19-20k, but it's great to see stadiums like that always full (and noisy).
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From the few La Rochelle games I've seen this year, this is very well-deserved!
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Not Club Rugby but it is a bit early for a 6N thread.
The 6N sponsorship deal with RBS has finished and 6N are really struggling to find another sponsor. No wonder when the asking price is £100m for 6 years
Six Nations sets tight deadline after struggling to find new sponsor for 2018
Six Nations executives have been given until the end of the month to find new sponsors for the biggest annual tournament in world rugby after struggling to find a replacement for RBS, who ended their backing last season after 14 years
Six Nations executives have been given until the end of the month to find new sponsors for the biggest annual tournament in world rugby after struggling to find a replacement for RBS, which ended its backing last season after 14 years.
The Six Nations had been looking for a six-year, £100m deal, but having spent the past 12 months talking to a number of potential backers, there is only one firm offer on the table. That is understood to be less than the £11m a year paid by RBS at the end of its contract as the economic uncertainty blown up by Brexit deters sponsors.
The championship starts in February and the tournament committee, which met last week, told its executives that a deal had to be agreed within a fortnight.
While there has been interest from potential sponsors, no one has come anywhere near the asking price and there is concern that further delay could lead to the one offer being withdrawn. That would mean the championship lacking a backer in 2018 and that would blow a significant hole in the finances of the three Celtic unions, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.
There are other hurdles facing the Six Nations. Companies are often reluctant to become involved after a long-serving backer exits and it was a constant struggle for RBS to have the media to include its sponsorship when talking or writing about the tournament.The market in sport has tightened after a period of boom. Premiership Rugby failed to find a replacement headline sponsor for Aviva this season after a long search. The company agreed to carry on for another year but for a heavily discounted price –believed to be in the region of 30% less – and the fears of some unions in the Six Nations is that far from securing a bumper package, they will be fortunate to even match the amount RBS paid.
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I'm sure the SH unions are shedding tears.
The 6N tends to have an historically highly conservative management, who tend to rest on their 6N laurels "world's oldest, best rugby tournament" bla bla bla.
The obvious first move would be to start the 6N a bit later when it's not so dreary and rainy in the NH...maybe financial reasons will finally get the 6N committee to take look at the whole tournament. Like should Italy really be guaranteed a spot year in year out etc?
I'd tend to think though that weaker Unions will only increase the power of the clubs in the north, although the British ones seem to rely in part on sugar daddies to survive.
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Kieran Keane being a complete knob IMHO. No wonder NZRU didn't want a bar of him for a Super Rugby head coach job. I thought this sort of juvenile crap went with the Mitchell/Deans era. Poor advertisement for NZ coaches.
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@billy-tell I've seen worse. What's he supposed to say, the team did dumb shit and given the game's just finished I haven't worked out why?
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@billy-tell yeah seems to be something going on there between those two...although Keane seemed pretty sad. Odd he'd be such a difficult bugger just out of the blue.
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@antipodean said in NH club rugby:
@billy-tell I've seen worse. What's he supposed to say, the team did dumb shit and given the game's just finished I haven't worked out why?
Yes
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@antipodean said in NH club rugby:
@billy-tell I've seen worse. What's he supposed to say, the team did dumb shit and given the game's just finished I haven't worked out why?
Based on this interview if Keane is the guy to get Connacht moving forward they are screwed.
Imagine Hansen giving an interview like that. It’s the coaches job to identify problems and if he needs video analysis before he can reply to media Qs it’s hardly reassuring.
