Nations Championship?
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World Rugby have released an official response.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=12210246It states there will be promotion and relegation but Six Nations Rugby Championship will not be affected. It also states it would be a 2 conference system so I assume one side from each conference would be relegated. They will I imagine need to split all tier 1 and 2 teams into either the Rugby Championship or Six Nations.
Below are the top 24 sides by World Rankings split into the two comps. Would almost be farcical to include the USA and not Fiji based on current standings.
Top 12 Rugby Championship
1 New Zealand
2 South Africa
3 Australia
4 Fiji
5 Argentina
6 Japan
7 Tonga
8 USA
9 Uruguay
10 Samoa
11 Canada
12 NamibiaTop 12 Six Nations
1 Ireland
2 Wales
3 England
4 Scotland
5 France
6 Georgia
7 Italy
8 Russia
9 Spain
10 Romania
11 Belgium
12 Netherlands -
My problem with the composition of the RC group is, is that it is already a collection of countries of three continents (South America, Africa and Oceania). If they inlcude the USA/Canada and Japan as well, that will become 5 continents. The travel distance is already huge, and they'd make it even longer if they add the USA and Canada. Japan is less of an issue in that respect.
IMO, the USA and Canada should be included in the European group, but they'll never do that, because Europe already has an established second tier (and third tier) competition, which they won't be willing to change.
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@Stargazer and that's why any sort of global "league" is a pipe dream. The logistics are too fucked
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@barbarian that doesn't line up with the players reps being excluded from a meeting this year, then being told things were moving under urgency, rather than the known timeline.
Def halfbaked, but largely down to how WR have acted since late last year from what I've heard and read.
Will all the 'feedback' I'm surprised it took so long for a journo to get a sniff!!
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144K views · 1K reactions | Nations Championship | World Rugby has...
World Rugby has moved to clarify the organisation’s position on the merits and structure of a Nations Championship concept in advance of key meetings in...
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@MajorRage said in World League Rugby:
Rugby league is loving it. I see a triple header has been booked featuring all of the PI teams for November.
Tonga has a huge wave to ride here, I hope they manage to surf it wisely.
League has come up with a competition that is pissing its fans off almost as much as rugby has.
I don't think Tonga is sustainable, it's built on the mana of Taumalolo and Fifita and once those two go it will be hard for them to remain standing on the board. I think the Kiwis will touch them up next time they play (remember Fiji also beat the Kiwis in 2017, they were an actual mess).
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@gt12 said in World League Rugby:
World Rugby has moved to clarify the organisation’s position on the merits and structure of a Nations Championship concept in advance of key meetings in...
Well that clears things up, why the fuck didnt they just release this when it first popped up, this makes way more sense to me. I don't have a major issue with this format tbh. Be interesting to see what happens in BIL years.
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Yeah, I'm a bit unsure about how some of the travel will work too. The BIL and WC years will suck for some teams who don't get a chance to go up, which seems a bit random. I'd have something different for those years. Personally, I'd have also taken the hard route and demoted one of the 6 nations countries and had two groups of 5 in each area, which would have meant that the playoffs for those positions would be more interesting and would have reduced the schedule by one game.
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Will all the SH teams have to go to Europe for the tests again teams outside their conference? That wasn’t clear to me.
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@chimoaus said in World League Rugby:
@gt12 said in World League Rugby:
World Rugby has moved to clarify the organisation’s position on the merits and structure of a Nations Championship concept in advance of key meetings in...
Well that clears things up, why the fuck didnt they just release this when it first popped up, this makes way more sense to me. I don't have a major issue with this format tbh. Be interesting to see what happens in BIL years.
According to Pichot's social media posts, there was strong opposition in the WR Council during the earlier negotiation stages against the promotion/relegation part of the proposal. The fact that WR is posting this proposal now, is IMO just to calm down all opposition to the leaked proposal (without the promotion/relegation). The question is now, which of the proposals (with or without promotion/relegation) will they vote on (or vote on first)?
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@gt12 said in World League Rugby:
Will all the SH teams have to go to Europe for the tests again teams outside their conference? That wasn’t clear to me.
As I understand it (not from the video, but from the information that was published earlier), SH teams will play 3 European teams in the July international window at home (or at least in the SH) and 3 other European teams in the November international window in Europe. The semi-finals and final would be played at a big neutral venue, in Europe (I think).
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@Stargazer you'd think. regardless of who plays in the final, Stade Francias or Twickers loom as the most obvious?
Good capacity, central for where the largest fans bases are, ideal time zone for those same fan bases...just how much appetite for fans to pay to watch a game between NZ/Ire/eng/SA/Wales in Stade Francias or at Twickers between same teams sans England.
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@taniwharugby The stadium of FC Barcelona, Camp Nou, was mentioned in one of the media reports.
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@Stargazer I guess that would have some appeal initially...but again, how willing would these large fan bases be to travel to watch say NZ/SA in a final? There wont be huge numbers travelling from SA or NZ just to watch.
Ideally, WR wants (needs) England/Ireland/France to be there at the pointy end, this would generate much more income and interest than a all SH derby.
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@taniwharugby That may well happen as the ABs, SA etc will be at the end of a very long season with a metric shit-ton of travel. However the money bonus for playing those matches, I guess there will be one, will focus the SH sides, and we can afford to send B teams to the 2 RC extras, I guess.
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The other elephant in the room I was thinking about was the inability of some PI nations to host games.
- They don't generate any TV revenue internally
- Some of the fields (most of the fields?) are not up to international standard
- Administrators make 'interesting' decisions with the money they have
You can see why they went straight to USA and Japan. Deep pockets. It's finding a balance between the $ and the rugby integrity of the competition. Super failed this challenge last time around with the 'pools', and it's smashed the credibility of the comp.
