6 nations to 12 nations

[Toko_11]

What kind of crowd would turn up in Georgia for a game against a tri nations team?

eyy i remember when South Africa team came to Georgia the atmosphere in the country was Unbelievable..I don't even know what kind of south African team it was but no one cared lol..... I think that one game did more good for Georgian rugby than everything else put together in the decade leading up to it! only the fact that they were from South Africa caused so much noise it even covered up the political news ... which is almost unheard of in Georgia.... I can only imagine what would happen if All blacks or Wallabies came to Tbilisi... no wait, I can't even imagine. It could be something like this

 

[Colombia]

Two pools:

Pool 1: England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Canada
Pool 2: France, Italy, Argentina, Georgia, Romania

Pool winners meet in the final.

 

[LittleGuy]

What kind of crowd would turn up in Georgia for a game against a tri nations team?

surely an easy (relatively) step would be to get the tri nations teams to stop over on the way to November tours as we did Japan this year, AB's play Georgia, Aussie plays Japan and RSA play Russia? before carrying on with the normal end of year tour.

If the 6 nations teams could then just commit to the odd "warm up" game before the start of the 6 nations then these teams would get a couple of completely different tier 1 games a year...has to be a good start and if a big enough crowd turned up then would also help grow profile

would be more interested in these games than the same old same old...doesn't matter if we loose to Aussie...we play them 17 times next year so will get the back

I would guarantee a sell out of the Boris Paichadze National Stadium(I'm sure there would be an arrangment to make it available for this particular test as Georgia have been having stadium availability problems) a crowd of 55,000. Price point of tickets could probably go up a little as well, even adjusting for income and GDP differences Georgian rugby games are incredibly affordable for Lelos fans though they could certainly raise them even a bit for a game of this magnitude.

 

[William18]

I would love the All Blacks to go Georgia. I think they have earned it far more than places like Japan or the Pacific Islands which is constantly talked about.

I think it would be good if the calendar looked something like this:

Year 1: Rugby World Cup
Year 2: Lions series
Year 3: European Cup and Pacific Cup
Year 4: Regular Internationals
Year 5: Rugby World Cup.

I think it makes little sense to have a European Cup and Lions Tour in the same year. Therefore the Lions should move forward one year and have the European Cup in the middle. The biggest problem with the implementation of European/Pacific Cups would be fitting them into the current schedule. At least the mid year or the end of year tests would have to be stopped for that year (not a big loss for fans but potential loss of revenue). Also would it make sense to have the Rugby Championship and say a Pacific Cup in the same year?

I think it would make most sense for the European Cup just to be European teams and the Pacific Cup to include the rest. Maybe it should be Europe + Americas or something.

 

[alexrugby]

there is lower tier 6nations already being played just without promotion and relegation

if georgia keep improving
if russia get back to moving forward and if romania keep improving

if the smaller the extent that they can regularly challenge and and even beat 6nations teams fair enough

but until that point it would be a pointless exercise removing one of the big 6 at the moment to a guaranteed promotion the next year and several 50+ point wins would be useless

Yes dear! we can keep improving, we can keep growing but how when...

1) We have no normal exposure to bigger brother teams

2) We no broad access to bigger brother rugby clubs (except for France)

3) If you do not beat NZ, England, RSA, Aussies - no good team is going to play with you

OK! I understand, Georgia had good match against Ireland on RWC 2007, we won our first games on RWC 2007-2011, we suffered many grand teams on RWC pool stages, we played well against BaaBaas, we beat Samoa (!) ...

But !!! if IRB and big bros don't open doors for us, we along with other East European teams will be boiling in the same soup for centuries

 

[alexrugby]

I would guarantee a sell out of the Boris Paichadze National Stadium(I'm sure there would be an arrangment to make it available for this particular test as Georgia have been having stadium availability problems) a crowd of 55,000. Price point of tickets could probably go up a little as well, even adjusting for income and GDP differences Georgian rugby games are incredibly affordable for Lelos fans though they could certainly raise them even a bit for a game of this magnitude.

Yes! agreed

Availability and price for Lelos' tickets is by far ridiculous extremely cheap, enough to pay for arena

but whenever big team comes, stadiums are crowded

I remember BaaBaas tour in Georgia, no empty seat was left on 35 000 stadium named after Mikheil Meskhi

we need more hands for support, political support now from high teams

 

[tompaton]

I've been saying this for 5 years. Link the Six Nations to the European Nations Cup. Get the ENC Division One a contract with broadcasting company and set standards like required attendances etc. Then the bottom team in the Six Nations plays the top placed team in the ENC in a relagation-promotion play off. The winner goes up, loser goes down. Simple as that.

Either that or the other suggestion of having a European Cup every 4 years where you have Six Nations plus the ENC Division One play each other in a tournament. Any format would suffice.

Final suggestion is to have a warm up game for the Six Nations. So the week before as preparation you could have a set of games between Six Nations and ENC Div 1 teams. Something like, Wales v Romania, England v Spain, France v Portugal, Ireland v Russia, Scotland v Georgia, Italy v Belgium. Gives Six Nations teams a run out and gives ENC teams a meaningful match.

One final suggestion actually. Georgia could put a team in the Six Nations A team competition, like against the Wolfhounds and Saxons. Wales aren't in it, so why not give them the chance.

 

[William18]

I've been saying this for 5 years. Link the Six Nations to the European Nations Cup. Get the ENC Division One a contract with broadcasting company and set standards like required attendances etc. Then the bottom team in the Six Nations plays the top placed team in the ENC in a relagation-promotion play off. The winner goes up, loser goes down. Simple as that.

Either that or the other suggestion of having a European Cup every 4 years where you have Six Nations plus the ENC Division One play each other in a tournament. Any format would suffice.

Final suggestion is to have a warm up game for the Six Nations. So the week before as preparation you could have a set of games between Six Nations and ENC Div 1 teams. Something like, Wales v Romania, England v Spain, France v Portugal, Ireland v Russia, Scotland v Georgia, Italy v Belgium. Gives Six Nations teams a run out and gives ENC teams a meaningful match.

One final suggestion actually. Georgia could put a team in the Six Nations A team competition, like against the Wolfhounds and Saxons. Wales aren't in it, so why not give them the chance.

See but this just isn't going to happen. Once again it is about money. Scotland, Wales and Ireland aren't huge countries but they can sell out their stadiums and probably draw some interest. Scotland v England would probably get higher tv ratings than England vs Georgia. Georgia just don't provide anything to the tournament in the way of revenue streams. Correct me if I'm wrong but the 6 Nations is basically run by its member countries, isn't it? They are not going to support a system where one of them could get relegated. This is why I think a European Cup would be desirable. You could probably still have the 6 Nations and European Cup in the same year provided that one set of international tours were removed from the calendar.

 

[dragos03]

The very least they could do would be to set up some kind of European Championship with 8-12 teams in total that could take place every 4 years, in the same period as the Lions tour. The Home Nations already have some trouble finding suitable opponents during that time. Instead of Wales sending a depleted team to lose in Japan for example, they could take part in this competition.

Also, most people seem to only consider Georgia as being ready to step up but Romania has roughly the same strength. The other nations in the ENC (Russia, Spain, Portugal, Belgium) are clearly weaker than the top two but they aren't that bad either and should also get the chance to play some better tests.

A real inclusion of any of these teams into an expanded 6N will not happen any time soon because it's the economic power that matters the most. Having a strong team on the pitch is not enough, you need to also be able to generate a revenue comparable to the 6N countries. That is absolutely impossible at the moment. Georgia might get 20k fans at their games, but they pay less than 1$ per ticket. When the ticket prices were increased to about 3$ for some games this summer, only 2k showed up (it was also a lesser competition though). Romania currently gets only around 4-6k fans at the home games. Russia can't get any fans at all to watch their national team and they can't even get them to be broadcasted by any TV station. The others are even poorer in terms of money and fans. Spain for example was unable to raise the 200k EUR needed to include one of their teams in the Amlin Challenge Cup.

The ENC nations will have to work a lot on the economic aspects of the game before they can be considered for inclusion by the big boys. A country like Germany would have a much better chance if they improve their team and popularise rugby a bit than the Eastern European nations.

 

[alexrugby]

Why are people being so naive? Everyone here is talking about it in terms of playing strength. Whether or not Georgia joins the 6 nations has nothing to do with playing strength - it is all about the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. It isn't the job of the other 6 unions to promote rugby in Georgia. This is where the IRB needs to step in.

That's a point

England, NZ, RSA, Wales, Aussies and other teams won't break a sleep in thoughts about Georgia's and Romania's bright future

It is IRB and our rugby boards (ours is working extremely hard, hats off to GRU from our citizens) that must take off their skins to push rugby development among minnows

I do not know "hom much" we have to pay for RBS Six Nations tournament, but I know, we have to advance and push further for our brighter future

What is the role of Top Countries in this process? They have main mandate in IRB and they must hel on political level

...and not Wilkinson sitting in chair and thinking about Georgia's future

 

[Colombia]

Yes dear! we can keep improving, we can keep growing but how when...

1) We have no normal exposure to bigger brother teams

2) We no broad access to bigger brother rugby clubs (except for France)

3) If you do not beat NZ, England, RSA, Aussies - no good team is going to play with you

OK! I understand, Georgia had good match against Ireland on RWC 2007, we won our first games on RWC 2007-2011, we suffered many grand teams on RWC pool stages, we played well against BaaBaas, we beat Samoa (!) ...

But !!! if IRB and big bros don't open doors for us, we along with other East European teams will be boiling in the same soup for centuries

The top Eastern European rugby nations should open their own doors. The Lord helps those who help themselves. Georgia should create their own Tri Nations tournament with Russia and Romania and play each other more often. There's no point in waiting for the 6N, they're happy with what they've got.

 

[alexrugby]

Colombia

Yes we can create our own tri nations, and what that gives? I am asking seriously

We meet each other every year even without creating a new tournament

We play with the same motivation as we would do in East European Tri nations

But there are higher teams, playing against which makes you grow

That's an aim now, and not creating some closed circle tournament on our own

 

[Da Grappla]

An international rugby orphan is Georgia. Only Romania is able to put some heat to it at ENC. Russia is not a challenger any longer, Spain got lost for two years now, Portugal was a one hit wonder some years ago and Belgium is on development.

It would be interesting to see more Italy or Scotland against a full stregth Georgia.

 

[Toko_11]

The top Eastern European rugby nations should open their own doors. The Lord helps those who help themselves. Georgia should create their own Tri Nations tournament with Russia and Romania and play each other more often. There's no point in waiting for the 6N, they're happy with what they've got.

How would that be different from European nations cup that we play now ? If you are not aware we play Them every year in a 6nations type of tournament and that's exactly what we want to get out of, because there is no potential in it... Russia, Portugal, Spain have fallen off far below, Belgium just appeared on the radar. only small competition is between Georgia and Romania and if we are honest I'm pretty sure all these teams are tired of playing each other year after year its just not interesting anymore! when i go to the stadium its mostly because i want to show my support for our team not because i am very interested in another game vs Germany, Portugal, Russia etc. ENC could be renamed BRP for Boring, Repetitive and Predictable

Difference between Georgia and other ENC teams is that in Georgia the interest from people is Far more and growing faster than lets say in Spain or Portugal who are Football crazed countries. Russians not only got worse but can't even televise their games anymore due to lack of interest, Romania was also regressing but this year they have shown some signs of a comeback and that definitely is exciting but the reason they started to regress in the first place is because they were alienated from the rest of the world forced to play poor teams in ENC while they deserved a lot better(they were really good couple of decades ago) and if something doesn't change same fate awaits Georgia which I really don't want to happen.

so when you say help themselves its a very unfair statement. I don't think you can find 3 Unions in the world that have worked as hard as the Georgian Rugby Union to improve the game. they virtually did what no one could imagine was possible 20 or even 15 years ago. but we have reached the peak of our abilities at this level so unless something changes in Rugby internationally there is no hope for us Regionally.

 

[Rich Taff]

I'm not sure what's going to happen, and would like to reiterate the scheduling problem with expanding the 6N (it's just not feasible at the moment to increase the number of weeks dedicated to it).

I would, however, like to hope that the Georgians (and Romanians etc) posting, keep up this interest.

I think the thing that makes rugby one of the greatest sports on the planet is us. the fans. If we work hard enough together, then the Unions(unlike the allegedly corrupt FIFA, UEFA etc) do seem to listen, and hopefully we can garner more support for a sport that is just as competitive as football(soccer), but has a whole lot more to offer the world.

 

[moneymark]

I'm not sure what's going to happen, and would like to reiterate the scheduling problem with expanding the 6N (it's just not feasible at the moment to increase the number of weeks dedicated to it).

I would, however, like to hope that the Georgians (and Romanians etc) posting, keep up this interest.

I think the thing that makes rugby one of the greatest sports on the planet is us. the fans. If we work hard enough together, then the Unions(unlike the allegedly corrupt FIFA, UEFA etc) do seem to listen, and hopefully we can garner more support for a sport that is just as competitive as football(soccer), but has a whole lot more to offer the world.

This is why I think to the 2 division with relegation is a good idea, ie no more dates in calenders.

I think with FIFA in fairness. the structure does promote the sport, ie You get the chances to play the best, you only have to look at Iceland nearly qualifying for the world cup, They have hope as supporters. Whilst maybe corrupt they have made inroads into new markets by not chasing the cash on major tounament revenue ie South Africa and Korea/Japan, where they were always going to make less cash.

The sport has also inroads into new markets in USA, Japan and Venezuela. We surely want rugby to be credible and played by as many people as possible. The best way to do this is in Europe is by expanding the 6 nations and interest beyond 6 nations. It would make it MUCH more interesting I am convinced.

 

[alexrugby]

Tri-Nations schedule was also imperforate and nobody would ever think Argentina's Pumas entering it, but...

They made it

 

[Colombia]

But there are higher teams, playing against which makes you grow

I think this is a myth. Playing against better teams and losing repeatedly does not make a team grow, it turns fans off reduces interest. No one wants to watch their team lose all the time. At present Georgia aren't good enough for the 6N, joining it would be damaging for the 6N and for Georgian rugby. They need to play teams on their own level, win matches, fill stadiums, grow their player pool and eventually they'll have enough good players to win big matches at the World Cup. After that, they would maybe get considered for 6N. Perhaps not even then, because let's face it, it's full.

The question is who are on Georgia's level...clearly Romania are close, Portugal is a tough game looking at results and obviously Samoa, Tonga, Fiji are a challenge. Georgia need to organise something for themselves, they can't rely on the IRB or they'll be waiting forever.

ENC could be renamed BRP for Boring, Repetitive and Predictable

Difference between Georgia and other ENC teams is that in Georgia the interest from people is Far more and growing faster than lets say in Spain or Portugal who are Football crazed countries.

If the ENC is so boring why is rugby growing fast in Georgia?

but we have reached the peak of our abilities at this level so unless something changes in Rugby internationally there is no hope for us Regionally.

Seems at odds with your previous comment about rugby growing. Like I said above, Georgia can't rely on the IRB, they have to organise a tournament for themselves.

 

[alexrugby]

I think this is a myth. Playing against better teams and losing repeatedly does not make a team grow, it turns fans off reduces interest. No one wants to watch their team lose all the time. At present Georgia aren't good enough for the 6N, joining it would be damaging for the 6N and for Georgian rugby. They need to play teams on their own level, win matches, fill stadiums, grow their player pool and eventually they'll have enough good players to win big matches at the World Cup. After that, they would maybe get considered for 6N.

The question is who are on Georgia's level...clearly Romania are close, Portugal is a tough game looking at results and obviously Samoa, Tonga, Fiji are a challenge. Georgia need to organise something for themselves, they can't rely on the IRB or they'll be waiting forever.


If the ENC is so boring why is rugby growing fast in Georgia?



Seems at odds with your previous comment about rugby growing. Like I said above, Georgia can't rely on the IRB, they have to organise a tournament for themselves.

Rugby is developing because 1) our clubs received more financing and hence more motivation, more and more guys are recruited from Georgian clubs

2) more guys are transferred to French clubs, and other big clubs and their level is boosting

3) Our team's success is taken in serious among Georgian youth and more and more are getting involved

4) play against Romania Russia Spain and Portugal still remains quite challenging, especially agains Romania and this benefits our team

5) IRB Nations Cup, RWC pools and Autumn tests - yeas we benefit from these matches

 

[alexrugby]

And again, I agree you in that, repeatedly losing matches against top 5 teams won't benefit us, instead now we have to prove our place among other teams and we'll come to tops then

Nobody starts from top of the Everest, instead, you have to climb it, but if you refuse challenges you never climb the peak

Argentina is the extremely useful example for Georgia, we have to take lessons from them

And don't tell me now that Pumas will be no better than before agains ABs on pool stage of RWC 2015, after their exposure to ABs on Tri (Four) Nation Cup