A Super Rugby style tournament would significantly improve European nations...

[Aristodemus]

It would be a real mess if you did try to split England and France into 4/5 teams from our leagues. Even if it perhaps is the best way forward, it would cause serious short term pain. That said it is an interesting proposition. I really don't know how I would feel about this.

 

[Jayatron]

I personally feel you're thinking about this wrong. I have played in Northern Ireland, Wales and New Zealand and it is simple as three things.

1. Structure
2. Intergeneration
3. Philosophy

One and two - The SH season is structured much better than the NH. When I played AIB we had a few Ulster boys who were not making the team so would come down to our lower level, which helped us but not them. In Wales, we loose all our best players to Premiership sides or teams that pay and that helps no one, just those at the top who are then also picked off by the regions, very little intergeneration. However, when I played in New Zealand, at the end of season we had Super Rugby players, who didn't make the ABs, come down and play rugby. Great for us again. However, when the club season ends in the SH then things like the ITM, NRC and the Currie Cup start. This structure allows for the development of young players while also allowing a healthy competition for domestic players while also keeping them fit in case they need called up and ultimately it is a breeding ground for young talented players.
With this there is the overall SH season. Club rugby which is twinned with SR over the top. Club rugby playoffs SR come back then leads straight into the ITM which is played as the same time of the RC followed up by the end of year tours. For internationals a good long time together then come up north to hammer us, they just keep the ball rolling better than us.
We have, club rugby, a bit of europe, back to club for Internationals, then back to Europe and then club and then Europe then time for some 6 nations, before going back to some more club and Europe before finishing that all off with end of years tests down under against teams who have had their summer off.

And then three. I remember walking home from work and seeing some big Kiwi out with his son showing him how to drop kick, boy must have 3 or 4. Showing him how to drop kick, not kick but drop kick. He wasn't very good obviously but that is what I mean by Philosophy, the SH have a better approach to the game because they teach skills and really good skills and have a great mind set when it comes to rugby. I am teacher and I won 5 trophies last year and just coaching our boys to run at the inside shoulder is just impossible. Do it training but then in a match they just smash it up because is that what their club has taught. With that we have boys as young as Y8 in the gym. When we toured NI last year we discussed how they do not allow their boys in the gym until 16 and at that it is for mostly core. In Wales most of our district boys are given weight programmes by the time they are 15 or 16. There is focus on skills or development, just size.

I could go on and give lots of examples on other things like club vs school rugby, weight class rugby, the drop in playing numbers, the need for professionalism in developing countries and cross boarder competition but ultimately the reason there is no NH teams in the SFs is because of these 3 factors. We don't need to reform things to smaller elite competitions, actually the opposite we should look to expand professionalism, we need to work on these things and the resulting factors would be higher quality games with higher quality skills played by players who are not over tired and who have been bred on strong basic skills and not weights.

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Excuse spelling and other mistakes. Tired and all that.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

So people say.

Me, I wonder whether this is true. There's plenty of rugby fans in London who have no time for Quins or Sarries. Imagine there's plenty of rugby fans in the north who've no time for Newcastle or Sale. Wish I could find out how many people turned up watch North or East Midlands against the touring sides compared to how many watched the clubs do it.

Certainly, the idea that the current club fans are the be all and end all of those interested in watching rugby is erroneous.

There's guys running rugby who reckon there's more people who'd watch Wasps than Coventry and more people who'd watch Yorkshire than Leeds. Those are steps towards what Super Rugby would entail. Will be interesting to see where they go.


In any case, desirability and feasibility are two different things. Whether the fans would go is feasibility.

Should we try to get them to go? That's the real question.

Very good post.


My only question is whether some rivalries are deeper than others?
I mean Bristol vs Bath have hated each other as long as rugby has been around (possibly longer?) - so best part of 200 years.
Lancashire vs Yorkshire...hell, that's at least as long as the War of the Roses: best part of 600 years.
I think you could MAYBE split the country into regions, but it wouldn't be as easy a North, Midlands, South.
I can't speak for Cornish/Devonian(? What's the term for people from Devon?) I mean in theory they have a deep seated rivalry, but Cornish Pirates and Exeter Chiefs work well together.....


Maybe:
Midlands (there's no REAL rivalry in the Midlands, just "banter" - mainly the East wishing they had anything other than Adrian Mole that made them relevant)
North West (Manchester, Preston, Bolter etc.et.)
"North" (Yorkshire, Newcastle, Durham, etc.)
"South" (London, South East - what's even there? Potato farms and nothing else?)
South West (Bristol and Bath have to make do because they're not big enough to cause a major rift like Lancs vs York).



It's certainly true that there's a LOT of people who love rugby, and play rugby, that aren't enamoured by the current sides.
In the North West, at least, people will go and play, or support, on the Saturday afternoon and go and watch Super League, or even Football, rather than the Aviva Premiership.
I saw a stat recently (not sure how old) that the North has the most amateur players in the country - seems weird that Newcastle and Sale are two of (if not THE two) worst supported sides in the league.

 

[Rugbyrant]

I think the last contributor has it about right especially the poor English and French Management - not just the selection of the coach but the Unions themselves are not fit for purpose with little or not idea about what is needed to win major tournament with the management filled with self interested parties not willing for a outside review of how they are structured how they are manned and do they have the qualities to lead a Union. England especially have the biggest budget, the biggest pool of players and have even failed in the six nations for the last decade, selected three failing managers.ost millions for sponsors and clubs with failure in the World Cup, lost thousands of young potential converts to the game. Any other Board would resign on block as they would be deemed a totally incompetent bunch. I suspect they will have review blaming the Coach or the players is to simple thee are not good enough is obvious but so has the last two appointments but the English Union will not face up to the truth it is them that are to blame they have no idea what qualities a Manager to win a World Cup needs and more importantly what terms of reference and freedom he will need to succeed. Get rid of all those who have dodged the sacking bullet for the last three Manager selections for a start give a new manager freedom from invested interest and interference from those who have proven to have failed several times and give a new man a chance,

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Northerners could prob support a northern team as everyone is deleted to each other up there so there all family.

I think I would rather watch the opera than have the likes of Clark or Hartley grace the hallowed turf of the capital of Midlands rugby Welford road.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

I don't think a Super rugby tournament is needed. Clubs need to get players out of the gyms and onto training fields to master the absolute basics of the game and EVERYONE needs to master them. It's been too long we've accepted forwards who are brainless lumps with no vision or technical ability beyond their specialist skills (in England's case, not even then.) NZ forwards can run with the ball, hit lines and have handling skills equal to the best in England. They can do the basics really well, see how rarely they butcher an overlap by drifting, not giving the pass or charging right back into the breakdown area after moving it out, something NH forwards seem to have decided is a good idea despite it never working, ever.

NZ forwards create space, they move defences, they draw in defenders, they change the point of attack. NH forwards just run straight at players without ever presenting the risk off a late pass or offload and rarely more than 5m from the last breakdown, so they run right into where the defences are tighter.

So the problem isn't as simple as clubs, it is the whole NH culture which is too conservative and with a forwards mentality that is still rooted in the amateur era.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Completely agree - all the pundits said the same after basically every All Blacks game about youth/age-grade skills coaching.

NH sides seem to be coached not to lose.
SH sides seem to be coached to win.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

I think this should be focused on the British Isles teams. France can be excluded because their clubs are far too stubborn to change and not playing a European competition might actually do their national team wonders if not their bank balance.
Club Rugby in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland has rather lazily taken the model of the English football season, this is following a system of one of the worst finals teams in soccer and it doesn't work. Added to this is the fact the sides are taking the England '03 approach to RWC's, we hope for a good group of players, match them to a coach who plays hard to beat rugby and see how it goes. For this to work you need exceptional leaders and a helluva lot of luck which messers O'Connell, O'Mahoney and Sexton have rather aptly shown is bloody unlikely. These are models that have to change very quickly.

First of all we need all competitions from U12's onwards to encourage teams to go out and try to beat each other with ball in hand. I'm thinking 6point tries, 1 point conversions and drop goals and 2 point penalties. Ditch the losing bonus point, use points scored as a tie breaker over points difference. These kids will still have the basic skills of tackling, they'll still be able to understand defensive systems but they'll know how to beat them. This gives us a young player base who are hungry for tries with the skills to go and get them.

That'd honestly be the easiest thing to implement, the structure of the domestic season needs to change drastically. A two tiered system is the way I see this happening. Keep the premiership and the pro 12, if somewhat altered, but they run alongside and very much in the shadow of the super league that is being talked about and the hardest one to figure out, I think three Welsh and Irish sides, two Scottish, one Italian (or ditch em, I don't care) and 6 English is the way to go. Splitting the teams may be difficult at first but the Welsh already hate the regions and we're the ultimate bandwagoners so that's an English problem. This tournament runs very like superugby but to avoid our NH lust for negative rugby we add a BP for winning with over 30 points.

This tournament ending (It'll probably have to be Jan-May) brings us in to the summer internationals and summer time six nations but coincides with the playoffs of the pro 12 and AP and following that stand alone competitions between the irish provinces, one for the welsh regions and I'm not really sure what to do with the Scots and English. These competitions will have super league players and domestic players hopefully improving the level of all.

It's pretty radical change that we'll never see and basically copying the SH but as they say, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

 

[ratsapprentice]

It's not a matter of either/or.

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It's not a matter of either/or.

 

[Shaggy]

An interesting thread, this one. I agree with Jayatron's three points; skills structure, the player mix (youth and experience), the style of rugby you choose to play, the pathways for the young players, the structures of the season, and the suporting structures to achieve all of the above, are probably more important than forming Super type teams, and who you play against.

If you did go down that road though, it's obviously important to get the buy in from the fan base; as Olyy and Tigs have said, it has it's difficulties with deep seated rivalries within a potential "Super" area. It's important to try to get the fan base to ally with their sporting foes (for the Super season at least), and include/integrate all regions within a Super area. In NZ, we dropped any hint of regionalism from the Super franchise names some years back, to try to include all regions within a super franchise area. The Crusaders for example, try to include all of the provinces within their catchment, even if it's just PR visits/coaching clinics etc. Many people see it as a Canterbury/Christchurch team, but many of the players and coaching personnel have ties to my area - we see the Crusaders very much as "our team", but once the ITM cup starts, the Cantabs are our enemies, and the old tribalism/rivalries resume (which is great).

 

[ratsapprentice]

When I say a "Super Rugby" style tournament - I'm specifically reffering to NZ's system.

I.e. ITM cup/SR/AB's.

I should have been more specific.

The coaching of juniors (encouragement of touch, weight "divisions" etc.) aren't relevant to this thread.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Wouldn't mind a proper A league competition setup.

 

[Tony Manx]

Northerners could prob support a northern team as everyone is deleted to each other up there so there all family.

I think I would rather watch the opera than have the likes of Clark or Hartley grace the hallowed turf of the capital of Midlands rugby Welford road.

Here, wots wrong wit opera?!

 

[Tim Owen]

A new league of some sorts would help only if it was superior to what we have now.
England are the team everyone thinks are the most in need of help so as a curveball idea set up an English franchise to compete in the existing Super Rugby system. Make it an England B team of sorts, give them a fancy name and off they go.

 

[j'nuh]

I think it's a bad idea:

• Our England U20s currently come from the academies of 12 different clubs. Remove access to the top flight for 7-8 of them and their academies disappear too. Our depth is England's greatest asset, we shouldn't be working to remove it.
• 4-5 clubs is not enough to cover England. Our population is massive compared to those that are regionalised. We have too many people into the game for it to work. If you set up a region with a home stadium in Gloucester for example, consider how far Exeter fans will have to travel. I'm not even sure most Bath or Wuss fans would travel that far. Without massive expansions of stadiums, you also cut the number of tickets that can be sold on any one weekend. We need to be moving in the opposite direction: expansion.
• We can't block clubs from signing foreign players under Kolpak, so what happens when our 4-5 teams fill up with these? Our academy players won't even get a game, they would have to play in a tier below until they are ready.
• I think you'll need to make a case for why it should happen. I'm not convinced our club set-up is failing us, and I'm not convinced that if it were, it cannot be made better by making improvements to the league as it is.
• Most of our internationals play for the top 6 teams in the league, that are already involved in the Champions Cup. We already have exposure to top tier club rugby.

Personally, I think there are two fairly easy things that can be done to improve our players:

• Central contracts, allowing us to limit the amount of rugby our internationals play
• Shifting the season, so wet weather is the exception and our players are taught to play a more flowing game

 

[Amiga500]

Fair point....honestly I have no idea where to start short of kicking Scotland and Italy out of the 6 nations

The Scots were the closest NH team to getting into the Semis....

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[ncurd]

The Scots were the closest NH team to getting into the Semis....

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Please read other posts before commenting...

 

[Peat]

I fully agree with everyone who says coaching/culture are the most important bits (although this win/not lose stuff is hideously inaccurate cliched language) but at some point you'd introduce a stronger level of competition for our players. You can do a lot with a fairly relaxed competition if the culture is right but it shouldn't be either or, it should be both.

European Super Rugby is, tbh, the obvious end goal for everyone who doesn't value the traditions and grandeur of their club above everything else. Those who wish to see the game expand would consider a European Super Rugby League the easiest way to introduce the rest of Europe into the big guys by giving them a franchise. Those who desire international success most would see a useful stepping stone to improving the quality of play. Those who simply want to see the best possible game of rugby will benefit from distilling the talent of Europe down to the very best.

And those who want money will see the benefit of trying to sell to all of Europe. Europe's rugby market is a fledgeling one, but the potential is there. People don't make money off rugby in fairness. But there'll be an awful lot more money to not make if they do crack it. A European wide salary cap to stop players taking it all would be obvious and probably unenforceable.

Might be a long way down the line but it seems the obvious final destination of European rugby to me.

 

[snoopy snoopy dog dog]

This is an issue I've focused on for quite a while as being for the betterment of European rugby. While I don't think a European Super League limited to perhaps 18 teams is a great idea (too limiting), I do think a pan-European league based on the structure of the NFL could work. It's also quite easy to implement in theory, existing TV and commercial contracts notwithstanding.

1. Split the league into conferences. The British teams go into one conference (20 teams; the existing Pro 12, Premiership sides and two others strategicially placed eg Yorkshire), the French, Irish and Italian teams go into the other €urozone conference (20 teams; the Top 14, and Irish/Italian Pro 12 teams).

2. Split the conferences into mini divisions eg an Irish division, a Welsh division, a greater London division, a West Country division to preserve traditional local rivalries. Play each team in your division twice, home and away.

3. Play seven other teams in your own conference and seven other teams in the opposite conference home or away. That preserves the elements of the existing EPCR and gives a 20 game regular season.

4. Playoffs between the top 6 teams in each conference - a wildcard round, conference semi finals and conference finals. The European final takes place between the top team in each conference.

5. This gives a maximum of 24 games for each team, down from a maximum of 33 for English/Pro 12 sides or a whopping 38 for French teams as is currently the case. Fewer games should lead to less player fatigue, stronger teams week in week out and brings Europe closer to Super Rugby/Rugby Championship in terms of player workload. More rest means more time to work on upskilling. It's a better commercial product without radically altering the current structure. There also exists the opportunity to expand the league into other European and north American markets which the present structure doesn't permit.

 

[j'nuh]

European Super Rugby is, tbh, the obvious end goal for everyone who doesn't value the traditions and grandeur of their club above everything else. Those who wish to see the game expand would consider a European Super Rugby League the easiest way to introduce the rest of Europe into the big guys by giving them a franchise.

Why would reducing the number of teams be expanding? We would lose huge swathes of academy coverage. Five academies would need to cover a country with 55m population. A West Country franchise would have to cover Worcestershire to Dorset to Cornwall! A Northern franchise would have to cover everything North of Manchester. A London franchise would have to scout out an area previously scouted out by 3 teams, and would need to stretch way out of Central London, covering absolutely millions of people. And why would elite regions even want to scout players out? The faster method is to snap up the best from the lower tier and the best of foreign stars with their massive resources. Younger players would simply be unnecessary, as they are to teams like Toulon and Chelsea. The lower tier (the ITM equivalent, presumably contested by current clubs) could possibly do the scouting, but with the diminished income, there's no way they'd get the results they currently get. The desire wouldn't be there as much either, as they would lose their best products to the regions.

Not to mention a massive reason that regionalising works in the South: older players move North for a paycheck, giving way to youth. If England introduced the equivalent, the oldest players would simply form a blockade for younger ones since they won't move on in their later years.

I don't think it's appropriate for England to take inspiration from smaller countries - England, with its large population and extensive resources, poses it's own problems and considerations. I am convinced that other nations would copy England and France's format if they could; they simply needed to regionalise in order to centralise resources to stay competitive. But I would go in the opposite direction: we need to expand outside of traditional areas and cover more of the country.