A Top 14, Top 12 or Top 16?

[Melhor Time]

The LNR are wanting to return to 16 teams in the French top flight. Guy Noves (Toulouse coach) wants it cut to 12. My thoughts are do it! Make it 16!

1. The Top 14 is such a successful money making product that it should become 16. Unlike six years ago, France now has a top level product that does merit 14 teams and would not be reduced by having 16. Lyon are a much better bottom placed side that teams were in the past.

2. France has the population and enough teams to sustain 16. The French team packs stadiums wherever Les Bleus play. Clubs regularly move to larger soccer stadiums and pack them. Clubs are also going about upgrading their stadiums to make them newer and larger.

3. Squads have enough money to have 40 man squads.

4. More teams = more imports = more players from emerging players playing at the top level. Two examples - Georgia would love to send more players. A number of USA players are openly wanting to be recruited.

5. Big name teams are facing relegation this season. Biarritz and Perpignan amongst them!

6. Going to twelve teams would mean the Pro d2 would need to be changed as would the Fédérale 1. Going to sixteen would simply mean nobody would be relegated but two from the Pro d2 would enter. The Pro d2 could thus go down to 14 teams or stay at 16 by incorporating two more from the Fédérale 1.

The issues are:

1. Player welfare. There must be a limit on game time per player.

2. The seasons´ length. Two more teams = more matches. Four more per team. The Top 14 is fine to be played during the Six Nations and existing rest periods could be reduced. It could work without any problems to the clubs, players or international windows as long as squad sizes are large.

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Incidently, Grenoble look like winning the Pro d2. Thats another sizeable city to enter and also another from outside of the South-West.Grenoble could well use the Stade des Alpes like Bourgoin did on occassion in the Top 14. Matches vs Lyon (if still around) and Clermont would be good examples. Maybe La Rochelle will return to the top flight too? The team is in the top 5 which means semi finalists. Former Top 14 sides Stade Montois, Pau and Dax being the others.

 

[Feicarsinn]

32 domestic matches a year is just too much imo. From a player welfare point of view it would be regrettable, but imo it would make French teams less competitive in Europe too. More matches means you need bigger squads, meaning more of your resources must be spent on average journeymen as opposed to Heineken cup quarter final quality players.

 

[ZeFrenchy]

I'd be for the top 16, but for two reasons:
1. Season is already too long
2. The Pumas will start leaving the Top 14 soon, so the player base will be significantly reduced.

I'd wait a few more seasons still.

 

[snoopy snoopy dog dog]

4. More teams = more imports = more players from emerging players playing at the top level. Two examples - Georgia would love to send more players. A number of USA players are openly wanting to be recruited.

That's the only positive of increasing the number of teams in my opinion. 30 regular season games is too much given how physical the game has become. While there would unquestionably be far more rortation of players, I very much doubt TV companies would be impressed if their product is watered down and teams rarely play full strength teams.

 

[Melhor Time]

32 domestic matches a year is just too much imo. From a player welfare point of view it would be regrettable, but imo it would make French teams less competitive in Europe too. More matches means you need bigger squads, meaning more of your resources must be spent on average journeymen as opposed to Heineken cup quarter final quality players.

* It would be 30 games.

* It would only be able to go ahead on tyhe condition that squad sizes were large. As they stand today they already are large.

* It could make French teams less competitive in Europe but:

- The Top 14 is bigger than the Heineken Cup to most clubs and supporters.
- The clubs have much larger budgets and no restrictions on how much they spend that it is unlikely that the level will actually drop. It will mean more imports are in the Top 14 and that is a good thing - it´ll make for better World Cup´s.

* What I have notived since the Top 14 took over as my number one competition back in the 2005-2006 season is that year by year the number of journeymen has decreased.

-Washed up All Blacks, Wallabies and Springboks do not play in the Top 14 any more.
- The players being signed are younger and are overwhelmingly not bought in on reputation but on recent performances. Wales´s Hook and Phillips and Scotland´s Evans compared to Henderson a few years ago for Montauban. Luke Burgess at Toulouse in his prime. Luke McAlister at the same club. Andrew Mehtens was already into his 30´s upon joining Racing Métro.

I'd be for the top 16, but for two reasons:
1. Season is already too long
2. The Pumas will start leaving the Top 14 soon, so the player base will be significantly reduced.

I'd wait a few more seasons still.

The extra rounds would have to be withint the existing season and not an expanded one. It´s four more matches per club so can indeed work. Remeber France played three November tests not four. It has bye weekends which could vanish too.

I am not so sure about the Pumas just yet.

Also, Leicesster lost to Exeter today. Leicester missed a lot of players to England for the match with Italy. I think clubs will get off the Argentina bandwagon that has been directed at Horacio Agulla and may see sense.

That's the only positive of increasing the number of teams in my opinion. 30 regular season games is too much given how physical the game has become. While there would unquestionably be far more rortation of players, I very much doubt TV companies would be impressed if their product is watered down and teams rarely play full strength teams.

That point will be the one that the LNR need to be certain of. Two more teams won´t change too much. Think about it that La Rochelle and Bourgoin dropped to the Pro d2 after finishing 13th and 14th last season. Most of the clubs players were not signed by rival teams. They are either still playing for the same team or playing for a rival Pro d2 club. Most of the Bordeaux and Lyon players are the same ones from the Pro d2 last season. Lyon, for instance has 45 players in its squad. Of them only 8 arrived this season.

Given tv ratings are on the rise as are not only crowd sizes but the number of youths and the number of females attending matches is as well then the LNR really have every reason to expand.

What has been happening in France is big city teams have been coming up through the Pro d2 and entering and the Top 14 and now becoming solid teams. Paris has two. Toulon, Lyon, Bordeaux, Montpellier. These are all sizeable cities. Smaller towns are still there but in declining numbers. Grenoble is winning the Pro d2 and looking like being the champ. Castres is the only small town doing well. Brive and Agen are mid-lower table sides. With more big city teams there are more matches at big stadiums. Bordeaux has been doing well in this regard this season. The LNR will surely have this in mind when they look to expand.

 

[Robert Prosser]

I personally dont think they are that top in europe and them being good in europe is good for the English and Welsh regions and clubs because it challenges them I personally think the Irish provinces are the teams to beat.