• Help Support The Rugby Forum :

Argentina

R

RoyalBlueStuey

Guest
They surely must be worthy of a place in a major competition...it'd be an idea to have them in the European tournament 'cause so many of their players play here but surely the fact that NZ-SA-Oz are playing each other 3 times in the tri-nations means they need to expand.

Pumas join Sanzar or have them 6-nations and get Sanzar to include the Islanders?

SB
 
Put both them and the PI's in the Tri Nations, the 6 nations already puts a strain on the domestic game here... Extra fixtures aren't welcome.

As if SANZAR would allow anyone else to join the old boys network though...
 
Put both them and the PI's in the Tri Nations, the 6 nations already puts a strain on the domestic game here... Extra fixtures aren't welcome.

As if SANZAR would allow anyone else to join the old boys network though...
[/b]

That's crap though, NZ and Australia wouldn't have a proper bledesloe cup and SA and NZ wouldn't really be keeping the traditional rivalry going. Not to mention all the extra traveling to go to bloody Argentina, South Africa would never cope, neither would Australia. And it would be the same vice versa.
 
yea the traveling would be absurd, now i agree they need to be in a tournament, well set one up with USA, Canada, Uruguay, Chille etc.. teams around there even if argentina plays a weakened side with youngsters at least they will develop them, and not only that but the canada, usa, urugauy and chille would develop.
 
Well look guys, they've got to go somewhere! Its either they join the Six Nations and essentially kill the game at home in Argentina because all of their players have to play in Europe...or they join SANZAR and they have to choose a stadium in Australia or something to play the extra game.

And to those who complain that the Bledisloe cup would be devalued I, say, TOSH! The four nations became five became six and fixtures such as the Calcutta Cup and Millennium trophy are still raw and brutal rivalries full of competition, gusto and guile.

To suggest that because some Argentines joining would mean that Australia and New Zealand wouldn't have as big a rivalry as before is just rubbish.

The problem we face gentlemen isn't about old mens clubs north or south. It isn't about television revenues (no matter how slowly they shrink in SANZAR) , nor it is about sporting rivalries being soured.

It is simply the fact that if Argentina join either the Six Nations or the Tri Nations, there will be pain.

Nobody has thought out the slight problem that there aren't that many flights going out of Canberra, Wellington and Pretoria (or Tswane-I-can't-pronounce-it-properly) a week. Argentina is a stepping stone too far for the existing three already on an exhausting Super 14 and Tri Nations jet lagged schedule.

There is the idea that each nation could take turns in hosting the tournament with each nation still taking an equal cut of the television revenues, but then that is still unfair as one nation will still take home all the ticket sales. While this would be Christmas on earth every 4 years for a cash strapped Argentina, it wouldn't be music to SANZAR's ears at all.

The other option is for Argentina to go to the UK and Europe and play there instead. Six become Seven, Argentina play in Barcelona, English fans get two sunny holidays instead of the existing one in Rome, perfect.

Not quite. The damage done to the already fragile club game in Argentina would be irreparable. The urge to move the best players to Europe would be even stronger as, lets face it, it's cheaper having them already in Europe than having to fly them up.

Also it'd just be empty in Barcelona. Unless Argentina can rally the local Catalan rugby fan base onto their side (pretty difficult as Argentinian ex-pats in Catalonia treat the Catalans like 2nd class citizens anyway) then most likely, you'll be expecting the vast majority of fans there to be away fans. Remember that Argentina is still an emerging economy on the world stage. Millions lost their life savings at the turn of this century, paying for expensive rugby tours across Europe (or SANZAR) is definitely out of the question for the vast majority of fans in Argentina.

And then there is the problem with the most disorganized, dysfunctional and retarded match schedule in world sport today. Yes SANZAR and the Celtic nations can crow at us in England, France and Italy because they, at the turn of professionalism, grabbed the thorny issue of schedules by the horns and beat it into an utter pulp to shape a structured season.

Sadly for England, France and Italy, whose archaic, Victorian schedules, urged on by the quest for more money led by the Club owners and the RFU is so out of step with the rest of the Rugby world, that it is starting to harm the national team's chances on the global stage. English rugby can barely manage a Six Nations right now. A seventh nation added would break the camel's back.

Essentially, however you look at it, Argentina would only be able to enter either the 6 or Tri nations along with wholesale change for the incumbent nations. England, France and Italy would have to come up with a properly structured season. SANZAR would have to agree wholesale change to the very point and reason that the Tri Nations is held.

We are at a crossroads gentlemen. We may try stick to our vested interests, jealously guard our gradually shrinking pot of television revenues and try and hold back the tsunami.

Or, we may take a risk, like SANZAR and the Celtic nations did in 1996 and change the rugby world forever.

What choice we make? That has yet to be seen. I can only hope it is the latter.

Edit: It might be interesting to point out that Canada, the USA and Argentina are to go fully pro and form their own Super 14 style club championship. The man behind this move. None other than Kevin Roberts, the man who masterminded New Zealand's groundbreaking sponsorship and kit deal with Adidas.

However a pan America nations series would be an insult to the Sixth best rugby nation in the world: Argentina. If that was foisted upon them, especially after the fiasco in the rigging of the World Cup 2011 venue vote, I don't know how much credibility we, as the top ten rugby nations would have left in the bank with the developing rugby nations.
 
They need the Tri Nations,and making it the 5 Nations with the Pacific Islanders... or even Japan joining in....

Argentina are at that level now..
 
Ah yes, but the question is this: is there the political will there within SANZAR to risk their dwindling revenue from the existing tri-nations in an attempt to expand the game and establish new streams of income by creating a 5 nation series?

Sadly, I do not think that the will to do that is there. They (just as we are in the northern hemisphere) are that hooked on the cash.
 
Problem with the Tri Nations and Argentina is the fact that the Argentine players will be in European clubs at the time.

One idea would be to have a 10 nations every two or four years to have them more involved, with the 6 nations and Tri Nations not happening on those years.

Mauno, but they should definitely be involved more some how.
 
We're also assuming that the Tri-Nations will continue to exist as there have been long talks about disbanding the competition along with the Super 14. Of course you'd possibly adopt the old tour for a rediculously long time approach. But I guess with the invention of the jumbo jet that those tours become obsolete.
 
Problem with the Tri Nations and Argentina is the fact that the Argentine players will be in European clubs at the time.

One idea would be to have a 10 nations every two or four years to have them more involved, with the 6 nations and Tri Nations not happening on those years.

Mauno, but they should definitely be involved more some how.
[/b]


JJ, you're right that's why if Argentina were to play in the 4 nations then at least 2 Super14 franchises should be created in Argentina in order to ensure that their professional Rugby players are on the same schedule as the rest of the SH.

Regarding traveling I think that for SA Argentina is much closer than Australia and NZ. For Australia and NZ Argentina is as far as SA, isn't it?

Antyway if traveling was an issue why not playing this turnament in a single country? There could be a yearly rotation on where this would be played.
 
The extra travelling that would be in involved would be offset by the fact that they'd just play each other once each like we do up here. PI and the Pumas would both really add something to the southern hemishpere's tournament. As it stand they play 6 games in the current weird format so four games plus an extra tie to sort out the Bledisloe could easily be added sorted.

The only real reason not to is that SANZAR want to keep all the cash themselves.
 
Well look guys, they've got to go somewhere! Its either they join the Six Nations and essentially kill the game at home in Argentina because all of their players have to play in Europe...or they join SANZAR and they have to choose a stadium in Australia or something to play the extra game.

It is simply the fact that if Argentina join either the Six Nations or the Tri Nations, there will be pain.

Nobody has thought out the slight problem that there aren't that many flights going out of Canberra, Wellington and Pretoria (or Tswane-I-can't-pronounce-it-properly) a week. Argentina is a stepping stone too far for the existing three already on an exhausting Super 14 and Tri Nations jet lagged schedule.

There is the idea that each nation could take turns in hosting the tournament with each nation still taking an equal cut of the television revenues, but then that is still unfair as one nation will still take home all the ticket sales. While this would be Christmas on earth every 4 years for a cash strapped Argentina, it wouldn't be music to SANZAR's ears at all.

[/b]


This is a very good idea in my opinion... possibly the very best so far suggested. Having it hosted in each country on alternating years would make the 4 Nations (as it would become) feel like the traditional tours, only with more international teams. Heck, they could even get the international teams to play the local club S14 sides as warm up matches to really make it the whole box and dice! As for the Argies getting all the ticket sales one year... well that wouldn't matter too much considering the ticket sales would be far more on the year your country did host it, and also the ticket sales are nothing compared to the TV revenue anyway.
 
I think that with this new pan American Super 14 club championship on the cards, slotting Argentina into a new 4 Nations with SANZAR (the three nations, not the forum goer, I think SANZAR would be quite worried if he was put up against Las Pumas!!!) would be the better option in the long run.

The new injection of cash in Argentina would help fund it's full transisition to profesionalism and would help keep it's best players at home. In the first four years or so there would be some pain as it's current generation of players are undeniably in Europe or Europe bound. But, as the big bucks start to appear in Argentina, you would see more players staying home to play in the pan american league.
 
I think that with this new pan American Super 14 club championship on the cards, slotting Argentina into a new 4 Nations with SANZAR (the three nations, not the forum goer, I think SANZAR would be quite worried if he was put up against Las Pumas!!!) would be the better option in the long run.

The new injection of cash in Argentina would help fund it's full transisition to profesionalism and would help keep it's best players at home. In the first four years or so there would be some pain as it's current generation of players are undeniably in Europe or Europe bound. But, as the big bucks start to appear in Argentina, you would see more players staying home to play in the pan american league.
[/b]

and the super 14 teams would be more interested in these players if they see them more. that could lead to have many players in the super 14 teams (more if 2 teams are created in argentina), and then solve the problem of having many argentinian players in euro teams ...
i think it would be much more interesting to have them in the tri nation than 6N ... after all argentina is in SH ... and you say all these things about travelling far away ... but argentina is about the same distance as saf for nz and aus. PI team would also be interesting to add to the tri nations ...
 
Ha ha...I love these guys :

http://www.theeastterrace.com/pumas.shtml

"The IRB have announced that in 2012 they will launch the Argentinean Solo-Nation Championship to allow the Pumas regular competitive rugby."

"Book makers have revealed that Argentina are 2/1 to lift the inaugural ***le in 2012."
 
Argentina europenas players have said that they are willing to base the team in Spain of they play in the 6 Nations. Personally I would like to see a 10 nation type thing played every 2 years or whatever.
 
Let's take a note from Soccer (pardon me, football)...
Every four years they have the world cup. Offset by two years (and held every four) is the Euro competion. Why couldn't the Northern Hemisphere hold a tourney every 4 years for themselves and the Southern Hemisphere hold one of their own quarterly?
Then the world cup would truly be a clash of the ***ans.
 
This is my idea and certainly it would globalise the game more:

For an SH Provinicial Comp we'd need to wait until 2011, when SA may back out of the deal with SANZAR (there has been some speculation about this), and include 2 combined combined PI teams (1 with Fiji, Tonga and the Solomons and the other with Samoa, Vanuatu, Cook Islands and possibly PNG). That takes us back up to Super 10. Then include 2 Japanese teams, and 2 more Aussie (possibly Melbourne and SA). That takes us to Super 14 - the same as today.

Next for an international comp: Pacific 4 Nations - Australia, New Zealand, PI and Japan. Each team plays each other twice on a home and away basis and the top two teams play in the final. There should be one match before the tournament between Aus and NZ so the Bledisloe Cup can be a best of 3 contest. Should the final be played between Aus and NZ it would not affect the outcome of the Bledisloa Cup, which is decided by the match prior to the tournament and their two round matches.

Now, where is Argentina you ask? Well, practically they should compete in an expanded Six Nations, however I think it would be better for the globalisation of the sport to set up a domestic competition in the Americas (including US, Canada, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, etc.) to be followed by an American Nations tournament contested by the above listed Nations. Also, it would be interesting to end the tournament with a S. America v N. America match.




Another possibility is to have a triangular tournament later in the year with the best of the Six Nations, the Tri Nations (or in the case above the Four Nations) and the American Nations described above.
 
I'm really not a major fan of the idea a lot of people here have been putting forward of the idea that Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga should play regularly as just one nation at the expense of them playing separately. I like the idea of them doing a Lions-esque tour, but honestly, they should compete separately because come world cup time if they haven't been, then they're going to get stuffed in the pools.
 
Fair enough then..... you can have the Fiji, Tonga, Samoa tri-nations, but the PI in my idea would be the best from the two teams in the S14. So only S14 players could play in the Pacific 4 Nations.
 

Latest posts

Top