Mov’in North

[djhiggo]

After watching the games today, it makes me wonder whether the NZ and AUS Unions made the right/proper decision to dispense with the South African Teams. I live around 10 mins away from the Leinster pitch. The best thing that has come into our multinational league has been the SA teams. The fairly petty superiority of some teams ( of my own team may I say) has been well and truly shattered by quality teams that adapted very quickly to the Northern game.
SA are on a same time time zone as France, next year they will be in the European Cup. In England and France the money is huge, but we all know money is not everything. To develop a quality sport it needs a high standard of skill development as a kid and underage player and also quality and tough teams to judge and rate you development against. Will a AUS/NZ/Pacific Zone be a true test?

 

[Frankie123]

I think this is a bit overstated. The Bulls were the only South African team to win Super Rugby, and for a large part of the last years of Super Rugby, The super teams were essentially feeder teams as all the Springboks played overseas

Australia put 40 points on a good Argentina team while having half their squad out injured, and NZ are being held back by the worst professional rugby coach in history

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

I think this is relevant. Looking at how decent the Boks were under the high ball to me suggests exposure to the URC is already having an influence on them. Whereas pre-RWC 2019 they were obsessed about kick and chase and didn't seem to have the personnel with experience of that style and looked pretty awful (I'd argue they had dialled back that strategy a bit under Rassie).

If I was Aus and NZ I'd be making sure to encourage sides with a less conventional SR style (possibly the Crusaders and Brumbies?) to retain these as part of the teams identity and recruit players accordingly. There are loads of ways to win a rugby match, that is the beauty of the sport. If SR turns into 12 teams focussed on running rugby above all else then I'd be more concerned than I am (and I'm already concerned).

 

[BPM]

After watching the games today, it makes me wonder whether the NZ and AUS Unions made the right/proper decision to dispense with the South African Teams. I live around 10 mins away from the Leinster pitch. The best thing that has come into our multinational league has been the SA teams. The fairly petty superiority of some teams ( of my own team may I say) has been well and truly shattered by quality teams that adapted very quickly to the Northern game.
SA are on a same time time zone as France, next year they will be in the European Cup. In England and France the money is huge, but we all know money is not everything. To develop a quality sport it needs a high standard of skill development as a kid and underage player and also quality and tough teams to judge and rate you development against. Will a AUS/NZ/Pacific Zone be a true test?

Interesting post, but I'm not sure I agree with a fair chunk of it.

I agree that losing regular competition with the South African club sides is detrimental to NZ and Australia but I think you'd be in a minority in welcoming them to the URC/European competitions.

I accept that they've raised the standard of the URC, but that wasn't overly hard when you consider how poor the Welsh teams have been for a long time now and Benetton and Zebre are perennial also rans. I really don't like bringing them into European competitions, especially when you consider the likely next step is SA in the 6 Nations which I would flipping hate.

All of the above is opinion, but as a point of fact, the money in England is not 'huge' by any means. Quite the opposite. Premiership clubs are not propped up by the unions as they are for Irish, Welsh and Scottish teams and as most clubs are loss making, they aren't in a position to offer big money at all. Yes, there are marquee players but these are 2 per club. To suggest it's even close to being similar to the money in France is straight up incorrect.