Pacific Nations Cup in 2013, 2014 and 2015

[snoopy snoopy dog dog]

Welcome news for the USA, Canada, Japan, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. For those who don't know, Nigel Melville is the head of USA Rugby.

http://nigelmelville.com/2012/05/05/pacific-nations-cup-place-for-the-eagles/

On Friday I spent the day with the International Rugby Board, Pacific Islands, Japan and Canada to discuss a potential new format for the Pacific Nations Cup 2013 – 2015. These talks started over a year ago in a Tier 2 Meeting in Los Angeles followed by a meeting we hosted in Las Vegas in February. The biggest challenge for us all has been the availability of regular international competition that have real meaning and help us to become more competitive. We all want to play the Tier 1 teams, but they are less keen to play us when they can make plenty of money playing each other. IRB Regulation 9 controls player release issues and therefore there are only specific weeks we can play each other in June and November.

At the moment USA and Canada are very much in the same position, we play each other and scramble to find fixtures each June and November. The Churchill Cup was a help, but playing Tier 1 'A' teams while our competitors were playing ranking tests helped in terms of competition effected our rankings.

Discussions between the Tier 2′s and Tier 1′s resulted in a limited (but very welcome) inbound Tier 1 schedule for Canada and the USA each June and games against Tier 1′s for the Islands during November in Europe. The impact being that we will host Italy (2012 buy your tickets now), Ireland (2013) and Scotland (2014) in June. Of course, that's great but we need more fixtures and friendlies don't cut it with our fans, we want meaningful games.

So the Tier 2 discussions moved towards games between ourselves. In Europe during the Six Nations, FIRA have developed their own tournament, but once again USA and Canada were left on our own. So we started to discuss an expanded Pacific Nations Cup to include the 3 Pacific Islands, Japan, USA and Canada.

Hence the meeting this week, the picture above shows us working on the schedules, in short, how we can get six countries, 33 games, plus Tier 1 Commitments into the June window!! It would have been easy to turn around and say that it couldn't be done, but the groups mindset is to get this done and at the end of a very long day/evening, we had developed fixtures and a schedule for 2013/14 and 15 for a new look Pacific Nations Cup.

Next steps, the schedule is being double checked, the logistics folk are putting together a plan and the financial team working out the costs. We have developed a commercial program for ***le Sponsors and Broadcasters, and the final step will be approval from the IRB Council/Executive.

What this will mean to the USA Eagles will be a Tier 1 test game at home each year in June, plus games against the likes of Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Japan and Canada. In November we will travel east and play against European Tier 2′s.

Time well spent, and a schedule that makes for some exciting games, tough competition and the chance to play Tier 1 teams between world cups. I will keep you updated with progress.

 

[Melhor Time]

Melville is a great man for USA Rugby and for the Second Tier. He is not just there to do his job but to leave a legacy. So many coaches from Tier one teams who have taken up positions in Tier Two sides have left with little or nothing actually achieved. The USA´s Irish coach and Georgia´s Scottish coach being examples from 2011 while Samoa´s famous All Black is a better example from the 2007 team.

As Snoopy d d d said this is welcome news. But I think he´s not being clear enough! This is break through news. Headlines, huge news! This is the lonmg awaited chance for the teams involved to actually have decent international compeition and regularly. It means that, at last, they´ll be ready for World Cup´s and have a greater chance of pulling off upsets.

It is also going to significantly help the teams reputations and enhance their products to sell more merchandise,be able to market home matches and, crucially, attract more kids to the game! People say the USA are the sleeping giant... really they are an example of an ignored giant. Melville is at the centre of a revolution to make the national team better. They can´t get better without good test schedules!

 

[snoopy snoopy dog dog]

I wouldn't go overboard by calling this a breakthrough just yet. Japan, Canada and the USA already played in an annual tournament (the Super Powers Cup along with Russia) around a decade ago and the sport failed to capture the imagination. However this is one of a few developments in US Rugby which could add up to being potentially quite exciting. If it weren't for Sevens' Olympic inclusion, I very much doubt this would be possible for example:

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000...by-sevens-championships-to-air-on-nfl-network
Grand Prix Rugby sevens championships to air on NFL Network

Grand Prix Entertainment, a Los Angeles-based sports and entertainment enterprise, announced Thursday it has named NFL Network as its exclusive U.S. broadcast partner for Grand Prix's July 2013 professional rugby sevens championships in partnership with USA Rugby.

"On the heels of our recent announcements extending our exclusive partnership with USA Rugby through 2018 and then moving to secure AEG Facility's Home Depot Center as our venue partner, the important task of selecting the right U.S. broadcast partner was a key strategic priority and we could not be more pleased with the relationship we have formed with NFL Network," said Grand Prix Sports Chairman Alan Rothenberg.

"NFL Network is excited to work with Grand Prix Rugby to bring our fans professional rugby sevens championships featuring the top teams and players in the world," said Mark Quenzel, Senior Vice President of Programming and Production for NFL Network.

USA Rugby, an official member of the United States Olympic Committee as well as the Rugby World Cup's International Rugby Board, had previously awarded Grand Prix the exclusive rights to own, operate and globally broadcast the professional sport of Rugby Sevens, which was soon after named a new Olympic sport.

William Tatham, Chairman of Grand Prix Entertainment, said of the announcement, "From day one NFL Network was our preferred network partner. We are excited NFL Network supports our vision for the sport of Rugby, which just so happens to be the 'Father of American Football.'"

Nigel Melville, CEO of USA Rugby, was equally enthusiastic, saying, "When I came to the U.S. five years ago I believed Rugby could become a major U.S. professional sport. Olympic inclusion and now a broadcast partner in NFL Network takes USA Rugby and our partners at Grand Prix all that much closer to the dream."

GPE executive board member Neal Pilson, former president of CBS Sports who negotiated the carriage agreement, said, "NFL Network's live coverage of the Grand Prix Rugby Championship events will exceed any prior exposure of rugby on US television."

One week after that announcement in April, the rights to the New York leg of that tournament were sold for $10m (link: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/grand-prix-entertainment-announces-sale-201200136.html). It's a sign that investment in and the recognition of different forms of rugby in the USA could be about to take off in a major way.

 

[Canadian_Rugger]

Honestly, the way forward for tier 2 countries in rugby is to combine resources with each other. The big guns have no interest in us and IOT grow the game we need meaningful competition. Rugby in both Canada and the United States is a growing sport. The big driver behind this in Canada has been the recent success of the national team. The 2011 RWC saw our national program receive high levels of coverage and Canadians really were able to identify with the team and its players. They are expecting almost 20,000 fans for the game against Italy in Toronto and the sport is on a serious upswing here. Give it 10 to 15 years and I really do believe Div 2 European, South American and North American Rugby teams will reach parity with the Celtic Nations in terms of playing ability.

What I would like to also see Canada and the US do is combine the CRC and the Rugby Super League to form a true professional-level competition here. Canada has a winning product with the CRC and the addition of American teams could only strengthen this. The Ontario Blues just defeated Salta province of Argentina yesterday and ran the Chilean National team right to the wire.

 

[Melhor Time]

Psychic duck

Melville has said that the USA and Canada will host Ireland in 2013 and Scotland in 2014.

Japan suffer due to times. i.e in bound tours in June were scrapped due to the Pacific Nations Cup. Before that Japan hsoted Scotland, Italy, Wales, etc in June slots. This will be resolved, however, with Japan set to change its November tours. No longer will the likes of Canada, the USA and Russia be visiting. Rather Japan will be playing abroad - tier two in Europe and possibly Italy, Scotland and evern others. This is in the works.

The Pacific Islands... well its true for Samoa and Fiji but not for Tonga. The men in red have had poor tours in November playing the likes of the French Barbarians. No tests even vs Scotland or Italy. Its changing now and will continue to do so now that there are 6 tier one sides and five tier 2 all hosting incoming tours in November. The meeting in Las Vegas, which ha IRB backing, will see speeping changing. Georgia, Russia, Romania, Spain and Portugfal are all to host matches from Tier Two visitors.

snoopy snoopy dog dog

Sure, it all needs to be confirmed before saying its a breakthrough. But it is all but confirmed and I´d bet my house on the changes getting the go ahead.

The Super Powers Cup was a Japan hosted event - not one with a teams getting in on the act. It even included China at the start..... This is completlt different to the USA hosting Scotland and Canada as well as two of Tonga, Samoa, Japan and Fiji every June and then touring three of Georgia, Russia, Spain, Portugal and Romania in November.

Canadian_Rugger

Honestly, the way forward for tier 2 countries in rugby is to combine resources with each other. The big guns have no interest in us and IOT grow the game we need meaningful competition. Rugby in both Canada and the United States is a growing sport

.

Agree 100% and this is what Melville says is going on. The Las Vegas meeting was to identify the common problems and collaborate to find a solution. It is now being analyzed by the IRB and will all but certainly be approved. Then the IRB will schedule tests for them which will put an end to teams not wanting to face them... now they´ll simply have to. I once emailed the NZRU to ask when the All Blacks would be playing in Argentina and got told there are no plans. I asked why Wales get a test every year but never win yet Argentina have driven the All Blacks to the limit the last two times they were in Buenos Aires. The answer was that there are more things to consider... money of course.

The case of Argentina is different to others as its a Tier one side. Tier two sides, however, will have an advantage of Argentina in that they´ll have loads of matches against Tier Two sides. Argentina´s 2007 team was at a time when there were 60 Argentine players in France and the same number in Italy. Canada has Cudmroe in the Top 14 and the USA has Ngwenya. Here is what the union can´t fix. But by having more tests players stand far greater chances of being signed. Scouts pay an afeul lot of attention to matches like Fiji vs Tonga and Georgia vs the USA as the players are really cheap. Lou Stanfill, a fine backrower, signed for Mogliano last season in Italy precisely for this reason.

A North American Super League certainly needs to be regional, i.e. The Rock, Blues, Wolfpack and Bears for Canada and something similar for the USA.

Chile were really, really happy to win vs the Blues in that match. It was headlines in Santiago.

 

[Draggs]

Wales are touring Japan next year, I don't know if it is a 2/3 test series or if there will be any midweek matches. I hope so.

 

[Melhor Time]

Wales are touring Japan next year, I don't know if it is a 2/3 test series or if there will be any midweek matches. I hope so.

Rumoured to be two tests with the possibility of a third vs Samoa.

The Lions tours complicate matters... nevertheless England will tour Argentina, Wales will tour Ireland will tour North America and Scotland possibly to play in Eastern Europe.

Sample 2013 Schedule for the USA...

Saturday June 8 USA vs Japan (Pacific Nations Cup)
Saturday June 15 USA vs Ireland
Friday June 21 USA vs Tonga (Pacific Nations Cup)
Wednesday June 26 Fiji vs USA (Pacific Nations Cup)
Sunday June 30 Samoa vs USA (Pacific Nations Cup)

Saturday July 13 USA vs Canada (Pacific Nations Cup + World Cup Qualifier)
Saturday July 20 Canada vs USA (Pacific Nations Cup + World Cup Qualifier)

Saturday November 9 Spain vs USA
Saturday November 16 Romania vs USA
Saturday November 23 Russia vs USA
Saturday November 30 Georgia vs USA

 

[snoopy snoopy dog dog]

A possible byproduct of the USA playing 7-10 tests per season against a good standard of opposition is that representing the US national team would become far more attractive to US qualified players. For example people like Tommy Seymour (Glasgow), Callum Black (Ulster) and Hanno Dirksen (Ospreys) are all eligible for the Eagles. If all declared for that country, they'd likely be in or around the 22 and would seriously increase their national team's strength in depth. They're more likely to declare seeing as they'd play meaningful tests every year instead of in just a World Cup year as is currently the case.

 

[Melhor Time]

Spot on.

This is a real motivator and can be seen around the gbloe by players who wait as long as they can before switching teams. Its extremely common for players to wait until the year before a World Cup or less before

saying I want to play for Samoa not New Zealand

. Such is the dull and even non-existent Tier two schedules. Now though, this could all change. A guy like Dirksen would have such great reason to play for the USA now. Otherwise he could simply wait until 2014 to decide.

Incidently, since Argentina got Bronze in 2007 players declaring themselves Italians has all but ended. Gonzalo Garcia is the only one who was picked for Argentina (in his case Argentina A) but went for Italy instead. Going back to the years leading up to 2003 and 2007 it was so different. Parisse, Castrogiovanni, Canavosio, Aguero, Orquera, Nieto, Canale, Pucciariello, Pez and Dellapé all lost to Italy. ... Italy would love another Diego Dominguez right about now...

 

[Aoniu]

http://www.talamua.com/manu-samoa-higher-levels-of-competition-as-of-2013/

After reading the above link I'm thinking if this goes to plan (which is good for Samoa) in the June test window what will happen to 2013 PNC...?

 

[djwizard84]

I wish one day Mexico will be playing in this competition!

 

[Toko_11]

as far as I've heard Georgia will not get much more than Canada USA and one of the pacific island nations til 2015 :| just as i suspected... Although we can only thank Argentina for being so generous, and an exception from the selfish tier 1 nations... their case is so similar to us i guess they remember how they were treated and thats why they choose to play us every now and then

 

[Feicarsinn]

as far as I've heard Georgia will not get much more than Canada USA and one of the pacific island nations til 2015 :| just as i suspected... Although we can only thank Argentina for being so generous, and an exception from the selfish tier 1 nations... their case is so similar to us i guess they remember how they were treated and thats why they choose to play us every now and then

Sure shouldn't Georgia be playing more tier three nations in order to spread the game. Utterly selfish on their part eh?

 

[Toko_11]

Sure shouldn't Georgia be playing more tier three nations in order to spread the game. Utterly selfish on their part eh?

I Could absolutely destroy you for saying that but i wont cause I'm a nice guy .... BTW Georgia is doing a huge job helping our neighboring countries get into rugby.. few days ago GRU chief was elected on a high position in FIRA his job will be developing rugby in lower nations like Turkey Ukraine Greece etc(something we've already been doing) so get your facts straight... BTW we don't get payed for that.. if anything we lose some money but we do it out of pure passion and love for rugby.. not like some people who need to be payed thousands every step of the way anyway your argument is invalid we are not as much of hypocrites as u expected huh

heh i guess I'm not such a nice guy after all

 

[djwizard84]

At the end it would be a shorter and only one way version of the PNC... only Tonga and Fiji will tour North America expecting to have a complete team.
The idea sounds great but it should really turn into a real tournament, should Chile and Russia perhaps be invited?

 

[LittleGuy]

Looking more and more like Fiji will be touring North America next summer as a couple of one offs or part of a new PNC cup type tournament, the tour makes sense as all teams have open spots in their schedules. Hopefully Fiji can field at least a respectable side for these matches and we could get some good games. Here is a link to Thisisamerrugby's look on things.....http://www.thisisamericanrugby.com/2013/01/report-fiji-to-play-us-and-canada-next.html?spref=tw

One thing that I didn't know about in the article is the possibility of Ireland playing Canada twice next June on the 15th and 22nd. I hadn't heard about that happening I was under the impression it was a one off match. Hopefully some clarification comes out soon.

 

[white bear]

djwizard84

In Russia, some fans say about the additional involvement in Asian 5 Nations or (and) Pacific nations Cup, but the President of the Rus Rugby Federation said that since Russia is in the FIRA we have no right to play in Asia and Oceania. Although Russia is geographically in Europe and Asia and has access to the Pacific Ocean. And the examples in world rugby when the teams play in different zones at the same time lacking.
If we had adequate leadership in the Federation, we could play in the ENC with Georgia, Romania, Spain and Portugal (the away match in February, March, and the home or in May or June) in any cities of the European part of Russia, and not as it is now in Sochi. And participate in five Asian nations or (and) Pacific Cap in May or June, home matches would take place in Krasnoyarsk and other Siberian cities.It would be a breakthrough for rugby in Russia, as each year a few home games in the warm period of time we could spend in different cities with a large audience.

In the meantime, we'll just have to joke about it. In February, we will have two home games in ENC - again in Sochi. First we'll play in Sochi on a neutral field with Spain, and the other will play away to Georgia, too, in Sochi. Who understood the meaning of a joke?:lol:

 

[white bear]

No, I mean the extra play in Asia or Oceania, and not instead of Europe. In Europe, we need only agree to move the home games in the warm time. But we have to pass selection for the World Cup in ENC.

 

[white bear]

But then we would lose the quality of opponents. Change, Georgia, Romania, Spain and Portugal to Japan is not practical, Hong Kong and Korea weaker Belgium. For example, Japan play in Asia(5N) and Oceania(PNC). We can play in Europe and Asia (Oceania). The ENC we only need to change a little calendar home games. This is not a big problem, it can even be solved without FIRA with federations ENC, but our leadership no address this problem now.

 

[white bear]

I agree, but not necessarily out of the FIRA. We can play in Europe and Asia. Calendars are different, so for us it is not a problem. We have so few games, we need to play more.