RugbyRebels

World Rugby has announced the Tier 2 June tour schedule. It's not too bad in terms of interest and development:

Georgia (ranked 12th) will play against Samoa (15), Tonga (13) and Fiji (11) when each would otherwise have a bye in the Pacific Nations Cup. These matches will showcase an interesting clash of styles, and will be Georgia's first trip to the Islands since a test in Nuku'alofa in 1999. It will however meant the Tblisi Cup will not be contested this year.

Italy (14) will cover a few miles playing Argentina (6), USA (17) and Canada (18).

Poor results for Italy, if Georgia does well, will obviously increase the clamour for reform of the 6N and ENC.

Giant-killers Japan (10) will also travel to Canada before twice facing Scotland (9) at home. Again, this series could be a real marker of how the gap is closing between the traditional powers and others.

Russia (19) is Canada's 3rd opponent, which will help demonstrate if the rankings are accurate in placing Canada only 1 place ahead. Russia then go on to play USA (no word if Obama will host Putin at the match).

Georgia basically doing with the PNC what Italy used to do with the 5N - thought without any likelihood of joining.
Should be a really good spectacle - wonder what player release will be like for those wit T14 / Prem / Rabo contracts...

Annoying thing is that I've already booked my Fiji holiday for July (I've got a time share there). If I'd known about this I would have made sure I was there for the match.

Lizard wrote:World Rugby has announced the Tier 2 June tour schedule. It's not too bad in terms of interest and development:

Georgia (ranked 12th) will play against Samoa (15), Tonga (13) and Fiji (11) when each would otherwise have a bye in the Pacific Nations Cup. These matches will showcase an interesting clash of styles, and will be Georgia's first trip to the Islands since a test in Nuku'alofa in 1999. It will however meant the Tblisi Cup will not be contested this year.

Italy (14) will cover a few miles playing Argentina (6), USA (17) and Canada (18).

Poor results for Italy, if Georgia does well, will obviously increase the clamour for reform of the 6N and ENC.

Giant-killers Japan (10) will also travel to Canada before twice facing Scotland (9) at home. Again, this series could be a real marker of how the gap is closing between the traditional powers and others.

Russia (19) is Canada's 3rd opponent, which will help demonstrate if the rankings are accurate in placing Canada only 1 place ahead. Russia then go on to play USA (no word if Obama will host Putin at the match).

Blimey, this all seems incredibly logical. Are WR finally getting their act together?

Just out of curiosity, does World Rugby subsidize these tours, and, if so, to what extent? I just don't see how Georgia could afford to tour the islands otherwise. They surely won't make anything out of their share of the gates, sponsorship and TV revenues. It's also going to be a very tough tour. Italy lost both their test matches in the islands when they toured two years ago, while even the Celtic nations have taken some big hidings in the islands in the past.

rowan wrote:Just out of curiosity, does World Rugby subsidize these tours, and, if so, to what extent? I just don't see how Georgia could afford to tour the islands otherwise. They surely won't make anything out of their share of the gates, sponsorship and TV revenues. It's also going to be a very tough tour. Italy lost both their test matches in the islands when they toured two years ago, while even the Celtic nations have taken some big hidings in the islands in the past.

I believe the IRB do fund the majority of the costs of these tours. I'm actually really pleased with the work they've done getting a coherent international schedule going for almost all of the nations under their banner.

Puja

Thanks. Nice to see these tours but World Rugby could save themselves a whole bunch of money if they ditched the tier system and focused more on regional ties - ie less trans-continental/hemisphere tours and increased inter-action between 6 Nations & Rugby Championship teams and their regional neighbors. This would also help to combat the game's relatively stagnant world order. The only reason this doesn't happen is that most of the 6 Nations & Rugby Championship unions don't want it - which is why tiers were devised in the first place.

Whilst I agree in principal - reality of professional rugby means that money means to be made. Far easier to sell 80k tickets for England vs NZ/SA/Aus than for Eng vs Georgia/Rom/Spain. We'd still manage, but only as a 1-off inbetween "bigger" match-ups; Wales/Scotland/Ireland/Italy would mostly fail to sell-out their stadium, even as a 1-off.

rowan wrote:Thanks. Nice to see these tours but World Rugby could save themselves a whole bunch of money if they ditched the tier system and focused more on regional ties - ie less trans-continental/hemisphere tours and increased inter-action between 6 Nations & Rugby Championship teams and their regional neighbors. This would also help to combat the game's relatively stagnant world order. The only reason this doesn't happen is that most of the 6 Nations & Rugby Championship unions don't want it - which is why tiers were devised in the first place.

People pay to come see England in Australia though, which basically keeps the ARU afloat. The IRB would rather pay Georgia's airfares than pay to stop Australia sinking without a trace.

Plus it's good for the game to have trans-continental fixtures to get the different styles and innovations to mix. I agree that one June and one Autumn test for each major nation should be against a Tier 2. It would surely be feasible for England to play Samoa for one test and Australia to use that weekend to play Georgia.

Puja

Yes, even if they could just get tier 1 teams to agree to one stop-off test against a tier 2 team on the spring & autumn tours. ie SANZAR teams to stop in for a test in Eastern Europe en route to Western Europe, Argentina to stop in for a test against Spain or Portugal, and 6 Nations teams to stop in for a test in the Pacific Islands enroute to Australasia, Uruguay en route to Argentina (perhaps Brazil or Chile in Italy's case), and Namibia en route to SA (perhaps Kenya or Zimbabwe in Italy's case). Surely that's not too much to ask. It's been done before, plenty of times, but these dastardly tiers (divisions) seem to have largely put paid to the practice.

Not entirely, England play a tier 2 nation in the November window every other year. Wales play a tier 2 nation or the Baabaas every November too (rare that they can get all 4 of the QN teams). That's pretty much it though, which is pretty disgraceful.