Club world cup?

[Mr Mwenda]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/ ... ompetition

Good to see that carbon emissions are again rugby administrators' priority.

[fivepointer]

"....would involve four pools of five teams, made up of four from the Premiership, the Pro14 and the Top14, six from Super Rugby and one each from the USA and Japan. The tournament would take place over six weeks – every year except for World Cup years – and would be introduced at the expense of the Champions Cup"

Lots of opportunities to increase air miles.

6 weeks...so 4 pool games (2 home and 2 away presumably), a SF and then final at some neutral venue.

[morepork]

Can't they just have a weekly meat raffle?

[Digby]

I think I'd prefer this event to watching Donald and Jared playing soggy biscuit for the prize of Ivanka, but not by much.

[Puja]

It's occurred to me that this is a golden opportunity to actually sort out the calendar. All previous attempts have been hampered by there always being a competition running during negotiations and that any wide-reaching change would result in somebody's season or off-season getting significantly curtailed, so nothing got done except for nibbling at the edges like moving the June test window one month.

Now? Everything's at a standstill. All competitions are stuffed and mostly null and void, regardless of what PRL are trying to pretend. Now is the time to have a look at the season and the competitions and work out if we want to go back to the same melange of competitions which don't really fit together.

Tl:dr - I don't know if I'm in favour of a Club World Cup, but I am in favour of using this enforced break to have a really creative think about what competitions we actually want to have.

Puja

[morepork]

Too many comps. Not sure another one is the answer.

[Puja]

Too many comps. Not sure another one is the answer.

This one is suggested to be replacing the ERC in the NH. Don't know how it would work with the SH calendar.

Puja

[Cameo]

It's occurred to me that this is a golden opportunity to actually sort out the calendar. All previous attempts have been hampered by there always being a competition running during negotiations and that any wide-reaching change would result in somebody's season or off-season getting significantly curtailed, so nothing got done except for nibbling at the edges like moving the June test window one month.

Now? Everything's at a standstill. All competitions are stuffed and mostly null and void, regardless of what PRL are trying to pretend. Now is the time to have a look at the season and the competitions and work out if we want to go back to the same melange of competitions which don't really fit together.

Tl:dr - I don't know if I'm in favour of a Club World Cup, but I am in favour of using this enforced break to have a really creative think about what competitions we actually want to have.

Puja

That makes sense. A major stumbling block has always been that you would need to curtail a season for someone. It is also much harder to change something that is running relatively smoothly. TV companies will be ready to talk now too.

My personal view has always been that I would be happy to move to summer rugby in Scotland and that the rest of the UK and Ireland could manage that fine too (weather wise). However I can see issues in parts of France with mid summer heat (though I don't know enough about whether you can play in the evenings okay).

This idea seems okay if it replaced the ECC but is not vital to the idea of a global season.

It's all been discussed before but something like the following has its merits:

March-June - domestic league seasons and playoffs (maybe need a little longer)
July - Tours to Southern Hemisphere and elsewhere
August-September - ECC/World Club Champs with unions to do whatever they want with the other teams (some type of development tournament maybe)
October/November - Autumn internationals

Replace the August-November schedule in World Cup years

[Peej]

Summer rugby would kill it as a spectator sport. People are just too busy doing other things, holidays etc, to justify a season ticket - even if there's overlap into spring and winter.

Thinking about it, wouldn't it also mean that you're either starting or ending the season in winter with shitty conditions? Rather than what we do currently which is start in good weather and end in good weather?

[Stom]

Why does it make more sense for NH rugby to move rather than SH rugby?

Marseille gets a lot hotter than either Brisbane or Auckland, and has a higher average than SA, too.

That's kind of the thing...why should we change the calendar? What does it gain us?

I'll be honest, I just don't understand the arguments. Why does rugby need a universal calendar? Why can't it continue as is and simply build upon it?

[Which Tyler]

Why does it make more sense for NH rugby to move rather than SH rugby?

Marseille gets a lot hotter than either Brisbane or Auckland, and has a higher average than SA, too.

That's kind of the thing...why should we change the calendar? What does it gain us?

I'll be honest, I just don't understand the arguments. Why does rugby need a universal calendar? Why can't it continue as is and simply build upon it?

Here here

[Peej]

Why does it make more sense for NH rugby to move rather than SH rugby?

Marseille gets a lot hotter than either Brisbane or Auckland, and has a higher average than SA, too.

That's kind of the thing...why should we change the calendar? What does it gain us?

I'll be honest, I just don't understand the arguments. Why does rugby need a universal calendar? Why can't it continue as is and simply build upon it?

We had this exact discussion when we agreed to move our tours to the SH. The ABs may be rugby icons, but we have the player numbers and the money

[Cameo]

Why does it make more sense for NH rugby to move rather than SH rugby?

Marseille gets a lot hotter than either Brisbane or Auckland, and has a higher average than SA, too.

That's kind of the thing...why should we change the calendar? What does it gain us?

I'll be honest, I just don't understand the arguments. Why does rugby need a universal calendar? Why can't it continue as is and simply build upon it?

We had this exact discussion when we agreed to move our tours to the SH. The ABs may be rugby icons, but we have the player numbers and the money

Haha, I think you have got the wrong end of the stick about my reasoning at least. I'm not saying that we should move as some kind of favour to the southern hemisphere. I would much prefer summer rugby (or at least spring and autumn) rugby in the UK. I've played and watched plenty of wet muddy cold games and they're fine but I have much more fun when it is nice (and when we don't need to rely on old floodlights to see the ball).

Global calendar wise - I don't think a unification is imperative but I can see the advantage from both a players and spectators point of view. Players can more easily experience a different league/country without doubling up or missing a season and, when it comes to internationals, everyone is at the same stage of their seasons. Hopefully that would be allied with a reduction in games too. Summer international tours as development tours with second string sides doesn't float my boat.

Not sure what England's money has to do with it

[twitchy]

I must be in the minority but I love summer rugby.

[Puja]

I'm the same - it seems to make no sense for me that we insist on playing through December and January when it's cold, wet, dark, and sh*t pitches, while knocking off in June and July (notionally, at least) when it's warm, dry, light, and pitches are much likely to be in better nick. Granted, this is a Britocentric viewpoint, as we do not have a climate that makes playing in the summer an issue, but surely there are options with evening kickoffs that could make playing in the south of France/Italy more tolerable?

I'm still in favour of a season that goes (2021 dates):
January 9th-March 6th: Domestic Cup w/Championship clubs
Febuary 6th-March 6th: Six Nations (no break weeks)
March 13th-June 26th: Premiership (yes, that's only 16 weeks, not sure how I'd do that. Reduced league size certainly. Once round robin maybe? Conferences?)
July 10th-July 24th: July Internationals
August 7th-October 30th: ERC (13 weeks)
November 6th-November 27th: Autumn Internationals. Also, clubs can have money-spinning games against invitational sides or midweek games against touring sides.
December 4th-January 1st: 5 week off-season

Every 4 years, clubs get to do their Club World Cup idea in July instead of the ERC, leaving August-November open for the RWC warmups and RWC itself.

Yes, I know it's got dozens of flaws (not least of which being that it would reduce the total number of games and thus prioritise player welfare over MONEY), but to me, that's a season that's got flow and is easy to market. Domestic Cup for the die-hard fans in January, drawing bigger crowds and more money for a Championship (that in my vision would be 8-10 pro teams and would have the bottom two from the reduction of the Prem (and yes, right now I'm aware that would include Leicester), giving a low pressure comp for players to get game time leading into the big-seller, the 6N, drawing in eyes of Joe Public with our big event. Then you take advantage of all those extra eyeballs by launching straight into the Premiership opener with big events and big games like Newcastle at St James's, Quins at Twickenham, etc. Play the Prem in ever improving weather and then finish up with a finale in June sunshine and a Barbarians game (or two) to bring in more funds. Summer Internationals in July, just as the SH want, then a cohesive ERC period, starting before the football season and taking the chance to draw in more eyes, before finishing up with the lucrative Autumn Internationals, expanding to 4 (or even 5 if we needed the extra money to float the whole thing). Then we retire for the winter and Christmas, rather than trying to get people out into the cold and wet and dark. None of this chopping and changing, none of this "When's the next game in this competition going to be?" and, most importantly, no more clashes between internationals and club matches (except for the domestic cup, where frankly it'll even the odds for the Championship clubs).

It might be fewer games, but there's a decent argument to say that it might earn more money through being better structured and cohesive, organised in a way to maximise transfer of fans from one comp to another, and more big events to draw large crowds.

Puja

[Oakboy]

Isn't the talk of the global season really about expanding (or increasing the number of) competitions? I would love to see the top NH national teams take on the SH ones in some sort of meaningful competitive matches more often than in a RWC every four years. Even then, there is no guarantee of playing all of Australia, SA and NZ. Thus, as things stand we could go eight years or more without playing one or two of them competitively. RWC 2019 will always be the one where we had chance to beat all three on the trot. When will that happen again?

[Timbo]

Whats the point of a club world championship every 4 years? Loads of great club teams will rise, hit a peak and start to decline within 2/3 seasons. Either do it every year or not at all.

I would like to see an aligned global calendar, and it seems eminently achievable, but it’s clear both north and south will need to make compromises. Personally I’d be all for ripping up pretty much everything, think about what works, what makes money and starting again if needs be. What do people want to see, what will tv networks pay for, what will get fans into grounds etc.

[I R Geech]

Doesn't something similar happen in League? Seem to remember Wigan going off to play some Aussie sides for bragging rights back when they were the DBs.

[Mellsblue]

Photo in the times of Pichot wearing trainers, and white ones at that, with a suit and tie. No man in that attire will get my backing.

[p/d]

Photo in the times of Pichot wearing trainers, and white ones at that, with a suit and tie. No man in that attire will get my backing.

I fully support that view Mells. The ‘No Pichot’ campaign starts here.

[Gloskarlos]

You have your wish

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/52515684

More of the same from Bill? Face of rugby likely to be different enough to force changes I think, best of luck to them