Yeah and I guess all of Georgia’s players are in Europe, and because of the Barbarian’s game all of Fiji were over there so I guess for affordability it probably makes sense.
Its a real shame Georgia & Fiji aren’t getting more matches against the bigger teams, and in particular aren’t getting to host them at home.
This is where the Autumn nations fails. Locking out smaller nations fails for lots. Regional competitions don’t work outside TRC and 6N. Personally, I’d up the world cup to 2 yearly, we don’t have to follow football or the olympics, and the Lions can shift
World Cups are really expensive for the host nation though, even if WR make a bunch of money off of it. The Nations Championship thing could help with this if the self-interest of the weaker teams in the top 10 of the world hadn’t locked out the 13th-24th placed teams for the next 5 years.
But the truth is most nations are struggling to fund the professional game - really only Japan & France are thriving and that’s because of the private wealth that props up their competitions. Which has the unfortunate side effect of making the professional game everywhere else so much more expensive as every other nation & competition has to try to compete with their salaries.
100% - the rugby world needs to reign in spending. But last 3 world cups have made a killing for host nations. Time to up them, the Nations Championship is a world cup by another name anyway, lets make it official and include all. Scotland made that look easy, as expected - Canadian rugby showing what a lack of cash does indeed
Not many play Georgia to be fair. I suspect only Scotland of tier 1 have ever been
Yeah and I guess all of Georgia’s players are in Europe, and because of the Barbarian’s game all of Fiji were over there so I guess for affordability it probably makes sense.
Its a real shame Georgia & Fiji aren’t getting more matches against the bigger teams, and in particular aren’t getting to host them at home.
This is where the Autumn nations fails. Locking out smaller nations fails for lots. Regional competitions don’t work outside TRC and 6N. Personally, I’d up the world cup to 2 yearly, we don’t have to follow football or the olympics, and the Lions can shift
World Cups are really expensive for the host nation though, even if WR make a bunch of money off of it. The Nations Championship thing could help with this if the self-interest of the weaker teams in the top 10 of the world hadn’t locked out the 13th-24th placed teams for the next 5 years.
But the truth is most nations are struggling to fund the professional game - really only Japan & France are thriving and that’s because of the private wealth that props up their competitions. Which has the unfortunate side effect of making the professional game everywhere else so much more expensive as every other nation & competition has to try to compete with their salaries.
100% - the rugby world needs to reign in spending. But last 3 world cups have made a killing for host nations. Time to up them, the Nations Championship is a world cup by another name anyway, lets make it official and include all. Scotland made that look easy, as expected - Canadian rugby showing what a lack of cash does indeed
I got close to the margin on that one at least!