this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2024
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After that Wallabies game, made Italy are safe as the 5th team and its the Welsh who need to drop out for Georgia ;)
IMO (and i'm from the south where we ignore tradition and change stuff all the time, so I get i'm ignoring history here) changing to a two tier 5 Nations with promotion/relegation would be sick.
Scotland, France, Ireland, England, Italy Georgia, Wales, Netherlands, Romania, Portugal
(i'm a bit sketchy on which of the 2nd tier in Europe would be most likely to sustain a 5 nations type campaign, but still).
I also think the Rugby Championship could do with a shake up as well - unfortunately, Samoa, Tonga, Canada & USA have all regressed so much that it would be hard to include them. But perhaps it could expand to a 6 nations with SA, NZ, Aus, Arg, Fiji & Japan. Albeit with Schmidt starting to improve the Aussies maybe the gap between the top 4 and bottom 2 is beginning to expand again.
The 6n is the cash cow that keeps paying. Relegation is unthinkable. Italy for Georgia? It's just too far. The Nations cup we are in theory playing now could offer some hope, but looks yet another closed shop really.
The tier2 world trophy in Lions years is my solution. This is also then the world cup qualifiers
Yeah, obviously covid has played a big part, but a stat I saw recently of the Beaumont years is that world rugby dropped from 95ish countries to 47. And apparently a lot of countries are really just 7s only for the Olympics.
Similar story to Cricket I think - too much greed from the biggest countries, too much protectionism from the ones on the cusp and very little real growth in participation in the minnows.
There are some bright sparks - Portugal, Chile etc, but each of those is accompanied by a Canada or USA decline.