posted Sep 16, 2007

What an excellent idea, all we have to do is see American Football coming to Wembley, sports are becoming more global and doing radical thinhgs to attract new fans and expand across teh globe. RU needs to do the same, and the IRB has a responsibility to facilitate the advance,ment of the newer/smaller nations to enable them to embrace and develop the games in their countries

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posted Sep 16, 2007

For example, in the England-USA game could you determine for most of the game who were world champions and who were almost fully amateurs? Or in the Ireland-Georgia game who were Tripple Crown holders and who came from poverty stricken land where just about 10-15 years ago civil war was in full bloom? Or what about almighty scare Canucks gave to Welsh?

Those who suggest exclusion of the so called minnows should be ashamed. It's like in the Cricket World cup where minnows Ireland and Bangladesh kicked out giants India (a major milk cow for ICC) and Pakistan from second stage and some British commentators lamented that IRE and BAN "did not deserve" their place in the Super8, because of "potential mismatches" and "lack of interest" (one bloke here on BBC (or Sky?) whinged that instead of foreseen India-Pakistan monster clash he is forced to watch Bangladesh against ... I forgot who ... but you got my point.

Bloody h*ll, they beat India and Pakistan fair and square! And departed giants had only themselves to blame for that disgrace.

Back to rugby... Boooooooo!!! to such exclusion suggestions!

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posted Sep 16, 2007

argentina would be better off playing in the 6 nations, as pretty much all their players are european based,so it would make more sense to go with the players, not the geography of the country

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posted Sep 16, 2007

Couldn't agree more, but the key point is money. The main reason the establish nations have managed to hold on for their victories against the 'minnows' is because of superior fitness and the fact that they train professionally. If the smaller nations can be given the funding to pay their players and get them training professionally then by the next world cup, if not the one after we could have 12 or more genuinely competitive teams. Great for the game.

Also great to hear the USA and Canada setting up a professional league, the same needs to happen in as many other countries as possible, and the IRB has no excuse to deny them funding.
If Fiji/Samoa could afford to keep Sivivatu/Rocokoko/Mauger/Collins/Mealamu etc on their books they would obviously be a lot more competitive.

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posted Sep 16, 2007

how about have the two 6 nations continue (maybe make two 7 nations, to accompany argentina and another european team), and have a promotion/relegation type things going on. this would ensure that in the 1st season at least one 'lesser' nation will play against 5/6 of the regualar 6 nation teams, and then in later seasons, even if the regualar teams are just going up and down between the two leagues, the 'lesser' nations will always get one major game,and then 4/5 games against teams of a simialar standard, improving them all as they go along

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posted Sep 17, 2007

I concur!

Minnowfest 2007 has been hugely entertaining!

Which jersey to buy? USA or Portugal?

Despite NZ's 108 points against Portugal, I for one, am proud that Portugal put points up against us! And to here that Carvahlo was excited to get to watch the Haka from the field, and not on TV! That is what the spirit of rugby is all about!

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posted Sep 17, 2007

The IRB get a lot of stick - usually rightly - but I reckon they deserve credit for sending coaches to the minnows (which I understand they did, though I haven't seen an article anywhere).

It's made a huuuuge difference and vastly improved the competition.

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posted Sep 18, 2007

I totally agree - this beautiful game of ours deserves to go truly global........

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