Australia wants to host Rugby Championship

So it looks like Aus wants to host a shortened version of the Rugby Championship. 

I for one support the idea of having it hosted rather than the stupid travelling everyone has to do. 

I'm sure the Sanzar team alone will draw in a crowd. 

But what would it look like though? 

Would be hosted over 3 weeks round robin with a final game between the two leaders? 

That said, they might as well open the door for Japan and one of the pacific teams to make it more appealing. 

Perhaps bring back the Pacific Island team that did so well in 2004

Rugby Australia’s interim chief executive, Rob Clarke, said the organisation is in talks about allowing New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina’s teams to enter the country and be based in a “quarantine hub”. chiefs blues live

That’s a way of rescuing the tournament....but there will be a huge preparation imbalance.  I guess we just send over a core of WC players and hope they haven’t had too much boerewors during the lockdown.

I’m all for a global tournament, but rugby is not as developed as NFL and neither can rugby players play for 11 months of the year. 

We all would like to see test matches, but having clubs like France that pay tons of money, it would be really hard to share those players. 

Ideally it should be no more than 8 months. Allow for a 3 month end of season break and 1 month mid season break to give the players time to recover. 

Can club rugby survive on having their top players for 5 months and allowing them to play test rugby for 6 months. 

I do think the shortened super rugby model works, but this because of franchise and the national union having close ties 

Where as in Europe they will really struggle

I’m all for a global tournament, but rugby is not as developed as NFL and neither can rugby players play for 11 months of the year. 

We all would like to see test matches, but having clubs like France that pay tons of money, it would be really hard to share those players. 

Ideally it should be no more than 8 months. Allow for a 3 month end of season break and 1 month mid season break to give the players time to recover. 

Can club rugby survive on having their top players for 5 months and allowing them to play test rugby for 6 months. 

I do think the shortened super rugby model works, but this because of franchise and the national union having close ties 

Where as in Europe they will really struggle

“ Can club rugby survive on having their top players for 5 months and allowing them to play test rugby for 6 months. 

I do think the shortened super rugby model works, but this because of franchise and the national union having close ties 

Where as in Europe they will really struggle  “

The European season starts at the end of August and ends the second week of May. That is 8 months and two weeks. The first game of the 2018/19 season was on 31 August and the last game of the pool stages was on 18 May. Of course the season officially ended later but there were only two teams involved in the final and two more in the semifinal prior to that. 

The one issue with changing the season for the NH is the humidity in the summer. The temperature right now in Reading is 23 Celsius and the humidity, on a clear cloudless summer’s day is 44%. Pretoria is 16 Celsius but with a much lower humidity of 26%. Both have a 10% chance of rain during the next 24 hours. I can remember looking. Yesterday, at some stage, the Reading humidity was 68%. No rain. 

France has the same issue, especially the southern regions. Paris right now is 21 Celsius, 60% humidity and also 10% chance of rain. Toulon, 25 Celsius, 46% humidity and also 10% chance of rain.