Sounds good, I look forward to watching it next year. 

Stav

I must thank you again for the video on the Clermont - Munster game you posted,   What do you think of De Allende at center?   I think he was a good buy by Munster,   

Anyway - I believe that there will be a  secret agreement that SA remain in the Rainbow Cup after the initial year,   We will yet see what happens.

The Super Rugby  Competition depends largely om funding from the SA Television group Supersport - it has about 20 sports channels dealing with all sport from rugby to horse-racing/  Without their funding running into  approximately $1,5 billion a year - Super Rugby will vanish from the scene and  the idea to run a competition involving  only New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Island  Teams will never be financially viable.    

If there is an agreement with  Supersport - who also ran sport channel services in the whole of Africa, China and Scandinavia - to fund the Rainbow Cup for a year only - it be only for a year, but  I doubt whether that would be the case.   They normally sign 5 year contracts for competitions and not one year ones.    

Please receive my best wishes for the Festive .season,             

No problem Mike.

He was good in that match against Clermont and from what I've seen of him so far this year for Munster he's been pretty solid.

From my understanding the Rainbow Cup format is only for this season. The current Pro 14 season is been shorted and this new format is to accommodate the the SA teams and players getting game time ahead of the Lions tour. And the season after that it will return to a more traditional league style format with the SA teams included.

The Pro 14 was without a doubt in terms of money the poor relative of the three northern rugby leagues but rich enough it could tempt plenty of southern hemisphere to come and play in it. The Pro 14 wasn't in bad shape financially overall, however Covid and the resulting lack of fans at games has hits the all the Rugby Unions on the British Isles pretty badly so I'm sure any money the likes of Supersport bring to the table would no doubt greatly help the league.

I really think if the South African teams are good enough to be in with a chance of wining it the current top Pro 14 team clubs should show respect to them and the league and focus on it over the European Cup until it is establish it was a really competitive league that worth the South Africa team worth playing in and that its worth as winning as much as the European cup.

Hope you have a merry Christmas yourself.

Thanks Stav

As to De Allende to my mind he is a fighter who does not give up.   One of the English experts said that - "If you want to stop the Springboks  backline - you have to stop de Allende first,"

Pollard thinks De Allende is a very intelligent player and has a very high opinion of  him.    The English commentators at the WC raved about him anyway,

For some reason or another Supersport thus far has not broadcasted  Champions Cup games played in France - so you will unfortunately have to post the Munster games played in France on site,              

So whats the pecking order of the 4 South African teams that are joining, I understand all 4 are better than the Cheetahs and the Kings (not hard to be honest). How did they fair in Super Rugby and where do you think they will slot in against the other Pro 12 teams?

They are no 1 to 4 in SA with the Cheetahs 5th and the Kings not being in the top local league at all.    I do not know what is going to happen to the Cheetahs - a lot of their players is likely to be accommodated on loan to the squads of the other four teams,   

In the wider interest of rugby something should be done to accommodate  the Argentinians in some competition of this nature - but in Super Rugby there were complaints that since they only had one team in that series the situation was that the franchises had to play the Argentina  test team week after week,   

Inclusion of two Argentinian teams should be considered in some NH competitions in the interest of rugby in that country,         

I agree the Jaguares should be included for several important reasons.

The problem always reverts back to geographical (the size of a country terms) and amount of teams/ rugby depth factors as opposed the need of other countries to participate to promotion of the game in general. There is the fairness/deserved factor as well. It becomes somewhat of an anomaly.

In a perfect practical situation in SA the amount of teams should be concentrated/ condensed to 3 very strong franchise teams and allocated to 3 regional centres, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town. Ofcourse players that are in demand can choose where they want to play. This will make 3 very strong teams and allow one very strong Jaguares team in Buenos Aires to participate as well . It will create equity for all, promote rugby worldwide and be practical.

As we stand now we have Sharks,Stormers,Lions and Bulls but with Cheetahs rubbishing the Sharks yesterday in Currie Cup, and with Pumas, Griquas throwing the spanner in the works every now and then, it is indeed a contentious issue.