Not for me, especially when we select B teams ........................... time for a break, cricket & the beach .
Rugby ................ 12 months of the year
Yeah it's reached a point of "who cares" for me. I can't even be bothered to watch any of the whatever it's called Euro competition our provinces are playing in now.
Well MP you can't expect or force people to like something if it doesn't resonate with them, unfortunately. For me it's the simple quality over quantity equation. Even braaivleis gets boring if you eat it every day.
https://www.rugbypass.com/news/john-dobson-admits-south-african-teams-must-justify-champions-cup-inclusion/
The only reason I suspect you don’t like it is because we’re losing
No, it's because I'm simply not interested in the competition.
"Surely, fewer fixtures with more riding on them would appeal more to broadcasters, as opposed to just filling air-time with an endless stream of mismatches on niche subscription channels to limited audiences"
It's what killed Super Rugby too - more and more teams being added which just amounted to a bunch of mismatches and nothing games that no one cared about.
But I will stay a SA Rugby supporter thru the difficult times to, Not only when it suits me…
In my opinion, the best way to be a supporter right now is to support our players getting some rest. Plumtree in that article: "We've got to look after our athletes. Right now, they're treated like robots."
We have a big test season ahead next year and our guys just keep playing and playing and playing. Front line Boks like Eben should not have been playing rugby now, but resting and recovering.
I fully agree and have written about it many times. I was so bored and frustrated over the last few weekends. If you think how many games, even at test level we have dumb games. We played Wales twice and these games were so boring.
Next year is going to be a yawn fest. We play Italy twice at him and another tier 2 team. Only teams we are playing at home and not even in the top five are Arg and Aus. This year we had Ireland and NZ. Then even if France did tour, they too would send their B team as they see it is a development team and don't care. They only care about the 6 nations and Autumn internationals.
I still think club rugby should be 5 months only
We now have 4 groups of 6, where 4 teams from each group qualify for the last 16. This means its quite easy to qualify for the last 16 and you will most likely qualify by winning 2 games. Hell we even had teams qualify for last 16 just with just 1 win. This is way teams can afford to send weakened teams out for away matches in the group stages. It's not just SA team's doing it, Glasgow sent a weakened team to Toulon and Bath sent a weakened team to Benetton this weakend. The fact that you play 4 different teams 2 of them away and two of them at home also ends an elements of dumb luck, were one team can get drawn to play two relatively weak sides away and another team could get much tougher away opponents.
The old format was way better. 5 groups of 4. The winners qualify and the 3 best runner ups and you went straight to the quarters, none of this last 16 crap. Each time played each other team in the group twice, home and away which is the fairest way of doing it.
If we could get back to that format, it would be great, but I don't think the French will want to change it back. The English might now with the reduction of the number of games they play in the Premiership.
Why does Dobbo mentioned in the article above, that its good that SA is part of the Champions Cup?
Probably because competition is good. And I agree with what he says about domestic competitions like the Currie Cup - it's dead, sad as that is. The professional era with its lucrative overseas contracts in part has killed it. The best leave, the rest play to empty stadiums. But he also expressed his reservations about how it's being orchestrated. I don't have a solution. It just feels like this is a house of cards that's going to come tumbling down spectacularly some time or another.
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