PUMAS in 3nat. WHATS UR THOUGHT

[BBK]

Hm it appears that some Argie Argies want to join the tri-nation
it would be good for their country and fans to see Abs or the Wannabies over in Beurnos aires ( but who wants to see SA) i believe strongly that if they could beat the boks in a very convincing win ill be back on this thread saying they deserve  it. And we have had some close encounters between them and nz,oz,sa. but thats like saying " hey tonga beat Wannabies in the 70s so they should deserve a go." so i believe this weekend would decide where the pumas belong if its against the Blacks or Boks or battling matches against Canada and an occasional france visit which i have to say good win Argies and france get ready to be Blacked out on the weekend
bbk

[BBK]

The side against the pumas :

15 Jaco van der Westhuyzen, 14 Stefan Terblanché, 13 Marius Joubert, 12 Gcobani Bobo, 11 Pieter Rossouw, 10 Louis Koen, 9 Craig Davidson, 8 Pedrie Wannenburg, 7 AJ Venter, 6 Corné Krige (captain), 5 Victor Matfield, 4 Quinton Davids, 3 Cobus Visagie, 2 Danie Coetzee, 1 Robbie Kempson.
Replacements: 16 Richard Bands, 17 Lawrence Sephaka, 18 Selborne Boome, 19 Bob Skinstad, 20 Joost van der Westhuizen, 21 Trevor Halstead, 22 Brent Russell.

i dont believe the boks can beat argies in the last 20 when joost comes one he should be on for the 80mins. same with Sephaka but i think Bobby skinstad would be good as an impact especially if he has a rediculious mo hawk hairdo

[3me]

After reading the poll from Planet Rugby website, most of the fans believe Pumas should be joined along with the Combined Pacific team. I agreed with them. I reckon it will make long term profits if the SANZAR can actually sees this rather than short term. I believe the whole structure of the rugby season should change.

Maybe we should have domestic comp first like NPC, the Currie Cup and future Oz and Puma Comp, and then say 3 or 4 Provinces from each team can qualify for Super 12. Super 12's whole format will stay the same. Teams will have to qualify it.  

So we don't have any complaints from the kiwis or SA about expansion of S12. And then get the future 5 nations going.

In 5 nations, maybe we could say that one country host all their home matches first and then roll on to the second country and so on...

This might stop making addition trips back and forward.

So, how about that?

[BlueThunder]

Yes! let them in, something has to be done. The tri-nations tournament has become stale and boring.

[Nathan]

There are a lot of problems with having the system where teams must qualify to play in the Super 12 - for one it would mean that potentially a large rugby city could get no rugby at all during the Super 12 period. Imagine if New South Wales or Auckland didn't make the top 4 in their respective NPC's - (or top 3, 5 etc...) the whole of Sydney and Auckland's rugby following public would have no team to follow and would probably turn to other sports instead. Who's to say they'd come back again even if their team made it next year? While the prospect of Taranaki or Northland making the top 4 and getting to play with the big boys is very romantic, the reality is that the game must be played in the main centres EVERY YEAR WITHOUT FAIL. Also imagine if, say, the Brumbies didn't make it to the S12 one year. That's half the Wallaby squad that won't be playing first class games - how could you possibly justify picking them?

There are two systems I like - the first is to keep the Super 12 the way it is, but also introduce a 2nd tier Super 12 made up of teams like Victoria, Western Australia, Free State, Port Elizabeth, Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, North Harbour and 4 Argentinian teams. Run both competitions at once and every year there is automatic promotion/relegation - the bottom of div 1 drops to div 2 (this year that would be the Cats) and the div 2 champs go up to div 1 for next year. That way there's enough room for all the expansion we could possibly want, but in order to join the big boys y'all have to earn it. This system would provide some interest at the bottom of the table as well as the top - at the moment there are a lot of "dead rubbers" near the end of the season. The threat of relegation would alleviate that.

The 2nd system I like is to expand the S12 to 16 with 1 extra team from Aus, 1 from SA, 1 from a combined Pacific islands team and 3 from Argentina. To alleviate the "burnout" problem, I wouldn't have the All Blacks play NPC - in fact I would run the NPC and international season during a 3 month window. The S16 would have half it's games before the international season and half afterwards. The whole season would end with the S16 final.

As for the Pumas into the 3N - No. I say scrap the 3N and bring back proper tours. Each year the All Blacks host one touring team with that team playing midweek games against NPC teams and the All Blacks going on tour to one country every year playing 3-4 tests and the local provinces too.

[Laney]

If you're going to have a 2 tier S12, then why not have the top 4 NPC teams in the S12 and then the next 4 in the 2nd tier or some such? Can BOP afford to send a team to Argentina?

The ABs must play NPC. Young guys need those players around to learn from, NZRFU needs the gate receipts, and how else can we go see our heroes play for a tenner?

You're right about the 3N though. Format has to change when the TV money gets re-negotiated. Every 2nd year would be better I think.

[3me]

I suppose your right relating to my idea, Nathan!

About the first of the two systems that you have talk about, firstly I'm concerned whether it will attract reasonable crowds in the 2nd tier matches, secondly whether or not it will dilute the talents across the board similar to Wales domestic situation and thirdly, the automatic promotion/relegation will generate a problem like in a situation where after 3 or 4 years, there is a possiblity where all the S12 Kiwi teams and S12 Aussie teams will end up on the 1st tier and the rest goes down in the bottom, how will then the RSA fans feel? However, I also think of that idea as well with the regelation/promotion and running 2 tiers at the same time but maybe I should have start joining in the board a bit earlier!

Also, this is just an idea relating to the Tri nations. Maybe it wouldn't work at all. I think it will be too dramatic. An idea similar to soccer's international Euro Cup format, only southern hemisphere countries can participate in, held every two or four years, knockout & Pool stages. Besides the WC year or the SH Competition year, we could bring back the tours. What do guys think?    

[Nathan]

Yeah I like that idea - if we had NZ, Australia, South Africa and Argentina qualify automatically and maybe two other qualifiers we could hold a Euro-Soccer type tournament with rugby every four years. I still want to see tours back though. Going around playing every team in the world once is rubbish. Remember the Lions tour to Australia back in 2001? That was bloody brilliant. If only we could get back to that in rugby and leave tri-series in one-day cricket where they belong.

[3me]

Bring back the tour matches.

The advantages:
 -gives out some sort of uniqueness of playing against 1 or 2 countries per year
 -promote the game outside of the big cities
 -for the touring teams, they'll be well prepare when they come into the test time (weather conditions etc etc...)

The disadvantages:
 -how will the commerical aspects do if the touring team is one of the developing rugby nations
 -taking 10 or more matches in a tour, will it increase the chances of injuries occured for the visiting players?

 

[Nathan]

I don't think it would cause more injuries - generally with tours in the past there is a "test" team and a "dirt-trackers" team that plays midweek. We'd still play the same number of tests, it's just the 2nd tier would get games as well and the tests would all be against the same opponent.

I also see no reason why we'd have to go to "developing" countries. We've got 9 teams in world rugby of a reasonable standard - NZ, Aus, Sth Af, Arg, Eng, Fra, Ire, Wal and Scot. That's 8 opponents for the All Blacks (or whichever team you happen to support). If we played 2 teams every year (1 in NZ, 1 overseas) then we'd play all our opponents once every 4 years as well as in the world cup (and possibly the redesigned Southern Hemisphere tournament). The world cup is the chance for the likes of Spain, USA and Japan to play us - we shouldn't waste our time going on tours of those places.

[fixer]

We could have B tours to developing nations, thereby giving these countries (and our own players) Rugby at a level just below international, plus more games for us fans to watch.