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Southern Hemisphere rugby chiefs will soon discuss including teams from Japan and Argentina in an expanded Super 15 competition, reports said.
New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) chief Steve Tew has confirmed that the SANZAR countries -- South Africa, New Zealand and Australia -- want to expand the tournament when the current broadcast deal expires at the end of 2015, New Zealand Newswire reported.
It said Tew was reluctant to discuss details, but options reportedly include adding teams from Argentina or Japan to enlarged New Zealand and Australian conferences.
"If we are going to expand then there's probably room for expansion in more territories than just Argentina," Tew said.
SANZAR chief executive Greg Peters hopes to finalize a blueprint for the proposed revamp before the end of this year so it can be pitched to broadcasters, the New Zealand Herald reported.
"We will know the format we are working towards (by year's end) but these things occasionally have something unravel as they go along," he said.
Changes to the competition are required to meet South Africa's insistence that it field six teams, rather than the current five entered by all three countries.
Tew said the NZRU had a number of non-negotiable conditions for the new format, including that it is not longer than the current version, that travel is kept to a minimum and that quality is not diluted.
© (C) 2013 AFP
10 Comments
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don-in-japan
A S15 team here would ROCK!
Tel Porter
Too much expansion will make the competition worse. Players flying from Aus to NZ to Japan to South Africa to Argentina in a relatively short length of season will wear them out and the quality of the football will decline.
StormR
If they organise it so teams play in a conference type system and then only the top two teams from each conference need to travel for the play offs that would limit the travel.
Adding a team from Japan and Argentina will be good for the game and would certainly give the game a higher profile here.
dcog9065
Yeah this sounds incredible, although I do agree that these particular expanded territories will be a major travel pain.
BurakuminDes
Not a bad idea in theory. As long as around 50 percent of the players were home-grown, though. As it stands in Australia, 2 of the franchises - Western Force and Melbourne Rebels - import all of their team, as rugby simply is not big enough in those states to produce good players. Im sure Japan, however, could find and field some talented players for their franchise to be competitive.
nath
Too many teams or too many fixtures will ruin this competition. If they want to add Japan or Argentine teams (which will essentially have to be national teams) then at least one of the existing franchises will have to go.
StormR
It will also mean argentina will be able to retain the majority of its own players as now most of them play in france and UK etc.
Japan have a fair few company teams that they could draw players from and already japanese players have played in NZ teams, I think at the moment the Otago halfback is Japanese, its all going to be good specially for the locals here.
Pudduhuk
I think those critics of this idea down under need to put their big boy underwear on and man the hell up.
The precedent is already there. NHL and MLB teams already travel more and farther overall than the S15 franchises ever did. And they play far more games multiple home and away play offs spanning five or more games. LA to Montreal and back five or six times in two weeks, anyone?
Adding an Argentine and Japanese franchise won't be the end of the world and let's face it, the Aussies need every penny they can get right now in revenue!
StormR
Yeah and add to that, practice, training, tactics, skill, decent coaches, decent players and Wins !
Tel Porter
AKBfan, any of the franchises going is almost surely impossible, (although the Melbourne Rebels are wavering I believe in success, on and off the field) with South Africa demanding 6 spots and everyone else hoping to have at least 5, no one will surrender a franchise to make way for one from another country.