Mr Wray suddenly has an opinion

http://www.espnscrum.com/premiership-2011-12/rugby/story/157226.html

Having been pleased with the internationals timing in previous seasons and being one of many clubs to refuse to discuss moving the AP games that clashed with the RWC the Sarries chief is suddenly condemning the six nations. Could it be that Sarries might be losing a number of key stars? Correct me if I'm wrong but no such statement was forth coming last year when Sarries were chasing the number 1 spot with Tigers and Tigers lost a good number of internationals over that period.

Maybe he'll actually team up with the Tom's and help re-organise the season now.

I'm not sure our season is really that bad to be honest, the issue is we tend to try and cram a lot more in, I'm sure the club owners would not be so happy if we structured our season more sensibly and reduced the games they had to play!

The English and French club owners want to move to summer rugby which I agree with, but you have to ask how can we tour the southern hemisphere at the start of their season in June, when ours will just be starting?

I'd prefer the 6 Nations to be done at the end of May, the beginning of June then have the boys go on tour in the summer straight after.
The other way of doing it would be to start the season in november with the international series, go straight into the 6 Nations over December and the new year, then start the club league season in the first few weeks of january and finish the season at the end of august.

What does he mean by the 'Southern Hemisphere'? The clubs, the Unions?

Club rugby needs the money and interest international rugby generates (ok, maybe not Sarries who have very little interest in terms of people prepared to reguarly pay to watch them play and instead who rely on subsidy by a South African billionaire to continue existing). As many of the most interesting internationals involve playing sides from the other side of the planet some compromises are inevitable.

If there's a sensible slot to move the 6 Nations to, like May/June then fine, but then what happens to the Southern Hemisphere tours? I'm sure the clubs would be the first to moan if the their players were involved in lengthy tours in July, returned to pre-season and effectively had no break in a 12 month period.

DaveM wrote:What does he mean by the 'Southern Hemisphere'? The clubs, the Unions?

Club rugby needs the money and interest international rugby generates (ok, maybe not Sarries who have very little interest in terms of people prepared to reguarly pay to watch them play and instead who rely on subsidy by a South African billionaire to continue existing). As many of the most interesting internationals involve playing sides from the other side of the planet some compromises are inevitable.

If there's a sensible slot to move the 6 Nations to, like May/June then fine, but then what happens to the Southern Hemisphere tours? I'm sure the clubs would be the first to moan if the their players were involved in lengthy tours in July, returned to pre-season and effectively had no break in a 12 month period.

I cant see that happening as in its current Jan/Feb/March slot it enjoys considerable limelight.

If you move it to May/June it going to be up against the end of the footy season with the title + relegation battles, FA and CL finals etc and the elephant in the room of a WC and expanded Euro every two years. Add international cricket to the mix and you have a very crowed schedule which would reduce the 6N profile from its current level.

That's going to reduce its TV rights value so I cant see unions going for it.

Strange that 'Mr Wray suddenly has an opinion'.

Strange that Mr Wray didn't join me in my condemnation of the six Jeff games during the RWC.

Strange that he's not complained about playing their third Tigers game in two years during International windows.

Strange that somehow London double-headers can be arranged at Twickenham on the first day of the season whilst the rest of the sides have can't decide when they'd prefer not to play games.

Strange about lots of things.

Thanks for the opening, DaveM.