A STEP FORWARD FOR ARGENTINA ?

Super Rugby organisers SANZAR have announced that they have a "preferred model" including Argentina for the future Super Rugby format beyond 2015 that will be put forward for approval.

DETAILS HERE

Yeah, what doesn't make sense is 17 teams.

The conferences will be unequal in numbers.

Biltong wrote:Yeah, what doesn't make sense is 17 teams.

The conferences will be unequal in numbers.

The current model doesn't make much sense either really.

GunsGerms wrote:

Biltong wrote:Yeah, what doesn't make sense is 17 teams.

The conferences will be unequal in numbers.

The current model doesn't make much sense either really.

I don't like the current model either, maybe they are going back to a full single round robin.

"The inclusion of a team from Argentina would take the number of teams to 17 so local derbies could be dropped and Super Rugby could go back to it's original format of every team playing the other teams with venues alternating year on year.

Organisers don't want to extend the length of the Super Rugby season and are also mindful of the amount of travel and the stresses it puts on players bodies."

so is it just one more SA team and an ARG team being included then? I was kinda hoping for a Japanese team to be included or for there to be a 2nd tier competition...

makes sense for Argentina as some of their internationals find it very hard to get their contract renewed over here.

Are Wales allowed to join?

Meanwhile the French and English clubs want less teams from Scotland, Italy, Ireland and Wales in the top Euro Comp (but the same number of English and French). It saddens me to see the path European rugby is going down.

How much will it cost them to travel each season?

Would be a good move to include Argentina in a club competition. I never really understand why the handful of big, ruling nations in rugby (and cricket) do their best to limit or ignore the smaller countries. This would be a step in the right direction.

It would be even better if they added two Argentine/ South American teams to make it up to 18 teams and create a rivalry. Buenos Aires and maybe even Montevideo could be possibly locations for professional franchises.

I think I saw somewhere the talk of adding another Argentine team in a few years.

Can the Argentines afford to pay their players a competitive salary compared to the Top14?

NZ, Aus and SA can't so does it really matter. It allows the player to live in Argentina

Argentina is significantly more poor than the other 3 though. The country is in such bad shape it's now become a defacto dollar economy like Russia in the 90s. SA is seeing a lot of players head towards Europe for financial reasons... Not sure Argentina will be able to compete.