Italy want to extend Six Nations by three weeks

Italian rugby union, FIRE, have proposed that the Six Nations be extended by a further week in between each round to allow their players more rest and recuperation.  

The Italian union tried to get their clubs to recruit more players but franchise owners said they weren’t selling as many brightly colored clothes this season and refused to move.  

“We know our partners in the Six Nations want to have a more competitive Six Nations so we think this is the best way to go, I’m sure everyone else will see it makes sense and benefit everyone”, said a FIRE spokesman.



***SATIRE ALERT***

English clubs who 'own' the players would never agree and England have a big enough playing pool that this isn't an issue. If Italy can't cope then they should perhaps drop down to a 6 Nations division 2 with the likes of Romania, Georgia, Spain, Belgium, etc. Tough but that is the reality of life.

Yeah the rfu and prl would happily reduce it to no fallow weeks. Personally as a fan I dislike them from a spectator point of view.

Pot Hale wrote:Italian rugby union, FIRE, have proposed that the Six Nations be extended by a further week in between each round to allow their players more rest and recuperation.  

?


Next they'll be wanting beds to sleep on at night. I'll tell you straight, I'm beginning to regret my continued support of their involvement in this 6N over the popularist candidates, Georgia. These Italians are getting uppity!

Meanwhile, back in the normal world, the RFU want yet again to slice a week off the 6N.

Between the two of them they should lick that plate clean.

Maybe Italy could buy one of the weeks that the RFU want to lose - and use that for their rest?

Just an idea. Don't shoot the messenger.

I know I am probably the only one but I would rather add Georgia and Rominia (not members but their home games should fill their coffers) so no down weeks. I think the down weeks make us weak come WC.

Have it like a world cup no breaks and no team plays Georgia/Rominia two weeks in a row.

Top four teams play the bottom four teams in the first 4 weeks. The last three weeks would be the can't lose games. The top 4 can be based on the last 2/4 years average to take into account h/a

So swapping England and Scotland bassed on average 4 years compared to last year.

Ireland would play
Rominia
Scotland
Italy
Georgia
France
England
Wales

Those last three weeks would be epic. Come world cups our teams would be able to play 3 knockout games.

Wouldn't mind squads being picked too maybe after the last Euro round might help the clubs if they know who is gone

I don't know there have only been two games between Italy and Georgia and Italy have won them both. Georgia probably aren't that far behind but there is no sense at all in swapping Italy for Georgia.

SecretFly wrote:

Pot Hale wrote:Italian rugby union, FIRE, have proposed that the Six Nations be extended by a further week in between each round to allow their players more rest and recuperation.  

?


Next they'll be wanting beds to sleep on at night.  I'll tell you straight, I'm beginning to regret my continued support of their involvement in this 6N over the popularist candidates, Georgia.  These Italians are getting uppity!

Meanwhile, back in the normal world, the RFU want yet again to slice a week off the 6N.

Between the two of them they should lick that plate clean.

Errr - there isn't an Italian union called FIRE....

I just left that with you, Pot. Felt it must have been the stress of all the brilliant pie chart work that got to you.

Actually, FIRE sounds very James Bond Sexy and they should think strongly about making that acronym work.

Brendan wrote:I know I am probably the only one but I would rather add Georgia and Rominia (not members but their home games should fill their coffers) so no down weeks. I think the down weeks make us weak come WC.

Have it like a world cup no breaks and no team plays Georgia/Rominia two weeks in a row.

Top four teams play the bottom four teams in the first 4 weeks. The last three weeks would be the can't lose games. The top 4 can be based on the last 2/4 years average to take into account h/a

So swapping England and Scotland bassed on average 4 years compared to last year.

Ireland would play
Rominia
Scotland
Italy
Georgia
France
England
Wales

Those last three weeks would be epic.  Come world cups our teams would be able to play 3 knockout games.

Wouldn't mind squads being picked too maybe after the last Euro round might help the clubs if they know who is gone

Wouldn't we be in danger of deflating the WC itself as a spectacle every four years by mimicking the format each year? The good thing about the WC is that it IS a special kind of pressure cooker. And so it should be... to get through the process demands that the best really does come to the top by the end. But mimicking it every year?

Well I suppose it beats surrendering and/or changing sides

SecretFly wrote:

Brendan wrote:I know I am probably the only one but I would rather add Georgia and Rominia (not members but their home games should fill their coffers) so no down weeks. I think the down weeks make us weak come WC.

Have it like a world cup no breaks and no team plays Georgia/Rominia two weeks in a row.

Top four teams play the bottom four teams in the first 4 weeks. The last three weeks would be the can't lose games. The top 4 can be based on the last 2/4 years average to take into account h/a

So swapping England and Scotland bassed on average 4 years compared to last year.

Ireland would play
Rominia
Scotland
Italy
Georgia
France
England
Wales

Those last three weeks would be epic.  Come world cups our teams would be able to play 3 knockout games.

Wouldn't mind squads being picked too maybe after the last Euro round might help the clubs if they know who is gone

Wouldn't we be in danger of deflating the WC itself as a spectacle every four years by mimicking the format each year?  The good thing about the WC is that it IS a special kind of pressure cooker.  And so it should be... to get through the process demands that the best really does come to the top by the end.  But mimicking it every year?

The pressure would be the same but the format would still be different.  Each place in the league would be more important.

It would get rid of the rest weeks which I feel make the NH less able to back one big win with another when it matters.

By adding in Georgia and Rominia but not making them members you get an extra home game, they get alot more money from their home games and TV deals. They can't complain they aren't members as they would probably double their revenue with the 3/4 games against the big boys (20/30k v 10k) plus they would get better AI games aswell.  Add in a clause that if they reach certain standards such as income/attendances/wins/lower structures they can apply for membership after 5/10 years.

From a political point of view if your union has a certain income you get more votes at the WR. 8 team voting block would be very hard to beat and so Europe would be able to veto anything they didn't like.  Add in a playoff between last and the B6N every 2/4 years (WC cycle could work) and the European vote would also be part of the block.

The worst two things about the world cups are the uncompetitive games (which are just dangerous) and the sheer tedious length of the thing.
The two proposals we have here are to bring in those aspects.

The extension would only happen if the clubs got access to the players for the fallow weeks. So its not a realistic prospect to get the supposed rest benefits.
The idea of extending the 6 nations to an 8 would either mean dividing into pools and destroying the best aspect of the tournament ( its competitiveness and rivalries) or adding more internationals and workload to the players. Again its just not a realistic prospect.

Swapping Georgia for Italy has all sorts of consequences, including a small dip in revenue.

From the perspective of making the best of the tournament by keeping games competitive and reducing the load on players getting rid of Italy and going back to a 5 nations would be the option that actually delivers some real benefit to the participating Unions.

Dragging it out for an additional couple of weeks just makes even more of a mess of the domestic seasons.

As it is the 6 nations is acting as welfare for Italian rugby which is still in decline anyway. The idea of acting as an artificial attempt to bring up Romania and Georgia who wont be able to support a serious professional domestic set up without major changes to the global economy and who will always be the poor cousins of the core 5 is doomed to failure and only dilutes what makes the competition great.

I'm not a fan of fixing things if they ainlt broke.

The only part I'd possible look at changing is the two off weeks as they are a bit pointless to be fair as the players don't return to thier clubs and I don't think you need two rest weeks.

My format would be

Week 1 - Game A
Week 2 - Game B
Week 3 - Game C
Week 4 - Week off
Week 5 - Game D
Week 6 - Game E

you could swap the off week between week 3 and 4, its much of a muchness

Takes one week off the schedule. And remember that players would get the weekend off before the tournament starts (as they usually do) and the weekend off after it so they'd get plenty rest time before getting back at it. I'd also advocate that as they are losing a weekend off but the tournament is a week shorter, that I'd use the extra weekend as a weekend off for ALL pro 14 players, not just internationalists at a busy point in the season.