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Author Topic: O/T - Should there be relegation from the 6 nations?  (Read 1592 times)

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thatchapcarnell

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What about a conference system? Two conferences of four teams - you could bring in Georgia and Spain.

Top two from each conference qualify for semis and then a final. Bottom two do the same but for a "shield" trophy.

The most games any team plays stays at five so no greater strain on players than current system. All games remain competitive.

The only downside is you'd need to seed it and some years you won't get a Calcutta Cup for eg.

TV money should still be solid, same number of home games. Helps development of smaller nations. Rather than the Six Nations it essentially becomes the rugby equivalent of football's European Championships.

Fearless Fred

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What about a conference system? Two conferences of four teams - you could bring in Georgia and Spain.

Top two from each conference qualify for semis and then a final. Bottom two do the same but for a "shield" trophy.

The most games any team plays stays at five so no greater strain on players than current system. All games remain competitive.

The only downside is you'd need to seed it and some years you won't get a Calcutta Cup for eg.

TV money should still be solid, same number of home games. Helps development of smaller nations. Rather than the Six Nations it essentially becomes the rugby equivalent of football's European Championships.
I can sort of see the rationale behind that, but there's a few issues that would be difficult to iron out:

i) You could only *guarantee* any one team having 2 home games every year, whereas at the moment you're guaranteed 3 home games every other year. (Pool stages work out as two home one away for everyone)
ii) Unless you do a complete re-jig of the calendar, there's virtually no time to sell the tickets & for fans to arrange flights/hotels/time off etc to the SF and F rounds
iii) You basically kill off the concept of all the existing sub-trophies like the Calcutta Cup (as you say) but also the idea of a Grand Slam, Triple Crown, etc.
iv) If you seed it as you suggest, assuming the seeding is based off the WR rankings,  when do you do the seeding? Ideally it would be after the Autumn Internationals, but again that seriously hampers the home unions in terms of setting up the games. Do the seedings based off rankings after the previous "6N" competition, and you risk having distinctly lopsided conferences.

Boonie

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If England play as badly against Scotland as they did against France, we'd need to beat Italy to avoid relegation this year - because that is what relegation could mean. Italy have it in them to win the occasional match, and you don't want to be the wooden spoon side that year if they happen to pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Having said that - I still like the idea of a two-tier setup, but why 4? Surely there must be an argument to bring in more European teams to fill out two leagues of six?

Georgia
Spain
Russia
Portugal
Netherlands
Belgium/Germany

That's six/seven top-30 sides, and with that kind of competition and interest, surely that would help bring the minnows up to a better standard? There's a lot of talk about the Pacific Islanders and the help they need, both financially and in terms of competition against tier 1 sides. Why not look to our own back yard and see what we can do for grass-roots in Europe?

Bolly-Quin

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....Surely there must be an argument to bring in more European teams to fill out two leagues of six?

Georgia
Spain
Russia
Portugal
Netherlands
Belgium/Germany

That's six/seven top-30 sides, and with that kind of competition and interest, surely that would help bring the minnows up to a better standard? There's a lot of talk about the Pacific Islanders and the help they need, both financially and in terms of competition against tier 1 sides. Why not look to our own back yard and see what we can do for grass-roots in Europe?

It already exists: Rugby Europe Championship

See my post on this thread yesterday for more detail and link to present Tier 2 Euro league...

Fearless Fred

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If England play as badly against Scotland as they did against France, we'd need to beat Italy to avoid relegation this year - because that is what relegation could mean. Italy have it in them to win the occasional match, and you don't want to be the wooden spoon side that year if they happen to pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Having said that - I still like the idea of a two-tier setup, but why 4? Surely there must be an argument to bring in more European teams to fill out two leagues of six?

Georgia
Spain
Russia
Portugal
Netherlands
Belgium/Germany

That's six/seven top-30 sides, and with that kind of competition and interest, surely that would help bring the minnows up to a better standard? There's a lot of talk about the Pacific Islanders and the help they need, both financially and in terms of competition against tier 1 sides. Why not look to our own back yard and see what we can do for grass-roots in Europe?

If there's to be a playoff at the end to generate a final champion (even a simple top team vs top team clash) that still has issues of:
i) lengthening the international window further (Both teams would want to have a rest week between the last group game & the final I would guess).
ii) Location of the final (I would guess the competition would rotate it around key stadia like Twickenham, Millennium, Stade de France, Muddyfield, Aviva) 
iii) ticketing for fans at the final (along with travel, hotel, time off, etc) at very short notice.
iv) While Georgia & possibly Russia are capable of a reasonable game against some of the existing 6N teams, games like Portugal vs Wales, England vs Netherlands would be cricket-score worthy. Hardly a good spectacle for the sport.
« Last Edit: Wednesday 05-Feb-2020, 14:10* by Fearless Fred »

Fearless Fred

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It already exists: Rugby Europe Championship

See my post on this thread yesterday for more detail and link to present Tier 2 Euro league...
I think Boonie was suggesting expanding it to two parallel conferences of 6 where you would have 3 current 6N teams and 3 of the tier 2 competition teams in each conference, in the way that the P14 is arranged...

Bolly-Quin

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I think Boonie was suggesting expanding it to two parallel conferences of 6 where you would have 3 current 6N teams and 3 of the tier 2 competition teams in each conference, in the way that the P14 is arranged...

Fair enough - apologies Boonie!

TeddingtonQuin

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There's quite a big difference between Italy and Georgia rugby - the former has ~ 80,000 players in ~ 1000 clubs where as Georgia has ~ 20,000 players in ~ 200 clubs (figures rounded up) however, Italy (12) are only 1 place above Georgia (13) in the IRB table. 

Georgia play in the Rugby Europe Championship with Spain (16) Romania (19). These are followed by Russia (20), Belgium (27) and Germany (28). This will be the 4th year of the Championship, which has been won for the last 3 years (i.e. every year it has been played) by Georgia. So if there is a club to be promoted, it should be Georgia. Here are the results and standings from last year:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Rugby_Europe_Championship

I find it hard to foresee any other result than a flip between promoted/relegated club each year, with Italy and Georgia swapping every year (or two years, as FF says): how much good will this do? Unless either country can considerably increase interest and participation, it would be hard to see how they can improve to a point that they would stay "up" every year.

Watching Italian sides play Quins over the years in European rugby, they are getting better - Treviso finished 3rd last year and neither team sit at the bottom of the league tables this year (albeit by one place) but nationally, they have had a poor run of form for the last 6 or 7 years. But I would argue that since 2015 (when no European teams reached SF stage in England RWC), Ireland (several wins against ABs), England (SF win against AB, plus domination of Australia, if not SA) and Wales have all improved a fair deal and winning against mercurial France and Scotland not easy for Italy.

I'd suggest that Italy should stay in 6N (unless Georgia really do push on and overtake them for several years in the IRB table) and that the Rugby Europe Championship be given more prominence - TV viewing here would be a good start - and that Tier 1 "A" tours to those European Tier 2 should increase.

Keen Brexiteers among us might prefer that England unilaterally withdraw from the 6N and join a new league based in Florida with US, Canada and Mexico, just to show we can still win something, if not a good trade deal.  ;)

Georgia have improved immensely in the period that Italy have had the advantage of playing in the 6N yet Italy have not however so it could be argued that Georgia will continue to improve and could easily overtake Italy by being given the opportunity to compete at a higher level

The 1st year that I can find rankings for is 2004 when Italy had been in the 6N for 4 years. They were 11th in the IRB rankings as at 31/12/2004, Georgia were 20th with a difference in ranking points of 11.43

At the same point in 2019, Italy were 12th and Georgia 14th with 0.78 ranking points between them.

Italy have been bottom of the table for 14 out of 20 years so far including the last 5 on the bounce.

I think it is high time for someone else to have a go as they're not getting any better, despite their club sides improving

IMHO of course!

Boonie

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Either two parallel conferences, or alternatively, a League 1 / League 2 setup, with promotion and relegation between the two leagues. That would take longer to get the investment into the lower league, but would give them something meaningful to play for, and give them a more structured and frequent set of matches.

There must be a way to bring up the standard of European/NH rugby generally, but unless there is something to play for, there won't be the local investment.

Domestos

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It ain't broke, so don't fix it.

Fearless Fred

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As Bolly has said, the "League 2" already exists in the Rugby Europe Championship. The format has changed slightly over the years, but now is in effect a second level 6 Nations with a Promotion/Relegation game with the level below that, and so on down the levels. It kicked off last weekend & effectively mirrors the dates of the 6 Nations now.
One of the great rivalries there is the Georgia vs Romania game. When they play in Tblisi, they will regularly get crowds close to the 50k capacity of the arena. The boys behind the Eggchasers podcast actually arranged a few years to go across for that (World Rugby helped with sorting out some accreditation for them) and they had a bunch of the listeners to the podcast also make the trip. They recorded a podcast from there & everyone seemed to have a really good time.

DOK

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If there's not one team good enough, can they not pick a "best of" team?

DazzaS

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It ain't broke, so don't fix it.

It is seen to be broken, that is the point. For too long, rugby is seen as an elitist closed shop and with good reason. With talk of the Premiership looking to pull up the drawbridge and teams outside the 6 nations not getting a look in, they needs to be a way to allow other clubs such as Georgia get a shot at playing aginst tier 1 nations. by allowing rlegation (maybe through a play off in the summer) that can help it.

The summer hemisphere on the other hand is a mess. 4 countries spread over continents is not great. There is argument for a few pacific nations tournaments, the same with Africa, Asia etc, structure it so it is full regional so the tier 2 and 3 nations can get a fair crack at the tier 1 more regularly.

Championship Guy

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The plan currently seems to favour Fiji to join the 6Ns for 2023's tournament.

never sleep

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For info, Georgia have played Italy 3 times and lost all three.  Only one of the games is recent and in my opinion, not a massive amount between them. (Italy scored 3 tries to Georgia's 2)
Here is the detail from the game in 2018  - Italy 28 - 17 Georgia
http://en.espn.co.uk/statsguru/rugby/match/299413.html

 

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