Héroïques en fin de match, les Bleus s'offrent les All Blacks

I'm pro having West Coast teams in SR, and even Santiago, but even the Jaguares all the way over on the other side of the Americas seems a bit ludicrous.

I'm actually more pro URC EMEA as one league and URC SixNations another. You have like four pools, Berlin Madrid, Milan, Monaco, Lisbon and Dubai x2, Qatar, Tbilisi, Istanbul, along with your 10 African (perhaps more african sides) teams in the other pool.

Maybe you'd want it to have the same number as URC6N but eventually those teams should grow too. There is branding symmetry, as theyre already partners and it's just the sorta thing that makes sense (much more than a new private investor), but that doesn't necessary mean theres any cross over of competitions.

Ideally though from a geographic standpoint though I think a lone African league makes sense, South African teams, a team from Namibia, maybe even a team from Kenya, makes the most sense.

Another aspect to that, that could be cool is, you do like a smaller version of the Champions Cup between the African league, Super Rugby, and Japan Rugby League 1 teams.

This could be the make up of "Super Rugby Africa"

Lions

Bulls

Sharks

Western Province

Cheetahs

Grinquas

Pumas

Griffons

Welwitschias (Namibia)

Simbas (Kenya)

That's enough for a 10 team league, 18 matches, same amount as URC plays.

Both worlds are still not perfect, but in the 'French' case, no different than it has been for decades. SA's situation much trickier.

The closest knockout result in 23' was a 14 point win. 24' had a 1, 3 and 12 point margin games, the rest all 30/40 point thrashings by the home team. In every single game.

“We are not disrespecting [the tournament], but we need to get ourselves into a better position. I don’t know how we solve it. It’s like being invited to someone’s birthday party, then complaining about the chips. We are so grateful to be here.

Haha that's a great line, thanks for the share.

The issue is not really solving the itinerary for South African teams, that is easy, the problem is solving it for the teams that are required to come back from South Africa and win the following week. The perfect example of this was La Rochelle last year having to beat Stormers away and then return for a day to France before heading off to Dublin. They consequently but unsurprising got spanked. It's the same problem Super Rugby created when it required higher ranking sides to travel to another countries top team at the pointy end of the season.

As has been discussed in a recent article about England having too many teams in EPCR, the problems are many and varied in general. Combining EPCR and league games into a signle itinerary/season is no problem, both comps simply need to get together at planning stage and be prepared to have flexible weekends where the two comps are swapped around, but is it going to be as easy to suggest that the EPCR just needs a week off from the Ro16 stage to Quarters (or pool to Ro16 I can remember which it was)? What if that LaRvStomers game was a quarter, when is the semi, or the final going to be played?

South Africa's future is, of course, in South Africa. There is talk of a group wanting to create a Super League in America, touring big cities, no doubt some in the Middle East being included, in a World Series type format of the games biggest stars. It's a terrible idea by itself, but especially when there is already Europe, the ME, and all of Africa crying out for more high level rugby, and South Africa's huge abundance of players that can provide it.

You can't get past your obsession with how all wonderful all kiwi coaches are .....it's almost as if you're Welsh ......

Is Ben Herring still their coach? I was hoping he would return to NZ with Fosters addition to the team but a recent article seemed to suggest he was still just an assistant.

Appreciate the player insights for the up and commers. Been a bit dreary watching Champions Cup rugby so can't wait for it to start.

The biggest issue is the fact he was that being the skipper shouldn't have had anything to do with it. Big deal if your chosen skipper is injury for large majorities and you have to use pro's like Whitelock (who would otherwise have been skipper anyway if Razor got the job), and up and comers like Barret and Ardie, is no reason to jettison Cane.

The problem was that the All Black coach didn't even realise this fact, and continually included Cane, because he was skipper, as soon as he was back from injruy. When he should have helped develop some more 7s and only playing Cane with some came time under his belt. He wasn't Riche McCaw after all, though he did play pretty well in that Irish series after coming straight back in. Hell everyone was getting critized by everyone for the fact Foster SUBBED him after 60. It was a ridiculous period as Yeow mentioned.

Selections wise he was just as stubborn and you could have wasted the fact he did give Lomax, EDG, Samisoni, Vaa'i their debuts early. They might not have been used properly until Ryan got his hands on them and injury forced his hand into selecting them for consecutive games, but I don't think you're on topic.

As a side argument, nothing bad with the message in your comment, just a bit rose tinted for me in an article with Fozzie trying to defend (credit) himself for bring these guys through.