Jordie Barrett handed first All Blacks start as Julian Savea returns

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.

This is probably making a point you already understand once it clicks. It's the concept of this article, Wales has four teams, so should have some representation if the EPCR is about the game rather than an Elite super league to allow the rich to get richer. There is of course a midground here were people don't need to get carried away.

But yes, if they keep getting worse it would get harder for them to get places.

No, it wouldn't. It gets harder by simple mathmatics, not just for SA, but for all in URC compared to England in your model. SA have the same league standings in previous years. I'm just picking out SA as an example as they've probably had the biggest share involvement so far, you're getting too fixated on recent results dictating the success of your idea. You need to envision what else might happen.

Gloucester are a great example of your idea going a bit too far in it's randomness. They are coming up but they are not ready for Champions Cup. With your model they would have been excluded for another up and coming team, for example Benneton. So if you like going by recent examples, one lost to a Top 14 new commer, the other beat one of Premierships best sides. The right team has made it into the Champions Cup.

Have an open ballot/lottery each week to fly fans out to fill the stadiums. They get to enter the draw if they pay their taxes and avoid crime which would encourage good social engagement from rugby supporters as responsible citizens. The school kids get in the draw if they are applying themselves at school and reaching their potential.

Or maybe there is some magic way to prioritise both domestic rugby and international rugby by having the same players playing for 12 months of the year...

From the EPCR perspective, I do think that the format/schedule issues can be fixed if there's a strong enough desire to remove some of the logistical challenges clubs are facing with these long and frequent trips across the hemispheres.

From the SA player workload perspective however, I'm not sure how players can participate safely and competitively at both the club and international levels. Perhaps - and as Rassie appears to be developing, SA develop a super squad with sufficient player numbers and rotation to allow players to compete across the full 12-month calendar.

Bottom line though, is the geographical isolation is always going to restrict SA's ability to having the best of both worlds.

They don't have enough talent to have a top tier domestic league of their own, and it won't support the union financially. Best case you could hope for would be the five extant franchises (including Cheetahs) and perhaps a team from Namimbia. Gives you a 6 team league, that's not enough. Plus again, it's just not financially sustainable either.

At the same time, it's not really great for them to be involved in either the European or the Pacific rugby set up. That said, as bad as the travel is, at least Europe makes more sense from a time zone perspective. I still think it's the least bad option. Also has done wonders for the URC.

I don't think though, that it makes very much sense to have 4 teams from the URC excluded from European qualification. Not to mention, being able to compete in the Champions Cup was a big draw for the South African clubs anyway.

So yeah, I don't really see a change that makes more sense than the less than ideal situation that already exists.