Sam Warburton omits two All Blacks greats in 'best international team he's faced' XV

Nick Bishop has come out with an article where he suggests it is just a South African problem, but I think this earlier reply of mine to Finn is pertinent to your question (and that article) so I'll include it here a well.

the appeal of pools of 4, but 6 pool games might not go down well with the French or the South Africans given already cramped schedules.

This is more of a suggestion for NBs new article on SA but I'd argue more pool games mean its easier to have a structure based on region system where say all of the SA teams that qualified are in the same pool, and you can play all those away games against them consecutively. Then return home and they come to you etc.

I don't think its necessarily needed as I think it would be quite easy for EPCR to take into account/do in conjunction with each leagues fixture list.

(I also go on to say I don't like that pool idea in the perfect world but you can ignore this)

To me, pool play should be sort to just acheive a ranking system. The bottom team of each pool is kicked out or 'culled' (perhaps to Challenge Cup, I'm fond of that exchange), but the fixtures then go into consecutive knockouts of home/away fixtures, say 1 v 16, then go thru to 1 v 8(or worst seed of the other winners etc) home/away, 1v4, etc etc. Maybe the Semi's onwards are 'neutral' fixtures and those last three games are just do or die fixtures?

He accused me of hating English rugby because I thought having 8 (of 10) sides was ridiculous.

I would be interested on just how many teams would have gone out of contention in the last few years using your system, my thought is that it would not be a lot. Winning a quarter of your games might be enough to remain in it each year. It greatly depends one how much the leagues fluctuate, and I see that becoming less and less.

the appeal of pools of 4, but 6 pool games might not go down well with the French or the South Africans given already cramped schedules.

This is more of a suggestion for NBs new article on SA but I'd argue more pool games mean its easier to have a structure based on region system where say all of the SA teams that qualified are in the same pool, and you can play all those away games against them consecutively. Then return home and they come to you etc.

I don't think its necessarily needed as I think it would be quite easy for EPCR to take into account/do in conjunction with each leagues fixture list. To me, pool play should be sort to just acheive a ranking system. The bottom team of each pool is kicked out or 'culled' (perhaps to Challenge Cup, I'm fond of that exchange), but the fixtures then go into consecutive knockouts of home/away fixtures, say 1 v 16, then go thru to 1 v 8(or worst seed of the other winners etc) home/away, 1v4, etc etc. Maybe the Semi's onwards are 'neutral' fixtures and those last three games are just do or die fixtures?

They'll be wanting to prime one of the other two to take over from Dmac in 2026, when it sounds like Dmac will join La Rochelle much the same way Jordie joined Leinster for next season.

There perspectives differ, but not their views.

Kolisi grew a lot from that situation, and good on him.

Beauden was treated and used as a cash cow. There's no other way to say it.

Theres been no announcement so we don't know when he signed. All we know is he was excluding from the squad naming last month.

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 a destination for Aussie or Japanese sides.

I'm actually more pro URC EMEA (Europe Middle East Africa) 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.