‘Got to learn’: Scott Robertson on the Springboks’ bomb squad ‘advantage’

NZR is in their best financial state every, so perhaps theyve earned their self indulgence & air of superiority? What have you done?

Plus you'd have more than 4 Irish teams or two Scottish teams surely.

Theres no denying that the introduction of the overpowered South African teams is going to hurt the Celtic teams that can't keep up with the big boys. We, as fans, just want the best outcome for the game though, which certainly isn't going to be SA returning to SR. WR wil need to do something bigger but I think there is potential in Africa and Europe for SA to lead that?

While I agree with a lot of key points made here I think the author is hiding the most obvious one. South Africa will dominate the URC for the rest of it's existence if the current model remains. Another point that might outweigh all in this article is, "where is the development?". What is a URC with more SA'n teams and more Irish team's going to look like?

started bullying English, French and New Zealand packs.

Haha a noticeable omission here?

Look, isn't European Cup already dead with African sides in it? It's just deciding who the best is out of a buch of different leagues (that physically viable in RE to SA, as its only viable around 1 ever 4 years for the new world club comp). This is hardly for Wales, or perhaps it is? The Welsh teams are not going to go into the Premiership. But, they would perform a strong basis for the second division. That is this ideas real strength, promotion relegation between relevant teams. You'd think 14 team divisions would be perfect, and I'd suggest would be great for the game in the area. Yes, even better for the Celtic nations that what having SA has been.

Perhaps the Championship sides would just end up surpassing the prem sides if they combined in a fully sanctioned (nationally backed) british league were sides that are performing poorly at the moment, like the Welsh, just simply go down a division and don't have bit the bullet that they'll never play top level football again.

Premiership rugby can just do whatever it wants in its own (possibly declining) 8-10 team league.

Warning to URC/6Ns right there, don't let the clubs get too big for themselves. Money will end up rulling them and turn it into a farce.

It's definitely an idea with the players most at heart. England now has two young NZ qualified players, Cunningham-South and Ethan Roots. Did they give up cracking it in NZ because they believed they could having more of a chance of International top ups? You'd have to think so. Maybe if they were made to choose one country at say 17 (which I think football has now stopped doing?) they would now be All Blacks (just later on and with less money in the wallet!), but I don't think those sorts f schemes are good for anyone.

I can certainly understand other nations have different mindests though. Argentina doesn't have any 'source' of other talent right, but didn't they start loosing players to Italy for a while? A one way 'loss' of players is not nice. I'm pretty gutted we lost those to English players after watching them in the NPC. Same with one of our netball stars son playing for Japan now, and all because we don't have a big enough 'scene' for rugby here in Oceania.

I like the idea of trying Jordan as a playmaker far more than I do Jordie, but I'm not sure he has the size to do it as comfortably as someone like Furbank might.

Best idea is to can the whole Idea I believe (I think Dmac and Richie are more than capable of having the full burden of playmaking, and the side will be better for it).

I didn't ask for the Kings stats though thanks Nick. Always enjoyed the Cheetahs style, glad they still had better results in the URC than they did in SR despite the confusion!

Argh right, so because they decided to put their disbanded teams in the URC, and despite their best players going to the SR sides, they still did so well they thought URC would be a better ticket to get their teams some wins. They made a great decision didn't they Nick? Won the whole thing!

SA are 1/4 against IRE. The same IRE where rugby is the 4th most popular sport on the island.

Back to bed, dick head.

Any wonder their top dogs are stealing a living over in Japan.

You take the 10 Premiership sides, the 4 Welsh sides, and 2 Scottish sides, plus the top 4 from the previous season's RFU Championship. That's 20 teams. Four groups of 5, each team plays 2 home, 2 away fixtures, place the group stage in November. Then the winner of each group play in the knockout stage on the off weeks during the Six Nations window.

This achieves multiple purposes such as reconstituting the old Anglo-Welsh rivalries from the AW Cup days, it keeps the Championship involved and gives something to shoot for even for the Champ clubs that are unable or do not intend to meet promotion standards, and it gives every Prem club the (at least) 2 additional home fixture gates that they've been missing since the league shrunk to 10 teams. I think such a competition like this would command a better TV deal and better in-person attendance than the current Prem Cup.