The message the Lions have given to Marcus Smith, their latest 10

What will be better still:

Fijian Drua breaking their drought and winning on the road

All Aussie teams breaking their drought and winning games in NZ

Reward fans who have Sky Sport/Stan subscriptions and still attend games in person

Entice more fans who have Sky Sport/Stan subscriptions to attend games in person

Having shot clocks at all grounds

Is is too much to ask for better Sky sport commentary team?

Still needs work:

Theme based rounds needs deeper fan engagement from all teams than just putting on a label and wearing new kit

Create a Super rugby pacific app - make it easy for fans to access information on team lists, injury updates, kickoff times, player and game stats, live score updates

I read it as acknowledging that the board are still early in the progress towards making the championship what it needs to be to provide ‘Aspiration and jeopardy’, and disappointed in the realism of how far off that is.

As club with the status of promotion eligible they could easily and quickly turn the tide towards becoming of the Championships best and earning promotion. It is anything but the death knell you make it out to be.

That is a real possibility to occur before RWC 2027. The 6-2 and 7-1 splits are becoming more popular. But a lot of people don’t like those splits as they reduce the impact of fatigue and encourage slow power based play resulting in more heavy collisions.

World Rugby has been pretty clear they would like to see: less heavy collisions, and fatigue to play more of a roll. We’ll see how it goes.

Peter Lakai is tall enough to be a ‘sometimes’ jumping option. About the only 7, currently in contention for the All Blacks, who isn’t is Kirifi. I think Sititi could also make a good 7.

Having watched some URC I’d come to though all teams were developing some universal style amongst each other. Would you think that had been continuing or were/had they staying fairly unique/individual. Would love to know how that aspect had affected Irelands abilities in the past.

I feel along the same lines, but you see a lot of articles that point to Irelands success as being solely down to have just the one over performing team.

I really hoped that it would be a springboard to bigger pentration of rugby in all of Ireland but you reckon it could be the hindrance in immediate affect of some decline in the other provinces?

Would you know if there is any real data, like player numbers, backing up this theory? Are the relative level in quality of the players much worse now, or are Leinsters simply much better than you’ve ever produced before? How would/should the rest catch up if so?

This could be the cause of what’s happening now, were you are seeing the symptoms of perhaps narrowing your focus too much to academies etc. Perhaps they need to invest at a much much younger age, and rely less on the highschool systems?

What do you think you’d put down their success then to? And how might it relate to current day?

Things change. I take it when you say ‘we’ the lad was from Ulster? It has certainly appeared to me to be a typical case of paint by numbers, and so is there really anything ‘wrong’? It certainly doesn’t come across in the article or from your post that there is.

What has gone wrong? Were can their be improvement?

Seems like a pathetic cry for what Leinster has. Be original man, you think Ulsters dominance was brought by this sort of attitude?

That test against Aussie were he single handily took them apart and was millimeters away from setting up 3 other tries was the type of performance saw him recognized as unmatched last year.

Look I wouldn’t be gullied by anything that Robinson says.

While speaking on his desire to bring his former partner in crime home, Robertson also insisted McKenzie and Barrett’s respective roles in the All Blacks in the coming years are “critical”.

I’ve just about had it upto here with Razors BS. Look Razor, we don’t want a liar as out national teams coach, get your proverbial sorted and do your job, head down ass up.

Much more crap like this and I’m going to be calling for heads due to incompetence. It does you a disservice, learn how to be honest!

Get serious. The All Blacks have never had all their best players and you know it.

Wonder if they’ll be trying to recruite former test stars that are ineligible. Imagine how cool it would be having Peato Mauvaka as their hooker. Suspect Lions want it to be a bunch of easy beats however, so more likely to be the profile (and ability) of players like Kurtley Beale. Which would be cool in itself if there are enough of them.

Hope the team has prospects of playing more in future.