Any truth in this? New structure to rugby season?

Chatting with my dad yesterday, he'd heard (pub talk probably) that the powers that be were looking to restructure the season.

Basically the Northern hemisphere would play in summer to bring it in line with the southern hemisphere. It would start with the 6N, then the pro12, jeff, top14 would be played before finally ending the season with the HEC.

Personally, I would be happy with this. Thoughts?

Where was he drinking and how many did he have?

In Bridgend, and he definitely had a few real ales

Sounds a bit too radical to me. Very imaginative though.

Did he tell you last night or this morning?

this morning, i thought it was quite good too.

i've heard this too, can't remember where though. Think i may of read it in the papers.

I was about to say that starting with the 6N was a bit a*se backwards as a build up in intensity makes more sense to me. However, a 6N in say March would allow the 6N coaches to have full access to players before the season starts without club commitments. Would stop player release arguments, etc. Gatland says he wants a full month with players before the 6N and this would do it.

So, would it look something like this:
Feb: international camp
March: 6N (maybe condensed down to 6 weeks?)
Mid April-September: Pro 12, Prem, Top 14 - would need 22 consecutive weeks for English and Celtic leagues
September-Dec: HC/AC

Where would the traditional tours fit in (the ones we currently call summer tours down under and AI's)?
Where would we fit in Anglo Welsh cup? Personally I'd ditch it.

I favour this structure, it leaves the clubs uninterrupted with national call ups during the season and in the off season gives us more international rugby to watch.

The danger with that is that it leaves the top players available to play all of the club/regions games as well as all internationals - player burn out and serious injury will be an even bigger issue then. But it could work.

One of my issues is that it can (especially in France and Italy) get very hot in the summer with very hard pitches (particularly at lower levels), this could cause problems.

But if the issues get ironed out then it could work.

Griff wrote:So, would it look something like this:
Feb: international camp
March: 6N (maybe condensed down to 6 weeks?)
Mid April-September: Pro 12, Prem, Top 14 - would need 22 consecutive weeks for English and Celtic leagues
September-Dec: HC/AC

Where would the traditional tours fit in (the ones we currently call summer tours down under and AI's)?
Where would we fit in Anglo Welsh cup? Personally I'd ditch it.

Doing away with the play-offs, the Top 14 would need at least 26 weeks, that would then give the AP & PRO12 the option of play-offs or bye weeks in the same window as the Top 14 prequires. Starting in mid April, that would extend to mid October. The HC only requires 9 weeks, so you could fit it in before the Christmas break still.

You can run the Anglo-Welsh during the 6N.

If you accept a month off is enough for the top players (non-internationals and those not involved in the knockout rounds of the HC/AC would obviously get more), it's then a choice between the the 'AIs' (now the WIs) or a tour prior to the 6N. I really like the AIs, but I'd be more inclined to go for the tour, it would fit better with the training camp as you could play local sides during the training element (also serving as a preseason for Super Rugby), and it would be during the SH summer, so testing conditioning and fast, hard ground rugby.

My dad read it in the western mail (so take with a pinch of salt) but basically some of the club owners want to take a look at it so the Internationals dont affect the domestic season. The owner of Bath was mentioned in the article.

Personally im in favour of it, the semi professional leagues could be run in the winter time, so we could have rugby 12 months of the year

The November AI series would still be included from what I read.

So it would be somthing like this

Sept- Feb Domestic competition with the Nov internationals played to recieve touring sides.

Feb - April - European competitions

April-May- Six Nations

June - International tours.

July-August off season

I think I prefer that structure Tycroes - as long as there's enough weeks for everything and the internationals are still given time off during the domestic season.

It would be good to keep the derbies during Christmas and the summer tours

TycroesOsprey wrote:The November AI series would still be included from what I read.

So it would be somthing like this

Sept- Feb Domestic competition with the Nov internationals played to recieve touring sides.

Feb - April - European competitions

April-May- Six Nations

June - International tours.

July-August off season

Tycroes, I can't see much difference between what you suggest and what we have now except it has competitions played in blocks. I think the OP was saying that what he heard was about summer rugby, with winter (jan and feb) being the off season.

Are you saying that whay you've heard is the same season, no alignment with the southern hemisphere, but more block booking of competitions? If so, that would help put our disjointed season no doubt. However, for me the switch to summer rugby would be a good thing.

I think that the season needs to be looked at seriously. Players are playing International, Regional, European, International, european, Regional... Its all to juxtaposed...

The SH have a steadier system..!

Im sure what I read was blocks of rugby not summer rugby,
.

There have been some recent discussions through the IRB which covered the possibility of Rugby played during the summer. Not so much to align with the SH. But as a possibility to draw more fans and make more money, figuring it is easier to draw people when the weather is nice rather than during the winter. Would also have less competition with soccer.

This I don't like, although the buisiness side of it makes perfect sense. I want my Boxing day and holiday Rugby.

I would prefer the season is modified as Tycroes suggests. The National squads would do better since they would be together for an extended period. The clubs would do better and have a better product since their matches would not be compromised by Internationals. A big win-win.

There was an article in the Times last week talking about the Bath (I think) owner's global season idea of a global club season running April-October with internationals December-March.

Though that idea involves mid-summer rugby being played in the South of France, South Africa and Australia, which I can't see working.

It probably would not work at grass roots rugby but I cant see any problem with professional sides with professional facilities being able to play under artificial conditions.
If the pitch is dry and hard a good soaking will cure that also cooling the stadiums should not be a major problem.

Cymroglan wrote:It probably would not work at grass roots rugby but I cant see any problem with professional sides with professional facilities being able to play under artificial conditions.
If the pitch is dry and hard a good soaking will cure that also cooling the stadiums should not be a major problem.

Perhaps. Though gates in France would suffer in August when the whole country goes on holiday. And cooling a stadium on a 40-degree day in Brisbane isn't that trivial an exercise - witness the scepticism around the soccer world cup proposed for Qatar.

TycroesOsprey wrote:The November AI series would still be included from what I read.

So it would be somthing like this

Sept- Feb Domestic competition with the Nov internationals played to recieve touring sides.

Feb - April - European competitions

April-May- Six Nations

June - International tours.

July-August off season

Professional non-internationals in average teams would have an off season from the end of the European pool stages until the next year, so from the dates above from some time in march until September. too long a lay off.

International standard players wouldn't appear in domestic competitions, or very few at least, because of restrictions on the number of games, because they'd be held back until their unbroken February to July whipping. In which case how do you know in advance who should be called up?

greybeard wrote:

TycroesOsprey wrote:The November AI series would still be included from what I read.

So it would be somthing like this

Sept- Feb Domestic competition with the Nov internationals played to recieve touring sides.

Feb - April - European competitions

April-May- Six Nations

June - International tours.

July-August off season

Professional non-internationals in average teams would have an off season from the end of the European pool stages until the next year, so from the dates above from some time in march until September. too long a lay off.

International standard players wouldn't appear in domestic competitions, or very few at least, because of restrictions on the number of games, because they'd be held back until their unbroken February to July whipping. In which case how do you know in advance who should be called up?

Really its only an extra month off season for a journeyman. in todays season a team thats mid table and out of the HEC wont play a meaningful game from April untill September. That extra time in the off season also benefits players guvung them some real time off in July even with internationals and lions tours before August pre-season.

Do you consider every player not part of a national squad to be a journeyman? What about young players, up and coming talent, former internationals like Shane Williams...?

Constantly playing without a break will lead to more injuries. One, two or three months off is no help when a player needs a break mid season.

As for meaningful games, that's in the eye of the beholder, and fans of poorer teams end up unfulfilled for a large part of the season. Hardly fair.