Probyn: Autumn Cup could damage Six Nations’ appeal
With a new full international competition scheduled to start next month I can’t help wondering if we are about to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. What amounts to the addition of another Six Nations competition with the little extra spice of two added teams, and a slightly different format, will be played out this November, although it will probably be behind closed doors, albeit with a new TV partner, Amazon.
The addition of Georgia and Fiji seems a somewhat random choice as the teams rank 11th (Fiji) and 12th (Georgia) in World Rugby’s list, with Fiji a long distance away from the rest of the competing nations.
As much as I applaud the inclusion of any Pacific Island team in any touring schedule for the major European nations, the cost and value of having Fiji in this new competition doesn’t make sense.
The whole idea of this series of games is to make as much money as possible to try and offset some of the losses incurred by all as a result of the virus which, and the inclusion of two relatively small economic countries with little or no major TV companies at home, will not help much.
Surely the country the organisers should have tried to bring on board in the first instance was America (ranked 16th) who have been ‘earmarked’ as a potential World Cup host following France in 2023.
With the American Union virtually bankrupt, it would have given them a financial boost while ‘introducing’ a number of international teams and helping promote its relatively newly formed professional club league to more of the American people.
The new broadcaster, Amazon, is an American-owned company that I am fairly sure would have paid a little extra had the potential for a bigger American audience been helped by the inclusion of the US Eagles.
On the logistical front, America at just over 4,000 miles is half the distance from Europe compared to Fiji which is virtually a 20,000 mile round trip.
As for the tournament itself, if it goes ahead, it will see two pools of four playing in parallel with a super finals day which will see every team playing against the team in the other pool ranked in the same position.
Pool A has England (3), Ireland (4), Wales (6) and Georgia (12); Pool B has France (5), Scotland (8), Italy (14) and Fiji (11) which, given current world rankings, would make Pool A the most competitive pool.
In Pool B, Italy are the lowest ranked team. They have only lost to Fiji once in six games in Europe and that was in 1999, and have never lost to Georgia.
Fiji have also beaten France, Scotland and Wales before but they don’t have a consistent record of winning matches against tier one nations, especially away from home.
Although I understand the need
“Surely the country to bring on board in the first instance was America over Fiji or Georgia”
for the money an autumn competition could generate, and the difficulty of finding opponents when those who were supposed to take part pull out, to reschedule another Six Nations in all but name may only devalue the original competition.
The Six Nations is the biggest annual earner in the world of rugby, generating enough money to keep five of the world’s biggest professional unions solvent in normal times.
The history of the competing nations brings an intense rivalry between each of the teams making the games a must for all rugby fans.
It’s that unique history for the participating countries which has the fans from all competing unions desperate for their team to win, which fuels the demand for tickets.
The once-a-year confrontation is
the focal point for the fans of international rugby in the northern hemisphere with some of the oldest international fixtures in the game’s history.
For many if not all, it is the anticipation of this annual event in the spring of each year that creates the interest; adding another round of games in the autumn could dilute that interest and reduce demand.
The unions should be wary of change, as the level of protests at the attempt of moving the Six Nations just a few weeks to accommodate a global season has proved.
Meanwhile, we have Eddie Jones, right, disappointed at the lack of
competition for a place in his England squad which he says hasn’t changed or increased since he arrived five years ago.
To be honest I am not surprised, with only the 12 Premiership clubs from which to select from and what is a comparatively short time period in terms of a player’s career.
The average length of a Premiership player’s career is 14 years and as clubs no longer run
lower sides, I would assume that for eight to ten of those years a player would be in the first team playing at their peak.
With 12 Premiership clubs playing weekly, of which around 70 per cent of players are England qualified, Jones has a pool of around 126 players to choose his squad from. Only if Jones were able to pick from a far bigger pool of the approximately 121,000 senior male players in England, would he be able to have a virtually constant stream of talent to peruse annually.