France's Top 14 is so far ahead of the world...
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- Опубліковано 8 січ 2024
- Frances domestic club competition has seen more success than any other nation. More money, more teams and the highest number of players at the Rugby World Cup compared to every other nation.
Let's dive into their structure and find out exactly how the French have been so successful, in an area where most countries struggle.
Hope you enjoy this video. All use of footage is completely transformed to suit alignment with the research essay / analysis and adheres to fair use. If any issues please make contact with me.
As always thanks for watching! & please share with your rugby mates!
Email: uggyrugby@gmail.com
Outro song: Deadbeat - Tee Noah - Спорт
There are 1630 rugby clubs in France overall. Since a few years, all their name is written in the back of the shirt of our national team.
Grass roots rugby is crucial
Good governance and the Jiff system has produced a lot of good benefits ending up with 3 consecutive u20 world championships
France has added a lot of structure to their traditional « play what s in front of you » style of rugby
The top14’s final in Stade De France is a huge event as every rugby player in France wants to win the Bouclier de Brennus, imo one of the coolest trophies there is all sports combined
❤
Mate thank you so much for the effort you’ve put in! This is amazing, and the pay-off for valuing grassroots is so clear to see. 🔥🔥
@@uggy pleasure mate !
It's 1922 clubs for the FFR, not 1630 ...
@ you re right mate
Just a little side note. The system with several leagues/divisions and promotion/relegation is not just how the Premier League works, its how pretty much every football league in Europe and Latin America works. What put the Premier League on top of the football world is simply that they found ways to generate a lot more money than any other league.
Good video besides that, I just wanted to add this for the sake of accuracy ;)
Just have a look at the French U20 world champions. A strong amount of them had already an experience of top club level and were training alongside with the best players in the world, even if they were only 20 or younger, and they dominated the competition as a result. And today, a lot of them are already being linked with the French senior team and have great status on club side. France already created a new generation of rugby talents for the league and for the national team with this system, who can only work if the entire French rugby take this commitment seriously. I truly hope that the other major nations will be inspired, because otherwise, France will just dominate the sport for the next decades (sportively and financially).
A great watch. The Top 14 and Pro D2 are the patron of Tier 2 nations. So many T2 players from South America, Pacific Islanders and Europeans outside France ply their trade in France's Top 2 leagues.
TOP 14 has the potential to become, like the NBA, a competition followed globally.
Nah, the NRL is much more likely if we are talking facts. Better crowds and TV ratings
@@user-xw7qv8gw5sNo, outside of Australia / NZ nobody cares about XIII rugby. The XV is so much popular. TV audience too in the world. Australia is an exception.
@@user-xw7qv8gw5s Talking about Rugby, I don't think so. Rugby is and should be XV.
The NBA is actually much worse than the European League...
Nah bro that Major League Rugby 😂
they used to say new zealand's provincial competition structure was the reason for NZ dominance in rugby, & that the rest of the world envied it. so of course we changed it all
it too had promotions & relegations of course
When was this we South Africans always was the team to beat
@@FartBenderrafter nz yea
The theatre of the local derby, the jeopardy of relegation, the refreshing of the tournament from season to season, the dream of promotion... All concepts that capture the fans interest and which went up in smoke.
@@FartBenderr i've always admired the mighty south africans, particularly for their sense of humour ;)
I'm Scottish and the problem with our system is that it does the exact opposite of what France is doing. Not only is pro rugby exclusive, but so is semi-pro rugby! There's no incentive for lower league clubs to develop and compete at the top, and the most frustrating part is that our top 4 best amateur clubs are better than the bottom half of the semi pro clubs!
😅 geez that sounds like a systemic failure …
Would be super frustrating for the soaring amateur clubs
Happened with jersey reds here in England and other teams like wasps. Jersey won the championship (league below premiership) but didn’t get promoted due to the rules on stadium size bearing in mind there was no available space in jersey for them to build a stadium big enough. Because of that they didn’t get the funds to keep the team going and ended up having to declare bankruptcy. Sorry sight.
Absolutely infuriating farce of a situation.
To be fair this happenned in french football with basicalythe same model as Top 14
I'm a super rugby fan but love watching top 14 highlights got some of the best player's playing there 🇫🇷
Watching this video during Thursday Pro D2 mid time, between two small cities.
And theres Pro D2 Friday Night and Top 14 all weekend, 26 weekends a year.
As you mentioned TV helps a lot !
If you ever get a chance to go to a Top 14 game then don't even hesitate. It is awesome. Atmosphere, noise, bands, chicken and chips, all ages, flags and real passion.
Thanks for this point of view, great video ! As a a French rugby fan, I see room for improvement for top 14 but it’s interesting to have your external opinion! I consider Fench rugby clubs are still too much dependent of ”sugardaddies” to perform at high level, and we are making our players play too much games per year (the leagues games are, for example, still playing during national team games week ends, I’m not aware of any other country doing this). Hopefully the League and the national team have found an agreement to reduce the play time of our top French players ! But I consider the injury rate too high in Top 14 😢
Great video!
I'm French, and I have lived in Australia. I would add 2 key elements:
- Rugby Union is the #1 sport in the South West of France (and Toulon). That's where the majority of the players come from.
With NZ It's probably the only place in the world where Rugby Union is #1. And it's #2 in the rest of the country
- The TV deal with Canal+. Main paid TV in France. They have done an amazing job over the last 25 years to upgrade the quality of the games and of the broadcast. And over the last 5 years they have put rugby games on prime time instead of soccer!
That’s incredible! Find the right broadcaster and it makes a huge difference…
Thanks for the kind words brother!
With great quality, that’s one reason why French fans were so hard with world broadcast during WRC2023 (no enough TMO to explain faults as in top 14)
Canal+ didn't put rugby in prime time instead of football, they did it because they lost the tv rights of the Ligue 1.
@@p4olo537 Wrong. I'm talking about the Saturday night prime time slot. Canal+ has the rights of the 9pm football (Ligue1) game but broadcast it on a low key channel (Canal+ Foot) and decided to broadcast a Top14 instead on its main channel...
@TarsoBsAs ok i was talking about the Sunday night spot, but even the Saturday they do that only because they're upset with the LFP.
Man they need to air the top 14 in the Souther Hemisphere. That's the kind of club footy we need to be watching on the regular here in Aus. I don't think (entirely at least) it'll take anything away from Super Rugby, granted that's another conversation in itself. But it'll funnel more interest into the game as a whole. Watching the top14 final (as a UA-cam rerun) was EPIC! At this point the game needs exposure and I don't care from where lol
It is a fantastic system backed by passionate and engaged fans. About 6 months ago, nzru ppl, ceo and others, started saying that the npc "not fit for purpose". At no time have they explained what that purpose is. It's still a great pathway for players to get to SR or pro rugby leagues, but no one's watching. So what do they mean? Fan engagement? Financially sustainable? Well nzru torpedoed it themselves imo. Limiting player time on the field. Zero advertising ( I'm a rugby die hard and i don't see any team namings midweek. i find out who's in or out of the game day squad about 15mins before kickoff). And ultimately , the npc was always a rural rugby competition with the backbone of fans nationally being from small provinces. SR removed that connection of rural ppl to the game. I could go on.
Who knows what's next for nz, but the most important thing is to get fans through the gates
Bro you have highlighted so many issues that are plaguing club rugby worldwide. Financial sustainability, fan engagement and zero advertising… I don’t know why ads completely died in the ass?
It's already been explained what the issues are: players being paid too much, too many teams, lack of local interest etc. They're not saying the NPC competition has no purpose, they're saying in its current state it's a financial burden and in need of a drastic overhaul. That is what the review found, the same review that found some similar issues with Super Rugby.
@@icefarrow7959 I stand by my OP. The nzru said "not fit for purpose", and have failed to establish what that purpose is.
Fwiw, that the fans aren't engaged and the players are paid too much are symptoms of the problems, not the actual problems
Regional pride, civic pride pay a big role too. There is huge rivalry between communities. Ticket prices are great too - affordable. All ages are attracted and the woman's game is huge.
Great video
I love MLR. I follow religiously. There is rumors of an American player only team in Charlotte, NC starting. I watch a lot of Rugby and I find the quality amazing. It’s very fast flowing.
You pretty much said everything, but not every club dreams of top 14, even in Pro D2 most know that they couldnn't financially sustain getting in Top 14 , so a club that plays in Federale can't realisticly dream about Top 14. You need a lot of money for the satff,players, and you need a big enough stadium. Most of amateur and semi-professionals clubs just focus on their season and try to have a great time. Rugby in the smallest clubs is just about friendship, local identity and having a drink after the game, like everywhere else I guess. And the Jiff system was also put in place to get better players in the national team, and for now it seems to be working. Still a great video though
They also promote the scrum way better than any other comp instead of always downing it
Portugal has a 3 division system:
-at the base we have 2 inter-regional brackets with two round robins, the first 3 teams of each go to the 2 phase, play eachother 2 more times and the best 2 play the final for the cup knowing they are both getting promoted
-at the mid/promotion level there are 12 teams separared into 3 regionals, they play their regiom twice, the 2 best of each go to the final phase in which they play eachother 2 times and the best 2 go into the final playing for promotion
-d10/divisão de honra has 10 teams playing eachother 2 times, then the top4 advance into the playoffs (1v4, 2v3) and the winner is the national champion
Doesn't sould like much but considering how small rugby is compared to football, basketball, volleyball and even hockey I'd say it's doing fine
No teams are full professional, most players just play for the team they started their career and if they strive for something more they move into Lisbon and transfer to some of the 6 or so D10 clubs from there or maybe into french D2
I hope one day it goes big but every single stride forward is already a huge progress and everyone involved appreciates it 😇🙏🏽
Thanks for the insight, Portugal were unbelievable at the World Cup! Big future in rugby for sure.
@@uggy Portugal had no business being decent in the WC and could have won two matches had our back up 9 not pickedup that ball or Sousa Guedes scored that last kick against Georgia
Most of our players being amateurs is something amazing too cause if a professional routine is harsh imagine having to work on a 9to5, hitting the gym (usually the clubs have one) and training for another 2hs before going home to your family and trying not to neglect their needs
I worked as a sport psychologist for a 2nd division team last year and we had athletes missing crucial matches cause they were working abroad (contractors), couldn't play visiting games on saturdays cause they only left their jobs at around 30mins before the match started and couldn't cross half country in that time, had college exams and had to take a weekend off to study...
Portugal producing talented players and playing decent rugby is a testament of the sheer will of our players
Bravo Portugal ❤
the editing and stroy telling ability is superb
Thanks brother!
So i had never been able to watch top 14 so i decided to watch a replay of Toulouse v Lyon because to Antoine Dupont.
Yes aeons ahead.of the rest of the leagues.
Ive been watching the premiereship for years.
Top14 is feels like a international match intensity
This content rocks bro!
Thanks legend!
Make Uggy the new Wallabies coach so they actually get good lol
Please 🫶
Can you please do an analysis of our rugby here in South Africa. I know we just won the world cup twice in a row, but compared with other rugby playing nations where do you rate us. I believe that after winning the world cup, our sports minister will take advantage of the huge impact the win made and announce an introduction of rugby in our township schools but, but how can if we don't have the infrastructure even for our popular soccer clubs.
That's a great point about the stadia in France being relatively small but being a great spectacle when they are full or near to being full.
If there's demand for a particular game, they'll upgrade to a bigger stadium, usually a football stadium. Like Toulouse do
In South Africa the last couple of years we get to see 1 top 14 games every weekend the games are for the most pulsating affairs the 1 game I watched the final score was 9-3 (or something like that) but man o man what a game
No coverage here 😢 would love to have it on a main broadcaster over here, so many players I’d love to watch.
@@uggy we see the games on SABC television
In addition to great Top14, ProD2, U20 winning World cup 3 times in a row, the JIFF system (young players of any nationality trained in France) ... there's a great league of Women rugby, the French women national team being consistently rated 3rd in the world, within reach of the top two.
Of course, who raise and bring players to rugby? ...
I think what is making Rugby so good in France, and that is not really highlighted, is that they are now tapping in territories that were reserved for soccer, especially the urban areas. Now, the French team has a significant amount of players from the Paris metro-area.
And from frenchs polynesians islands!
The promotion relegation thing i believe is important for NZ rugby and ive been saying this for years to make NPC the main comp but people sya there isnt any money in the unions. Fair statement but thats when we have to make it happen in order for it to be a thriving comp
PASSION mate. Just Fucking PASSION. Draw a line from Bordeaux to Lyon and Everything south of it >>> rugby is fucking relgion. There are clubs in every village etc etc It's like Football in Texas or Cricket in India
Can you do a video on black lion the team in 🇬🇪Georgia
I’ll have a look brother!
Things are kinda different for semi pro clubs, they often take players from the uk, SA, islands etc and then they can't pay their salary so they stop, just like Blagnac couple days ago. While they play on the third level
England doesn't have enough clubs who can afford full professionalism to have a good 2nd tier, but they could if they had the 4 Welsh clubs Cardiff, Scarlets, Ospreys and Dragons join a new 10 club 2nd tier. This would bring with it a big TV contract from BBC Wales and S4C with the top teams given a chance to win promotion to Premiership and big anglo welsh rivalries and away supporters able to travel to game in England and Wales, something the URC can't offer.
Wales can't even field four first tier sides worthy of the name and England, as you know, have problems of their own. The only way that French system would work is if Ireland plus Wales are admitted into the Premiership.
Wales can't field 4 good sides currently because the Welsh Rugby Union don't pay them a fair amount for the services they provide and because the URC has a poor TV deal and no away fans to make enough money. Cardiff have had 4 sell outs over the last 4 games because they were against 2 Welsh and 2 English clubs, which means away fans can actually travel to games unlike in URC where you have to catch a plane to every away game. This proves An Anglo Welsh league would work and it would bring a TV deal to a potential 2nd tier because of BBC Wales and S4C and this is something the English Championship doesn't currently have, a TV deal. Irish teams could never join the English league because they are all owned by the IRFU and the English Premiership clubs only allow independent clubs. The 4 Welsh clubs are independent of the WRU and have traditional rivalries with the Welsh clubs, as shown by Cardiff selling out their last 2 games with Bath and next weekend Harlequins. Give the fans what they want. It's so obvious. @@davesmith826
That's not necessarily true as one of the big criticisms of the Welsh regions is that they brought together local rivals under the same region. Meaning fans from rival Welsh premiership clubs were having to support regions that had never existed previously. Whereas in Ireland we have the 4 provinces which have existed for hundred of years and are far more natural. Welsh rugby imo would be better off scrapping their regions all together and putting their funding towards the Welsh premiership, improving turnouts, fan engagement and TV deals etc. @@JonnyLewisFilms
@@JonnyLewisFilms An Anglo-Welsh league could work, but the operative word is league, not leagues, which is what you were suggesting. As for what the fans want, some of us like to see our sides competing with the best that Ireland, Scotland, Italy and SA have to offer. Your solution - isolationist, inward-looking - won't improve the standards of rugby on offer and I'm not convinced it will solve the structural problems in Welsh rugby either. When the likes of the Dragons and Scarlets are pulling home crowds of 7000-8000 per match, you can't blame the Italians or the South Africans for your woes. It's the responsibility of the WRU to build the game in Wales and it's not the responsibility of the English or anyone else to bail you out.
You're correct. It's the responsibility of WRU to sort out the mess in Wales. They need to pay the 4 clubs a fair amount for the players and services they provide so the 4 clubs can at least compete with the money the Irish and French clubs have. The WRU also need to get the Welsh clubs playing in the English league. As proved by Cardiff having 4 sell outs for their last 4 games (2 against welsh clubs and 2 against English) it proves they can sell out games against local English rivals as English clubs bring away fans as it's not far to travel, unlike URC clubs whose fans have to catch a plane. @@davesmith826
Uggy knows more about rugby than Ian Foster
🤣🤣🤣
@@uggy Fozzie eat too many donuts g the fat blocks his brain cause his skull can’t fit both the fat and the brain I learned this in my year 9 science class g fat people dumber than normal people not able to handle their piss cause liver too busy eating fat cells
one thing that is very different is schoolboy level, u18s they strictly play for clubs not schools i believe
Heard farrell also got his move to racing
Wouldn't be suprised to see the likes of ezebeth move here
Etzebeth has already been in France
Yup he played two years for Toulon (it s in the damn video 😅)
@@romainviry3185 lemme say returning the sahrks beeen bad
@@romainviry3185 🤣my bad
Thanks for this. Great video.
I'm from the Toulouse region in France and I have been living in Brisbane (Aus) for the last 10 years where I have been coaching Junior rugby up to U15.
For approx. the same population (2.4m), my home region in France has 190 clubs, most of them having 1 or 2 teams for each age category, when Brisbane has less than 20 clubs and can hardly put 10 teams together to compete from U15 onwards.
Australia has always relied on school rugby to feed Premiership championships and pro franchises, thence the natrional team, but private schools no longer produce rugby players since their demographics have changed. Australian private schools now welcome a large population of Asian kids, and they don't play rugby. As simple as that.
Competition for sponsor dollar with league and footy is also a reason why Aussie rugby is doing so poorly.
You also need to realize that in the south west of France (where i come from) Rugby is the uncontested number 1 sport, far above soccer. In France's soccer 1st division you got Toulouse and Montpellier, and in 2nd division you have Pau, Rodez and Bordeaux. That's five clubs in the two main divisions. Meanwhile in TOP14 you have Toulouse, Bordeaux, Pau, Bayonne, Castres, Perpignan, and in PROD2 you have Montauban, Mont-de-Marsan, Aurillac, Agen, Dax, Colomiers, Biarritz, Béziers and Brives. TOP14 as more southwest clubs than the two first soccer division united ! That's also a huge factor. Rugby has always been more popular than soccer in the southwest.
Forgot La Rochelle in southwest TOP14, which means that half of the club in TOP14 come from the southwest. Huge factor for the developpment of the sport here !
Dans quel monde Aurillac c'est le sud ouest ??? C'est en Auvergne mdr. Pareil pour Brive, la corrèze c'est pas dans le sud.
@@yull6331 Dans notre monde. Idem pour Brive. C'est pas moi qui les ai placés là !
@@jarodgabel7631 bah pour être de la bas je peux t'assurer que personne de Brive ou Aurillac se considère comme étant dans le "sud-ouest".
@@yull6331 Ben ils ont pas le choix. C'est factuel. Brive est dans la région Limousin qui est dans la zone du Grand Sud-ouest et Aurillac est situé à l'ouest du massif central. Aurillac est plus à l'ouest que Montpellier !
Honestly it’s time to implement this in Australia, what have we got to lose? We are already pretty much as low as Rugby can get here.
Geographically hard, but I feel like the premier divisions that are running could be a big part of the solution
The french rugby league
Thé top top 14 it a best on the word
If even England is struggling with promotion and relegation I don't know how any other Rugby country except South Africa could possibly implement it without destroying the sport.
Imagine it in Australia, pro/rel would almost certainly lead to every team in the top league be from Sydney or Brisbane what happens to Rugby in the rest of the country? It's easy to say just get better, but the fact is the are many other sports that are popular and people will watch those instead.
Also we have some precedent of pro/rel in one of Australia's most popular sports in Aussie Rules, pro/rel was active for a short time in the 70s in Victoria and failed completely.
Rugby Australia would have to give possibly a decade for it to work and they don't have the money to risk that. They are $90 million in debt and the next tv deal is likely to be much less money.
Very true - for us it’s a geographical and population nightmare.
I do think we have a lot of work to do to make greater connections between club and professional, but also (could ramble for ages) the big push to decrease our number of professional teams I really think will bury the hatchet further.
I don't think South Africa could implement the French system. While interest in rugby has undeniably grown in the past ten years, it's still played by a small minority of kids, with soccer being played far more frequently, and there are not enough adult players in the game to sustain an effective tier one and tier two league structure. The gap between the four major franchises in the URC and the rest is vast and though there are a lot of school and university sides these act as feeders for the top clubs, not as competitors with them. If the country wasn't in such a parlous state, the French model could be rolled out over the course of a decade or two but I don't see that happening anytime soon.
@@davesmith826 I have to disagree. I you take all the different teams currently playing rugby (Varcity cups, Currie Cup, City clubs, Whatever they have running on the smaller provinces competition. etc. etc.) We have more then enough teams for a similar structure.
But for whatever reason the clever people have the strength vs strength bullshit argument going on. It dilutes SA rugby to think like that. What happens in SA is the big unions (Bulls ans Sharks ar ethe biggest culprits, hog all the players) . They hog players to make up to 3-4 teams. Those players are never showcased anywhere and it would have been better, had those players played at a smaller union.
I can go on how Griquas and Pumas and Freestate have been competitive teams in the past, but are currently nowhere, due to URC deal. I mean Free state!! It used to be everyone's second team and they are out in the cold! Nah. I like our competing in URC, but I 'm in Favour of a similar structure where a similar pyramid of teams exists. From the cheese and wine social teams to the top teams. The teams are already there....so just slot them in the appropriate place.
@@davesmith826 But Rugby is not a big sport in France either, being only the 10th most played sport in france.
While it's highly unlikely, I'm hoping that the talks held during the rwc come to fruition and the English prem ends up joining the URC in a combined league. Not only would it allow for promotion/relegation but the 2nd tier would be legitimately competitive and great to watch.
What top teams are you talking about, only one world cup winners there
French Top 14 makes sure best players are playing every week more or less. Super Rugby fails because it prioritises resting the test match players so they are fresh for playing international rugby. Austtralia would do well to leave Super Rugby and start their own 8 team pro league (which could include Fiji Drua) and grow from there. You'd have an Australian champion every year and the top clubs could play in a Champions Cup style event with top NZ and Japan teams.
I’ve believed this could work for Australia too. Not sure what Australians would think however.
Queensland Reds
NSW Waratahs
Melbourne Rebels
ACT Brumbies
Western Force
Fijian Drua
Moana Pacifika
Jaguares from Argentina (maybe not)
Then expansion teams latter down the line could be either another team from Queensland like a Gold Coast based team or second Brisbane team.
The same thing could probably be done for a second NSW team.
Not sure if other states like NT, SA or TAS would be able to field a team but maybe there’s potential there too.
And then from the islands bring in the Fijian Latui or Fiji Warriors.
Don't bring in Argentina clubs to an Australian League. Just have Australian clubs (plus Fiji Drua). Local rivalries are what makes the French League so good. @@Fl_OODY
@@Fl_OODYbut will this product outsell the top14,the priemiership,the urc,the heineken cup?,,,,i dont think so.....Australia need to enter an international comp,it will be close to impossible for them to have a domestic comp that is way more exciting then the comps that i mentioned earlier.....and plus will Australias domestic comp be able to pay to dollars?
For a French player the most prestigious competitions to win are the WC, the top 14, the 6 Nations and the Champions Cup in that particular order. So let's just say the top 14 is the number one goal every year.
🤙
Nice vid. But will this ever translate to France finally winning the RWC??? .... I'm not sure that it will 🤔
Thanks brother 💪 hopefully not 2027 🤣
Well, we clearly intend to win the next one. We have been waiting for far too long
It s quite new that clubs and national team are working in constructive collaboration, it has produced fairly good results the last 4 years both men and women, u20s and senior
Future will ultimately prove you wrong
🤔🙄
Here's to another four years of the North failing at a World Cup 🍻
The next two or three world cups will be VERY tough for anybody who faces France that is for sure.winning it , ummmdunooo. It's called web ellis cup....
Australia could easily and definitely mirror the promotion and relegation system by integrating the 5 existing super rugby teams and the teams from the Shute shield Queensland Premiership Cup and John Dent Cup (ACT) and have a 2 tiered system with about 16 teams each. Aussie rugby fans are sick of watching our teams constantly lose to teams from NZ and from a casual fans perspective why should they care about NZ teams. Also since super rugby fans are forced to choose between their club team e.g Manly or Easts or their super rugby team e.g Tahs, its these two comps are directly competing with each other. Shute Shield games often get crowds in excess of 5000 which isn't unlike what the rebels might produce on a Saturday night, and mind you that's with little to no advertising, no pro comp or the exposure Super Rugby gets. These local comps and especially the clubs within them are what the rugby public actually cares about not some multinational comp.
There are 8 million people in NSW and 5 million in Sydney alone how are all of those people supposed to feel represented by just one club. People are attached to their local club the one that's just around the corner from where they live, no wonder why super rugby fails to capture people because the format is to large scale to allow people to feel connected to their club. Im not saying completely get rid of the super rugby teams because they are still reasonably popular among the public but they lack that club like appeal that people can really get behind. If the club and state teams were integrated into a two tiered comp it would be a win win for both rugby players and fans.
More professional teams means more exposure for great players who would other wise spend their prime playing against plumbers and accountants also meaning the Wallabies have a much greater pool of players to choose from. Its pretty clear that almost every successful rugby nation is has or is looking to expand their player pool. Scott Robinson is quite literally begging NZR to allow overseas All Blacks to play, England has 10 and did have 12 professional teams with a pro tier 2 comp. SA have benefited so much from allowing overseas players. But Australia has a unique opportunity to have a 2 fully professional competitions with all of the best teams from around the nation (possibly this system could develop into a rugby primed similar to France) and a comp that the every day rugby public can get involved in.
This also partly solves the grass roots/development issue because more teams that are pro means more pathways for players instead of most players being poached by league. Basically if you aren't in the best 40 players at an under 18 level your chances of going professional are significantly decreased. NRL has 16 teams based in AUS each with their own huge pathway systems which means from a maths point of view regardless of skill or exposure you are more than 3x more likely to go pro in League than union. (Yes I am aware that league has significantly more players but not 3x) Anyway we wonder why our best talent is leaving to league either at a school age or now more regally at a pro age. Yes mine is a big factor but we under estimate the impact of opportunity. If you offer a 18 year old player to go and play league, get paid up wards of 60k just to be in the squad and possibly not even play, and them knowing that one day that could easily reach a top 30 spot at a NRL club meaning they get paid significantly more, they would be stupid to say no regardless how much they may love rugby. What union offers is that unless your are in the to 40 or so in the country you go and play colts which may only pay the top 3 or 4 players, then get a full time job while playing a near professional level of sport while playing grade in a comp such as Shute Shield and still get paid pennies. Union is shooting its self in the foot!!! this system is failing the fans players and the Wallabies and needs to change.
I feel like one issue with rugby that isn’t talked about enough is that while it is popular worldwide, its most popular in all the “wrong” places. In the big countries where it is popular (UK, France, Australia, Italy) it is a posh sport or only popular in certain regions. Countries where it is popular are small (NZ, wales, pacific islands, Georgia)and the one outlier is SA which is a unique case ( economically in shambles, plus racial issues). Mostly a nice sport in the rest of the world (maybe Japan/Argentina exceptions?). Very unique case in world sport in term of popularity distribution.
why do you feel this to be an issue that needs to be talked about more?
cause there's no use trying to compete with football when rugby is rly popular in like 10 countries and in most of them ain't the most popular sport, kinda hard to develop economically in that case too
@@Lechedeesnuts who's idea is it to "compete with football?" rugby was awesome for a hundred years & we never cared spit for football.
@@Lechedeesnuts by "develop economically" i guess you mean perpetual growth. see my previous reply
@@kungfutzu3779 i mean when i see so many comments under rugby vids of fans trying to diss football, wouldn't say rugby doesn't care for football lmao
and it's an exemple as football is actually worldwide the most popular sport
Bro French and the Japanese league are ridiculous at the moment with international flavours.
BTW: the premiership doesn't have promotion/relegation.
As a fan of Leinster it’s hard to care about the urc until the knockouts the likes of the dragons are bad enough to watch when they play a full team but half of the time they don’t . I go to every Leinster game and I always remember none of the Welsh lads playing .
This works if you’re a top team like Leinster , Toulouse etc who have good depth but the likes of the Welsh sides second string teams are borderline semi pro they’re so shit,
Salaires moyens en TOP 14 , 15 à 18 000 euros brut , joueurs internationaux entre 50 et 80 000 brut par mois , et les grandes stars comme Dupont approche les 1 million d'euros à l'année .
Nrl can compare to top 14 in terms of crowds tv numbers and popularity
Yeah but it’s not union rugby
🇨🇵🇨🇵🇨🇵😎
Jiffs ?
Don’t think our boi wanted to have a go at the pronunciation 🤣 fair play tho
Definitely wasn’t keen to test the French accent 🤣
To be faire joueurs issus de filières de formation is à mouthful in French too and we just say jiff
@@uggyyou said it right : « jeef » 😊
Literally : youngsters coming from the French rugby system.
It s a system that forces clubs to always have about 25% of their game squad to be originally from France’s youth teams and projects. There can be foreigners as well.
It provides a big incentive for the clubs to properly develop their young prospects as they will HAVE to put the shirt on rather than sit and watch foreign stars systematically taking a spot
In force since 2017 if I m correct
Romain NTamack was Jiff for example. Although you could argue it would have joined any pro squad nether the less 😅
Perhaps im somewhat retarded, but I always learn stuff from yr vids!
Just imagine the current state of world rugby if France didn't exist....🤔 ......😮😮😮
Imagine football
Hahaha this cracked me up
actually the last world cup killed a lot of the momentum for french rugby
😂
Rugby Australia is full of corporate know-it-alls who have done great damage the game. Union is now only the 5th biggest sport in Australia.
I would argue that Australian Rugby is better to follow the NRL example compared to the Top 14. The NRL has better crowds and better TV ratings compared to the Top 14 or any other Rugby domestic competition. Promotion and Relegation wont work in Australia.
But in europe football is no1 by a long long way,
NRl are very lucky they have no real competition appart from maybe Aussie rules!!
If you watch the match and not the crowd, I believe your argument becomes invalid.
Judging by Bayonne's thrashing last night, the Top 14 isn't as great as people would like to think.
Bayonne is a small team in the top 14, they usually fight to avoid relegation. It is actually the first time they play the champions cup and so they send their b team to play so they don't screw their top 14 season. To be frank the top 14 sides ranked below 5th in the table will not really give the european competitions a shot. The money the top 14 brings is way more important. That is why in the challenge cup top 14 clubs send their developement players. It's a side effect of the top 14 success.
@@GoGrams yeah my comment aged like milk after the Leicester and Saracens batterings yesterday….
@@G-regTaylor it's because they faced teams that play seriously the champions cup. Only Racing 92 target this competition and fail among french team.
Living in Paris, does not feel like rugby is so populare. Ok, it is very populare in the South West of the country but rest of the country does not care much, let's be realistic.
French Top 14 clubs lost €40 million Euros last season, Christ club rugby is in trouble if others competitions are trying to learn from this billionaire’s plaything.
France was robbed in the last world cup... again. They are the best rugby country right now
and yet still no world cup
Thanks so much refs!!
They still can't win a RWC.
They are so great, what about ANY world cup - NO chance
Thank so much referees and no TMO!