B&I Lions 2017
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Bit of an update on the global season discussion.
Apparently, despite the initial headline reports of agreement being reached, not everything is settled just yet - particularly amongst the Six Nations unions, and the privately-held clubs. And revenue sharing is still very much on the table from SANZAAR's point of view.
French club owners and FFR have been discussing changing the Top 14 to a 32 team competition and moving to a conference structure, similar to what PRO12 are considering. This apparently would shave 7 weeks off their current season, and bring them broadly in line with a start October and finish in June club season.
Bill Beaumont and Agustin Pichot have been pushing for moving the Six Nations forward by three weeks so that most test games would benefit from moving to Summer Time - most NH parties seem to be open to this proposal. (On a side note, the 6N is likely to agree before end of year to bring in a bonus point system for the competition, with extra points for teams playing additional away tests, every other year.)
There are misgivings in the 6N about a proposed NH season that would start in October and less than four weeks later, players would head into test matches. Whilst some of the Six Nations unions are loath to move the November internationals (strong revenue earners), there is a proposal on the table to shift all tours to July and August, and allow the club season to play through November, and potentially a short winter break could occur.
With the proposed scrapping of mid-year tests after a RWC, SANZAAR would lose out on much needed revenue and there is still strong discussion from SANZAAR about revenue sharing from all tests to compensate for this reduction in their home tests. In turn, this will present problems for the smaller unions in Ireland,Italy, Wales and Scotland, who depend heavily on test income to run the game in their countries, similar to Australia and New Zealand. This would likely see sharing of revenue from Lions tours come into the equation as well.
If both PRO12 and Top 14 leagues were to move to shorter duration league competitions, this would give them a run of 22 weeks between start of October and end of February. The Premiership, if it stays at 12 teams, could also fit into this slot. (Alternatively, would this allow the possibility of a conference-style model being adopted to create a British/Irish/Italian league of 24-28 teams?)
And what of the European Champions and Challenge Cups? Already there are noises about changes being made to the less than hoped for successor to the Heineken Cup, and potentially make it shorter in duration. In addition, should it be pushed to be played as a single block after the Six Nations with finals occurring in May/June, or would England and France in particular want to have the season end wth domestic leagues, and have the European competitions run as a block in Jan/Feb?
And, of course, the old chestnut of who is better at club level in a NH v SH competition is likely to be part of the picture, with eyes being cast on the vacant July spot after a RWC to hold a global club comp.
This has plenty of running left in it before the self-imposed deadline of agreement being reached by end of year.
@Pot-Hale
Where did you source this information??
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@Pot-Hale
Where did you source this information??
@Billy-Tell said in B&I Lions 2017:
@Pot-Hale
Where did you source this information??
He had a pre-meeting breakfast with Pichot, Steve Tew and Bill Bwumount
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@Pot-Hale
Where did you source this information??
Media reports from various places. The questions/conjectures are mine.
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Media reports from various places. The questions/conjectures are mine.
@Pot-Hale said in B&I Lions 2017:
Media reports from various places. The questions/conjectures are mine.
Yep, the Times did a big article on it this week. Behind a paywall, but it laid it all out including the club comp.
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Slightly related; Paul O'Connell has written a book and this is an extract from The Times:
A few days after the Lions lost the first Test against New Zealand badly, I was on a training pitch in Wellington. After five minutes of the session, it felt as though every emotion I’d experienced since the beginning of the tour — every ounce of pressure I’d been feeling — was being multiplied by 10. Am I going mad here? Can I not take the pressure anymore?
I’d never been as worked up in training. But then I’d never taken something called Focus before putting on my boots. You could call it an energy drink, but that wouldn’t cover it. It contained a massive hit of caffeine. Whatever you happened to be feeling at the time, whatever mood you were in, it exaggerated it.
The previous night, four days before the second Test, Clive Woodward had spoken to us in the team room. Or rather, he had teed up someone else. Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s spin doctor, was with us because Clive had figured the Kiwi media would try to work us over. He wanted a big hitter to have our back.
After we were hammered in Christchurch, there was a press conference called to talk about the spear tackle that put Brian O’Driscoll out for months. Clive kept asking why Keven Mealamu and Tana Umaga hadn’t been cited for it. I understood the frustration, but didn’t think putting the incident up on a big screen in slow-motion, in front of a roomful of journalists, was going to help our cause. You can maybe do that when you’ve won the game, but when you’ve been absolutely hockeyed it’s a little more difficult.
I liked Alastair. I know his intentions were good. But his big speech to the squad didn’t go down well. He said he knew next to nothing about rugby, but he did know what it felt like to be under serious pressure when everything was on the line. He talked about fighting elections for the Labour Party. When they were taking on the Conservatives, he said, it was like going to war and they’d do anything to win. Then he upped it.
He told us that in every campaign and every crisis, there comes a moment when the people in the thick of it realise they need to dig deep — or they’re in serious trouble. He talked about Northern Ireland, then Kosovo. He said he didn’t get that feeling when he looked at us. He didn’t have the sense that we were fighting back.
I was really insulted. I wasn’t playing well, but I could not have been trying any harder. I was emptying myself in every training session and every match. It annoyed me that anyone would question how much I wanted to win for the Lions when I was going to the depths of what I had in me. On the training pitch the following morning, I was still thinking about Alastair’s few words and getting more and more p***** off. I decided what I was going to do when the session was over: find Alastair and knock him out.
There wouldn’t be any need for questions or explanations. Everyone would know what it was for. But by the time training was over, the effect of the Focus had worn off, and I was back to passed for normal on that tour.
In the afternoon, once I’d done my analysis, I headed off into the city on my own. I remember sitting in a book shop drinking tea and reading Atomised by Michel Houellebecq, enjoying my own company and deciding I’d go back the next day and do the same.
I was finding the tour a lonely experience. The players had separate rooms. Looking back, that wasn’t the greatest idea when you’re trying to bring a team together for the first time. The dream I’d bought into was nothing like the reality. In trying to find the winning edge, Clive had broken with Lions tradition, and all these years later it’s obvious that something important was lost. At the time, I couldn’t really see that. I felt as if I was contributing to the downfall of the Lions. There was very little perspective when you were in the middle of it.
After that first Test I started smoking the odd cigarette in my room. To this day I don’t know why. When I was younger, most of my friends smoked. If I had a few drinks on a night out I might take a cigarette off them, but until that tour I hadn’t smoked one in years.
I was brushing my teeth six or seven times a day: I wanted to brush away the smell of smoke. I wasn’t getting a whole lot out of the tour and I remember thinking there might be one benefit before it was over. At least I might have white teeth by the end of this f****** trip.
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well i turned down a free ticket to the Auckland test, does that count?
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@Rapido Did you not see the link on the fern? AllBlacks.com gave permissions to all ferners and that other NZ rugby website (No8?) to a link that got test tickets before public notification.
I gues as a thanks for the support kind of thing
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What? How do you get test tickets?
Non-test tickets on sale for Team AB members. Got that part sorted.
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I think limited tickets went on sale for season ticket holders and Club affiliates or something?
Although I thought they were being released in stages like the RWC and the test ballots were not out yet?
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Sorry, been offline.
Got it through season ticket passes. If you had an Eden Park pass for this year and resubscribe, you get tickets thrown in.
Presales are ONLY for the non-test match games
@nzzp said in B&I Lions 2017:
Got it through season ticket passes. If you had an Eden Park pass for this year and resubscribe, you get tickets thrown in.
Presales are ONLY for the non-test match games
Yeah I just renewed my membership
I believe the Balcony Bar membership is already sold out. North Lounge membership would get new members the Lions tickets (2*Test & Blues) as well as all the other rugby and cricket
I believe normal ground membership just gets you priority purchase for the Lions
