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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Melhor Time" data-source="post: 401959" data-attributes="member: 20116">Not the fault of France or anyone else and certainly not for them to pay the debt.  Utterly not true. Argentina wanted to continue hosting the likes of Australia, South Africa and New Zealand once every four years in a November test or a June test. The idea was shut down and not by the UAR or the IRB.... Furthermore, I had personal contact with the NZRU several years ago about this exact problem of New Zealand sending a side every year to play in Wales and almost always win big but play in Argentina far less despite having much more competitive matches. The response was that there are factors other than ability to consider such as economics. Fact - Wales pay NZ for the match, Argentina donÂ´t.  1. Never playing them when they can call upon all their players.  2. Never playing in the Pacific Islands. 3. Always playing in winter and will again vs Fiji this year.  4. Those opting to play for the Islands and not the All Blacks find themselves struggling to keep their Super Rugby contracts.  Thats one explanation but not the only one. Its about making profits, no doubnt there. The same unions refuse to select overseas based players and the claim is that it damages the Wallaby or All Black jersey. Obviously there is more to it than that or else why play a friendly in a Chinese or Japanese city? Curiously, New Zealand could have played Argentina in Barcelona and got more fans than they did for Hong Kong. Or in Dubai vs Fiji and again..... same result. My suggestion is think better - look to make more money by expanding the size of the pie in terms of friends. There is a lot of money to be made this way. Argentina and Fiji were Quarter Finalists last time around after all.  Weak and angry case?  New Zealand have never ever played an offical test in Fiji. One four occassions there have been non-international games in Fiji vs NZ XVÂ´s but never a test match. The most recent time was in 1984. Since then NZ have hosted Fiji four times. There was one occassion when Fiji could have hosted NZ but the unions agreed to play it in NZ in 2002. Vs Tonga it is as follows: three games in history. Two at World CupÂ´s. None in Tonga. most recent match was in 2000 at North Harbour. Vs Samoa it is as follows: five games in history. None at World Cups. None played in Samoa - all played in New Zealand.  The facts speak for themselves. New Zealand has never played a single test match in the Pacific Islands. The same cuontry wantÂ´s a payout from the Europeans. Looks greedy to me.  I have nothing against NZ but dislike the power that few unions have over the vast majority.</blockquote>

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