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No French team in next year Hcup?

Does anyone even care about the Anglo-Welsh Cup?
[/b]

No, no they dont. Apart from the welsh teams, which causes the welsh media to go nuts about shitty welsh wins.
 
I think the time should come to turn the HC into a Stanley cup kind of competition.

Just get rid of all domestic cups, playoffs and league trophies and plonk two playoff positions at the top of each league. Force the French at gunpoint to adopt the same season as everyone else.

Keep the name of the HC, just make it a straight playoff knockout competition between the last months of the season.

And there you go, job done. Just then change the name "league" to "conference" (i.e. the English Conference, the Celtic Conference, the French Conference, etc) and then unite all four new "conferences" under a unifying "European Rugby League" banner and hey presto!

A do it yourself standerdised rugby league!
 
I think the time should come to turn the HC into a Stanley cup kind of competition.

Just get rid of all domestic cups, playoffs and league trophies and plonk two playoff positions at the top of each league. Force the French at gunpoint to adopt the same season as everyone else.

Keep the name of the HC, just make it a straight playoff knockout competition between the last months of the season.

And there you go, job done. Just then change the name "league" to "conference" (i.e. the English Conference, the Celtic Conference, the French Conference, etc) and then unite all four new "conferences" under a unifying "European Rugby League" banner and hey presto!

A do it yourself standerdised rugby league!
[/b]

Hee hee :)

That does sound pretty bleak doesn't it.

SB
 
<div class='quotemain'>
I think the time should come to turn the HC into a Stanley cup kind of competition.

Just get rid of all domestic cups, playoffs and league trophies and plonk two playoff positions at the top of each league. Force the French at gunpoint to adopt the same season as everyone else.

Keep the name of the HC, just make it a straight playoff knockout competition between the last months of the season.

And there you go, job done. Just then change the name "league" to "conference" (i.e. the English Conference, the Celtic Conference, the French Conference, etc) and then unite all four new "conferences" under a unifying "European Rugby League" banner and hey presto!

A do it yourself standerdised rugby league!
[/b]

Hee hee :)

That does sound pretty bleak doesn't it.

SB
[/b][/quote]

Its so crazy, it just might work! :lol:

I'm a genius! :bana:
 
<div class='quotemain'>
Does anyone even care about the Anglo-Welsh Cup?
[/b]

No, no they dont. Apart from the welsh teams, which causes the welsh media to go nuts about shitty welsh wins.
[/b][/quote]
Honesty is brilliant sometimes. It seems pointless as the Weslh have Magners and the English have Guinness, and everyone has Heiniken...Anyone else feeling thirsty? mmmmmm Adult beverages....
 
<div class='quotemain'>
<div class='quotemain'>
Does anyone even care about the Anglo-Welsh Cup?
[/b]

No, no they dont. Apart from the welsh teams, which causes the welsh media to go nuts about shitty welsh wins.
[/b][/quote]
Honesty is brilliant sometimes. It seems pointless as the Weslh have Magners and the English have Guinness, and everyone has Heiniken...Anyone else feeling thirsty? mmmmmm Adult beverages....
[/b][/quote]

maybe that's why the French feel so left out, they can't have any boozy competitions in France.
 
This issue isn't going to go away fast especially now that the IRB have pencilled in the world cup for September and October regardless of where it's being played, obviously Summer would have suited the NH teams but the Tri Nations has seen any chance of a Summer world cup go out the window.

What I would suggest though as a compromise, instead of not having the HEC every 4 years, play it in a different format. With 24 teams, you can have a prelim stage with 8 pools of 3, where each team has 1 home and 1 away fixture, that way you only have 3 weekends of pool games as opposed to 6 with 1 being free for that team to play a league match in their own country. The 8 winners then go onto the quarter finals where the tournament proceeds as normal. The pools should also be managed in such a way that no team from the same country are in the same pool.

Since the tv revenue from the HEC is not as high as domestic competitions then the broadcasters would be more inclined to support this than have no competion whatsoever.
 
This looks like a good idea. I would also add the supression of the June tour which follows the RWC in order to give more resting time to the players.
 
You surely can't change the format of the competition every 4 years that would take away the credibility of what has become a great tournament over the last few years.

The problem lies with too many meaningless Internationals and the farce that is the EDF Cup :zzz: where only the Welsh clubs are remotely interested (and 2 of them still couldn't get through their pool, ha-ha-ha-ha....).

While we're on it get rid of the end of season playoffs in England. The fact that a team who can only finish 4th but can be crowned the champions is just silly. People say the play-offs are good because there are Prem games where certain teams are handicapped because of international duty etc, but if we reduce the number of meaningless games (at international AND club level) then this argument is rendered meaningless and we can go back to the top team being crowned champs.
 
It wouldn't be changing the format of the competition, it would merely be changing the rules on when the competition should be held. People would forgive the NH from limiting the HC in a World Cup year, I mean, Rob, what exactly is more important here?

If you got rid of the EDF, the playoffs, limited the summer and autumn internationals to 2 each a year, changed the Six Nations to happen every 2 years and limited the HC in a World Cup year, that would all take the pressure off of a very overworked player base.

Some would say that would be enough to prevent drastic actions such as central contracting from happening in England.
 
If you got rid of the EDF, the playoffs, limited the summer and autumn internationals to 2 each a year, changed the Six Nations to happen every 2 years and limited the HC in a World Cup year, that would all take the pressure off of a very overworked player base.
[/b]

I like everything bar the 6N every 2 years, some things are just sacrosanct.

You surely can't change the format of the competition every 4 years that would take away the credibility of what has become a great tournament over the last few years.[/b]

Well in an ideal world I'd rather keep the tournament in its current format, but if it meant not having any tournament than I'd gladly see it played under a different format, besides tournament formats are being constantly changed.
 
This is the main problem that we have at the momment.

We have a lot of different bodies, unions, comittees, associations and clubs all doing their own little thing, making their own little competitions or leagues and their own little cups.

The problem is, nobody talks to each other over silly little things like scheduling. And because of that, nobody realises that maybe, just maybe, having half of your damn league in the summer might, just might, be a bad idea when a world cup is around the corner.

Like I said, the sooner we get a standard schedule for the entire Northern Hemisphere the better, because the current set up of too many chiefs and not enough indians isn't really working.
 
They need to form:
*I want a large cut of all money made off of this name as I created it today[/i]
 
They need to form:
*I want a large cut of all money made off of this name as I created it today[/i]
[/b]

Sorry New Zealand are one step ahead of you on arguing their case for a cut of the money.
 

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