Sarries add Hong Kong to 'world tour'

[TRF_Cymro]

Premiership champions Saracens will make their debut in Hong Kong in June when they take on a star-studded Barbarians team.

http://www.planetrugby.com/story/0,25883,3823_7522859,00.html
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[Nielsch]

Hopefully this'll go better than their South African venture...

 

[Feicarsinn]

God I hate Saracens. You're based in London(ish) and therefore have about a catchment of 12 million people. Instead of trying to get a proper ground sorted and trying the bring the local population around to us let's waste our time playing some moronic game in front a load of ex-pat's half the world away. Idiots.

 

[Shaggy]

God I hate Saracens. You're based in London(ish) and therefore have about a catchment of 12 million people. Instead of trying to get a proper ground sorted and trying the bring the local population around to us let's waste our time playing some moronic game in front a load of ex-pat's half the world away. Idiots.

... Come now Feic, you know that Hong Kong is only used for meaningful games like the All Blacks V Wallabies Bledisloe cup matches.

... Oh ... wait a minute

 

[Peat]

God I hate Saracens. You're based in London(ish) and therefore have about a catchment of 12 million people. Instead of trying to get a proper ground sorted and trying the bring the local population around to us let's waste our time playing some moronic game in front a load of ex-pat's half the world away. Idiots.

In fairness to Saracens, they've been sorting a proper ground within London (Copthall in Barnet) and pressing hard for it to happen. They do a fair amount of work trying to bring in the local population, including the games in Wembley. And given the poor state of the game in terms of supporter numbers and revenue in England, I can't completely blame them for trying to go outside the box a little.

I mean, I still loathe them, and shat like this is part of the reason, but there's two sides to the story and Saracens are genuinely trying a lot of good things.

 

[welshglory]

I actually really admire what Sarries are doing as an organisation. They are very adventurous in trying to broaden their markets and they look after their players very well. Saying that they still play an awful brand of rugby!

 

[Robert Prosser]

Rugby is going the way of football where teams tour asian countries in pre season for the revenue, packed stadiums more money etc, its been going on in football for years and rugby has started to act like football in many ways lately.

 

[Saintjay]

Rugby is going the way of football where teams tour asian countries in pre season for the revenue, packed stadiums more money etc, its been going on in football for years and rugby has started to act like football in many ways lately.

Yes it has been going on in football for years and here is why. Take a look at these figures. Manchester United have an estimated 300 million fans world wide, 190 million of them are in Asia, Vietnam alone has around 19 million Man Utd fans. That's why they tour Asia and do the pre-season stuff. It is a shame that rugby has been so slow to try and get into this market in a big way. I do not think it is a bad thing for rugby to follow football in this.

I don't think some people on here have any idea of the potential market out there and what good it could do. If Saracens could just get a small bite of that, well it's going to be good for them and good for rugby in general.

 

[Teh Mite]

Notwithstanding that neither Nigel Wray nor SAIL are exactly hard up. Sarries need more money the same way Andrew Sherridan needs to be shitter at propping.

 

[Saintjay]

Notwithstanding that neither Nigel Wray nor SAIL are exactly hard up. Sarries need more money the same way Andrew Sherridan needs to be shitter at propping.

I take it you saw him get carded yesterday then

 

[Teh Mite]

Yes, I was indeed in attendance to witness his and Buckleys heads simultaneously pop out of their own backsides.