Today saw the last of 3 rugby away matches for the Northern Hemisphere teams playing in the Southern Hemisphere and the next matches will see the Southern Hemisphere head north in November. The finals will be played in London with 6 games over 3 days once those matches have been completed. The question is who will watch the first 2 matches because the teams involved will have nothing to play for and they are the weak ones.

I understand where you are coming from here, for a seasoned fan who knows the lay of the land, the frustration around non tier 1 teams in Rugby Union is pretty painful, the lack of competition in some matches is pretty dire but I think we're being too dismissive of generic fans who just want to be part of the spectacle. In London, i'm convinced the tickets will be sold, don't underestimate the pull of national pride. The support during the 6 Nations is incredible.

There is a high possibility both New Zealand and South Africa will go through to the finals unbeaten which kind of makes a mockery of this tournament. The Northern Hemisphere will have a second bite at the cherry with the number one ranked Northern Hemisphere team will play the number one ranked Southern Hemisphere team so this rules out a semi final with the possibility of two Southern Hemisphere teams playing against each other. Surely the fans would prefer the top two teams battling it out not caring on their hemisphere.

Yeah 100%, it is most definitely BS that the two best teams will not end up playing each other even if they are both Southern Hemisphere, rigging the competition to make sure at least one Northern Hemisphere side goes through to the final is just silly. If i try to be really really sympathetic I can see that the organizers are trying to provide more exposure for certain teams but it's still a stretch. There is always the potential for upsets, a stupid penalty a red card here or there, in the last world cup 2023 Fiji v Australia springs to mind.

With this being a new tournament having to have 5 teams in each pool the quality and standards are just not there and depending on which teams you play at home or away with the advantage of playing the weaker teams away. I would rather see a top 4 playing each other both home and away which would be fairer for all teams plus an extra 2 matches for extra revenue. The top 4 would be selected on world rankings.

The only way I see this working is if some of the more professional teams don't take the outings as seriously and play some B String players to get them some caps under their belt, but that's still very unlikely as the top sides do not dick about.

There are a few aspects worth mentioning, the potential benefit to lower Tier teams having more regular exposure to top flight competition and also my own personal favourite angle, getting to watch other rugby styles on display. Appreciated Fiji doesn't win very much but their brand of off the shoulder, keep it alive, pass rugby, that is far less structured than other sides is properly entertaining to watch.

One thing i'm curious about, we now have 'The Nations Championship', we also have 'The Rugby World Cup' and locally we also have 'The Six Nations'. What damage is this new scope of international play going to have on domestic leagues, as players are vacuumed out to spent more and more time on International duty. Those Clubs with less Top flight players could end up benefiting in the long run?