Former England and Wallabies coach Eddie Jones believes the R360 rebel league will be good for rugby.
R360 is expected to feature six to eight men’s teams and four women’s teams, and aims to attract top players from around the world to play for its franchises.
The league suffered a setback last week when several major national unions announced that any players who signed for R360 would be ineligible for Test rugby.
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However, R360 still has its supporters, with Jones – now in charge of Japan – the latest to back the breakaway competition spearheaded by former England centre Mike Tindall.
“I think we need it, mate,” Jones told The Times. “You think about what World Series Cricket did for cricket. It changed the whole game from being a drab game to being an exciting game that people wanted to get involved in. And I think that’s part of the problem of rugby at the moment.
“Test match rugby is that. But we need another level that’s an entertainment level that brings more fans and more sponsors and more commercialism into the game to allow our more traditional levels of rugby to continue.”
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He added: “We’ve got to be really, really careful about how the game goes forward. International rugby is thriving, and so we’ve got to make sure that keeps thriving.
“I think the game is going to have to go to [aligned] international windows. Football’s been at it for a lot longer than us. And that’s the reason they have international windows, so they can separate their domestic leagues, look after the domestic leagues, so their best players play in the domestic leagues.
“We know in most of the countries now, apart from maybe France and Japan, domestic rugby is really struggling financially.
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“Top 14 is doing well because of Canal Plus, and in Japan it’s the companies that fund the competition. But everywhere else the game is really struggling. We’ve just seen in America they’re down to, I think, six teams in the MLR. England’s been down to 10 teams now. Super Rugby is running off an oily rag at the moment.
“And then, obviously, 360 sees a vacuum, doesn’t it, to step into domestic rugby.”
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The post Eddie: Rugby needs rebel league appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
Former England and Wallabies coach Eddie Jones believes the R360 rebel league will be good for rugby.
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