Southern Hemisphere look at tour alternatives
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Australia and New Zealand are looking at alternatives to the northern hemisphere touring teams visiting Australia and New Zealand in June. This comes after the disregard shown by northern hemisphere teams who have sent understrength teams here for the last few years.
This year saw one of the weakest touring teams to tour the respective countries in a critically undermanned French side that sported a team of virtual unknowns. The northern hemisphere teams are in a tough spot as they are sending teams at the end of a long and tough domestic competition and often the sides that arrive in Australia and New Zealand are struck by injuries and stars looking for a end of season break.
This has resulted in touring sides being cannon fodder for the big southern hemisphere teams. The northern hemisphere recently made some commitments after pressure from the ARU and NZRU to send their best sides and had recently assured their domestic competitions would finish by the end of May. However, despite this the French will not conclude their competition until the 6th June so it makes the whole commitment a joke.
In response to this the ARU ans NZRU have proposed a possible southern hemisphere plan where the All Blacks would tour Australia in June and play the Waratahs, Reds and Brumbies. This would be followed by the Wallabies going to New Zealand to play the Hurricanes, Blues and Crusaders.
Should this proceed it will likely be a huge positive for the region as it will draw huge crowds and return the ARU budget to a better position after they have taken a loss in recent in recent times especially with the French team that toured this year drawing lacklustre crowds.
Currently planned fo 2009, France are scheduled to play two Tests in New Zealand and one in Australia while Italy are also scheduled to tour Australia.