LEINSTER SENIOR COACH STUART Lancaster says he would support the formation of a new Club World Cup in the future.
Earlier this month, EPCR – the organising body of the Heineken Champions Cup and Challenge Cup – revealed that it has spoken with its shareholders about a global club competition that could take place once every four years.
Fédération Française de Rugby president Bernard Laporte has suggested that any such competition should take place annually, although his idea that it would replace the Champions Cup has proven unpopular.
However, Lancaster can see sense in a Club World Cup forming as the global rugby calendar is discussed during the current global shutdown of the sport.
The Leinster coach imagines his team taking on the likes of New Zealand’s Crusaders, who have won the last three Super Rugby titles, in huge games that would appeal to most existing rugby fans and potentially bring new ones into the game.
“Yeah, of course,” said Lancaster yesterday when asked if he would support a Club World Cup. “From a club point of view, with the magic wand and the new global season that we’ll all hopefully see in the future, that would be brilliant.
“It would be brilliant to actually do that, to actually create some form of competition – whether it’s the winners of each league or the top four or whatever.
“I wonder whether TV and the drive for growing the game would want that. I think they would, personally.
“I don’t know how you’d do it. Obviously, I’m not privy to all that sort of stuff but a chance for Leinster to play the Crusaders, for example – who wouldn’t want to watch a game like that?”
Many rugby supporters are equally as enthusiastic about the prospect of a Club World Cup in the future but, right now, the sport is simply focused on getting whatever it can from 2020.
The entire sport remains on pause amidst the Covid-19 crisis and Lancaster pointed out that Leinster and the other Irish provinces will have to move in “baby steps” if and when they can return to training collectively, starting in small groups of four or five players and working up from there. When games will be allowed on these shores again remains unclear.
“From our point of view, something is better than nothing but, equally, nobody wants to rush that process,” said Lancaster. “We’re all aware of the seriousness of the situation in society. We will do what is right for society not for sport.”
