Argentina Invited To Join Tri-nations
Rugby’s Tri-Nations tournament is set to be expanded after Argentina were invited to join South Africa, New Zealand and Australia in an expanded southern hemisphere championship from 2012.
The Tri-Nations governing body SANZAR announced they had extended a conditional invitation to the Pumas to join them in an annual four-nations tournament after their breakthrough performance at the last World Cup.
The invitation is only conditional and still has to be approved by SANZAR’s broadcasters, but represents the first step towards including Argentina in the tournament.
Argentina have been pushing for inclusion in the southern hemisphere’s major tournaments since they finished third at the 2007 World Cup, ahead of New Zealand and Australia, despite not being part of a regular international competition.
They were overlooked for inclusion in the southern hemisphere’s Super provincial competition, which will be increased from 14 to 15 teams from 2011, but SANZAR officials left open the door for possible inclusion in the Tri-Nations.
They have also promised to offer places to the top Argentine players, who usually ply their trade in the rich European club competitions, in the Super 15.
The invitation is conditional upon a number of assurances that Argentina will field their best players and the UAR come up with a satisfactory financial package.
Under the proposed format for the Four Nations, each team would play each other home and away, giving all countries six games and a total of 12 matches overall.
The series would be played over eight or nine weeks from mid-August except in World Cup years, when it would start a month earlier and run over a slightly shorter period.
