The Singapore super rugby bid to be the 18th Super Rugby Franchise when the competition expands in 2016 is the outright favourite at this stage. The team is likely to be the de-facto pacific island franchise because a large number of the squad is likely to be made up of players eligible to play for Samoa, Fiji, and Tonga. The bid has the full support of the Samoa Rugby Union because the team represents an unprecedented opportunity for the greatest number of Samoa-eligible players to play top level super rugby. The advantage of this is that they still remaining eligible to play for Samoa in both the June and November international windows. The Super Rugby season stops for 3 weeks in June to allow for players to be released to their nations, and the SR season finishes in August, allowing unrestricted access to players for the November international window. Samoa rugbys strategic interests are strengthened even further because Samoan business interests (Samoa Artesian Water) are one of the stakeholders supporting the Singapore bid.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 08:21:34 +0000