Raelene Castle backs World League plans

Rugby Australia boss Raelene Castle has thrown her weight behind the proposed World League while also dismissing fears of watering down the World Cup.

Rugby's leading officials have be contemplating a massive change to the make of the rugby calendar - the biggest in fact since the mid 1990s -  Castle has implored her counterparts to think of the greater good of the game.

“We have to be able to make sure we take our own commercial interests and hats of our own 12 countries off for a moment and make sure we do what’s good for rugby,” Castle told reporters in Sydney on Saturday.

“And then we have to make sure we look at all of the game and all of us as individuals, make sure we maintain and grow our current commercial positions.”

The proposed changes which would come into effect either in 2020 or 2021, the World League would see all Test matches count towards a points tally and, at the end of each year, the champions of the northern hemisphere would face the winners of the south in a final.

The new format would see Japan and Fiji join the Rugby Championship. The top teams for each hemisphere would then head into playoffs with two teams eventually reaching a final.

Castle’s comments come just days after the new chief executive of the Six Nations, Benjamin Morel, categorically ruled out the possibility of relegation being added to the championship.

“There will be no relegation mechanism,” Morel told The Times.

“It is not on the agenda.

“It is clear that any adaptations (to the global calendar) will need to be a substantial improvement on the current set-up, which is successful, as the latest autumn series can attest.”

Story via: foxsports.com.au