zulu
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A couple of interesting quotes by a fella called grayham taken from another thread.
New Zealand is a small country of nearly 4 million, yet it has the third highest number of registered rugby players in the world behind Japan and Australia. In fact it is only 10,000 players behind Aus - a country of 20 million.
This does not say much for playing numbers worldwide and probably explains the All Blacks dominance of the game for such a long time. Australia has it's highest number of union players in it's history (which isn't much at 140,000) and is now competitive with the All Blacks. If Australia could break through the private school barrier and double their playing numbers, the All Blacks would never win another Bledisloe.
Therefore the All Black's success isn't that phenomenal when the real facts are looked at. They are the only true rugby-crazed country of a decent size in the world. God help them if a country such as Australia had AFL or league-type playing numbers.
Worldwide rugby playing numbers were in the SMH today.
To finish another interesting comment by grayham.
Any comments ?
The only way the All Blacks would slip off the radar is if RU took off globally leaving small nations like NZ behind. After this WC that possibility looks extremely remote.
New Zealand is a small country of nearly 4 million, yet it has the third highest number of registered rugby players in the world behind Japan and Australia. In fact it is only 10,000 players behind Aus - a country of 20 million.
This does not say much for playing numbers worldwide and probably explains the All Blacks dominance of the game for such a long time. Australia has it's highest number of union players in it's history (which isn't much at 140,000) and is now competitive with the All Blacks. If Australia could break through the private school barrier and double their playing numbers, the All Blacks would never win another Bledisloe.
Therefore the All Black's success isn't that phenomenal when the real facts are looked at. They are the only true rugby-crazed country of a decent size in the world. God help them if a country such as Australia had AFL or league-type playing numbers.
Worldwide rugby playing numbers were in the SMH today.
To finish another interesting comment by grayham.
The only reason RU is competitive between the two countries is that "Australia" is really "NSW/QLD private schools united")
Any comments ?