With more South African teams joining the PRO14 to make it a 16-team Rainbow Cup competition, it can only be a matter of time before there is a move to get South Africa on board with the Six Nations.
It has always puzzled me why it has never happened before given that it is an easier trip to and from South Africa to Europe than any of the other Rugby Championship nations.
The flight times are not that much different with Europe (around 11hrs 30mins) roughly the same as Australia and Argentina with New Zealand taking an extra four hours – but the time zones are a completely different matter.
South Africa is on a similar time zone (longitude) as England, at just one hour in front like mainland Europe. This means no jet lag to get over, so it's easier for the players to adjust after the flight. Unlike when flying round the latitude of the world to Australia with an eight hour time difference or New Zealand ten hours.
Realistically, once modern day travel made it an easy flight, it should have been South Africa that joined the Five Nations not Italy, but the failure of World Rugby to guide international competitions by only concentrating on the foundation eight Unions ended up failing everyone.
The Rugby Championship should involve Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Island nations and Japan, while Argentina should be involved in an Americas competition between the USA, Canada and Uruguay.
Creating competition between nations in reasonably close proximity to each other would help to grow the game and the fan base. Long distant travel makes that difficult for all. As for concerns about travelling fans, should SA join the Six Nations, with over a quarter of a million South Africans currently living in the UK that really would not be an issue.
The hard part would be how to incorporate them in the current structure without too much disruption to the European game, as making it a seven nations competition just wouldn't work.
Even a pool system would be difficult unless another team, say Georgia, were also added to make two pools of four. The winner of each pool would play the runner-up of the other with the same for third and bottom teams. Then a finals day where winners play each other and losers play each other with the bottom team being relegated to tier two.
There would still be only five games for each team so it would not incur any player welfare issues. But it would provide a route for aspiring nations towards a tier one competition.
Until, and if, that happens, there must be more games between Japan, the Pacific Island nations and the three remaining Rugby Championship sides to improve the game for all.
