Danny Care feels new World 12s competition can make game exciting
Former England scrum-half Danny Care feels the newly proposed World 12s competition can bring a much-needed excitement to the game.
With similarities to cricket's Indian Premier League, the competition owned by World 12s Limited will feature 192 of the world's best players picked via an auction process and is expected to bring an additional £250m revenue into rugby.
The format will see eight franchises play each other and will take place over three weekends in a round-robin format before knockouts. Each squad comprising of 24 members will have predominantly players from Tier 1 teams with at least two players must from Tier 2 nations apart from one international Under-20s player.
With former New Zealand head coach Steve Hansen as the brand ambassador and former chief executive of the Rugby Football Union Ian Ritchie as chairman, the organisers are planning to kick-start the men's competition in England next year with a women's competition also on the pipeline to begin from 2023.
Even though the announcement raised concerns from World Rugby and Premiership Rugby, Care, who represented England in 84 Tests between 2008 and 2018 feels the new competition can induce additional interest to the sport.
"If you watch the majority of international Test matches at the moment, if New Zealand and France aren't playing then it doesn't really excite me, I'll be honest with you." said Care.
"If there are any ways of trying to change that and inspire kids to pick up a rugby ball then I'm all for it.
"I tried to get my son to watch the Lions tour and he was like 'what is this'? I'd like to think our club tries to play in a way that inspires kids to play.
"I know international rugby is very different to club rugby and they say 'you can't play like that in international rugby'. Why not? Why can't you? You can if your coaches let you play like that.
"Maybe the 12s thing is an opportunity for coaches to look at that and think 'maybe we could play more of an expansive game'.
"It's certainly something I'd want to watch and maybe get involved in - if I make the auction!"
