Six Nation expansion to benefit Georgia and Romania

Octavian Morariu has led calls for the Six Nations to consider expanding the tournament in order to give emerging European nations such as Georgia and Romania greater exposure to international rugby at the highest level.

Morariu, who is the president of the governing body responsible for the sport's promotion, development, organisation and administration on the continent, insists the promise shown by Georgia and Romania at the World Cup has shown they deserve to be given more opportunities to play tier one nations.

As an alternative to the oft-proposed promotion/relegation format for the Six Nations competition, Morariu will instead suggest the tournament should be expanded to at least eight competing nations when World Rugby's congress meets in London this week.

"Teams like Georgia and Romania proved themselves able to compete at the World Cup and need regular fixtures against top European teams," Morariu said.

"We can all see the progress Argentina have made since entering the Rugby Championship.

"Argentina have added value to the game and we believe Georgia and Romania could do the same if they get more games.

"The greatest legacy of this World Cup could be opening the game up to more countries.

"It's not just about promotion and relegation to the Six Nations, it's about opening the competition to more countries, so the competition could become a seven or eight nations.

"We need to see how this can be done because we don't want to damage the Six Nations. The idea is to make it more interesting, competitive and productive.”