The United Rugby Championship is exploring a type of draft system to enhance competitiveness throughout the league.
Italian aspect Zebre misplaced all 18 video games this season as they completed backside of the desk in consecutive seasons.
Leinster topped the desk after the common season and solely misplaced twice – together with the semi-final to Munster.
Chief government Martin Anayi says the URC must “assume laterally” about bettering the weaker groups’ requirements.
“There is likely to be a capability to draft in gamers from the opposite unions who do not get sport time,” he informed BBC 5 dwell. “That’s 100% [a conversation].”
One of many greatest defeats Zebre suffered this season got here by the hands of the Bulls, who beat them 78-12. The Dragons, who completed second from backside, solely managed to win 4 video games from 18.
Anayi says a scarcity of jeopardy on the backside of the desk is a results of a “closed league”, one with out promotion and relegation.
“There’s a pure filter system to relegation, one workforce goes down and the workforce that comes up is filled with expectation as a result of they’ve gained the league under; we do not have that in a closed league,” he added.
“Our job is to search out methods of serving to the likes of Zebre and the Italian Federation to make them extra aggressive.
“In American sports activities they’ve a system for doing that, the draft system. We do not have that, so we have to assume a bit extra laterally about that query.
“Eire have a lot expertise they’re attempting to work out how does everyone get game-time, whereas Scotland have two groups in order that creates a bottleneck for them.
“So these are avenues we try to discover. We’re establishing a high-performance think-tank to assist us with that query, from a league-wide perspective.
“Zebre has been on the backside of our desk for a wee whereas and we have to try to do one thing to assist them.”
Anayi says there’s sufficient collaboration to make sure a draft system might work, with out issues from different unions about bettering rival groups.
“We’ve got that collaboration at union degree. They see the league is healthier and extra commercially viable if all of the groups are aggressive,” he added.
“And secondly they need the Six Nations to be aggressive. Our unions can see that serving to Zebre is an effective factor each for the league and likewise for the Six Nations.”
‘League wants completely different winners’
Leinster have dominated the league in recent times, successful 4 titles in row between 2018 and 2021, however that monopoly has been damaged over the previous two seasons.
Whereas the Dublin province solely misplaced as soon as within the common marketing campaign, they had been overwhelmed within the semi-final by Munster, a 12 months on from dropping a last-four assembly in opposition to Bulls.
“They’ve been overwhelmed twice in play-off format within the URC, and that is what we’d like, not for Leinster to be overwhelmed, however to have jeopardy,” Anayi added.
“We’re going to have a workforce that is not Leinster successful it [for the last] two years, after they gained the earlier 4.
“I feel it is good to see a special title on the trophy annually.”
Stormers host Munster on this 12 months’s showpiece, in entrance of a sell-out crowd in Cape City, with Anayi praising the influence of the South African franchises on and off the sector.
“They’ve simply been nice for the match,” he mentioned.
“And it is inbuilt South Africa too. [At first] they did not know what URC was, they did not know what the Champions Cup or the Problem Cup was, however we have seen the Stormers construct from 20,000 [attendances], to 30,000, by 40,000 and now we’ve got obtained our first sell-out of 57,000.
“It has been an incredible couple of years.”
