The Six Nations’ Irish chief executive is uncompromising when it comes to tournament expansion

Is this really good for the overall game?

Italy’s latest performances in this year’s Six Nations has led to questions arising, yet again, regarding their right to compete in the tournament.

Of course, Italy are now under the tutelage of Ireland’s Conor O’Shea who is hoping to make the Azzurri competitive once again, though he has admitted that this will take some time.

Then you have Georgia, the ever-improving nation are now ranked two places above Italy in the world rankings.

The Georgians have had some impressive results last year which included victories over Samoa, Tonga and Fiji.

They also came very close to beating Japan, in addition to their almost routine triumph in the Six Nations B competition, now known as the Rugby Europe International Championship.

The nation on the eastern fringes of Europe is also expected to win this tournament again this year, after recording comprehensive victories over Germany and Belgium so far.

The result of all this has led to calls for Georgia to be included in the Six Nations championship, at the expense of Italy, who have failed to impress in recent years.

However, Six Nations chief executive, John Feehan, told the Daily Mail that there is “no vacancy”.

“It is a closed competition between the six countries, owned and controlled by the six unions concerned,” Feehan said. “There is no vacancy. We’re not looking at including anybody extra. I’m not saying we will never change, but right now we are perfectly happy that we have the six strongest teams in Europe in our competition.” 

This type of opinion has led to the head of Rugby Europe, Octavian Morariu, to regard Feehan as “arrogant”.

“The Six Nations could support European rugby more, but they don’t,” said Morariu. “Staying in a rich old-boys’ club is not the answer. It’s a very arrogant answer. Saying, ‘We are rich, thank you very much and we don’t need you’ is not consistent with the values of our sport.”

Don’t expect this argument to go away, especially if Italy are the unfortunate winners of the wooden spoon come St.Patrick’s weekend.

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