Abolishing the 2nd tier doesn’t make the 3rd tier suddenly 2nd tier.
Not on the playing field at least.
How do your 5 teams get better by just playing each other? Worse yet, if you spread out those players and make it an 8 team comp - as often proposed here - would any of those teams be competitive in any of the professional comps around the world like Super Rugby?
You’re just being wilfully ignorant at this point, as I and many others have said it wouldn’t be just playing each other, there would be a multi nations cup on top, exactly like they do in Europe
We aren’t competitive now ffs, so I hardly think we can get any less competitive. First things first is to build a sustainable comp that Australians can get behind and be passionate about. High performance can be built from there
We are talking about building the foundation of a sustainable rugby identity in Australia, and all you can think about is “NZ hatred”.
NZ rugby was better when they sold out Ranfurly Shield games, provisional pride is what they should lean into as well.