Sanzar wants to shorten season
December 1, 2001

South Africa, New Zealand and Australia are considering a move to finish their international season by the end of October.

The possible move comes after the Wallabies, Springboks and All Blacks all had to endure lengthy breaks following the end of the Tri-Nations competition before making their tours to Europe.

"We are not making any excuses for being well beaten by France and England and there is a lot of contributors to what was very much a below standard expected performance," ARU chief executive John O'Neill said.

"(But) we do end up playing our rugby over a long period of time, but no one is pretending that the players are being overplayed."

When asked to assess Australia's performances in 2001, O'Neill says the team was on track to an almost perfect rating after retaining the Bledisloe Cup and Tri-Nations, but took some of the gloss off with the losses to England and France.

"I would have to give us a seven out of ten, it was nine out of ten before the European tour," O'Neill said. "This has to be looked on as part of the cycle."

"We have had three years of sustained success from 1999 to 2001, three years as the best team in the world - even at the 31st of October the Wallabies were given the trophy as the best team in the world."

"I think 2001 has been a wonderful year and I don't think you go from the best team in the world to number five in a matter of three weeks. It is a timely wake up call to analyse where we are going and what we've been doing."

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