The full story....

Moffett  believes rugby has reached saturation point at the highest level. He says, "The answer may lie in replacing the rugby World Cup with something a bit better on an annual basis in the autumn period involving more teams," Moffett told ONE News in New Zealand.

Moffett says that the World Cup is a fatally flawed competition because only a limited number of teams can win it, "I can tell you that the winners of the World Cup in 2023 will come from five teams, now that can't be good.

"So lets look to see if something better can be put into place. I don't have the answers to that but at the moment I don't need to have the answers, I'm asking the questions."

Moffett is also concerned about the way that rugby has bowed down to Rupert Murdoch and his Newscorp demands "Too much money is being sucked out by the professional game and the fans, being asked to watch more and more rugby on television or live, are suffering burnout. There's no doubt about that"

Moffett also points to the dwindling attendance numbers at various grounds around the world like when the NZRU failed to fill Bledisloe Cup tests this year and Ellis Park in South Africa where a record low number of people attended a South Africa vs Australia match.

"The most valuable sporting tournament outside of the Olympic Games and the soccer World Cup is the NFL football in America and that's played for 13 weeks, and that's not about quantity, that's about quality."

"People have got to remember this argument somewhere, it's not just about money it's about quality and it's about engaging the fans."he says.

The Rugby World cup is however rugby's most succesful tournament and rarely sees empty seats while the Tri nations is a tournament with dwindling attendance numbers. Moffett also forgets that under his control after Wales won the Six Nations they ended up with nine sell-outs in a row of 74,000 spectators.

England has just increased the size of Twickenham which is now the World's largest rugby stadium and even though England are at an all time low they enjoyed a sell out season so it would appear that the attendance problems predominantly lie in the Southern hemisphere.