Geographies of scale in international rugby union

Argentina has emerged as one of the top ten rugby teams in the world and became the first country from outside of the eight foundation unions to compete in the semi-final of a world cup competition in 2007. This paper assesses the geographies of scale in international rugby and considers Argentina's place within the contemporary game. It puts forward an analysis of the above within a framework shaped by the professionalisation, postmodernisation, and globalisation of the sport. The notion of scale, initially complemented by an outline of core and periphery, attempts to tease out the spatial isolations surrounding professional rugby since 1995. The work concludes by assessing what the proposed inclusion of Argentina in an extended Tri-Nations competition will mean to the wider international rugby setting.