Lee Stensness: Let's look to Japan to see how good the Super 14 really is

With the final of the Super 14 last night and the final of the Northern Hemisphere equivalent, The Heineken Cup, decided last weekend, it seems logical to stage a decider between the two champions to establish who is the best non-test side in the world.

It's a direct copy of what used to happen in football, where the winners of the Champions League (the European Cup) would play the winner of the South American equivalent, the Copa Libertadores, in the Intercontinental Cup.

Football has since amended that format to a mini-tournament which includes the winners from the six FIFA confederations, but for rugby the format of the then Intercontinental Cup is the one that could be applied.

The Intercontinental Cup was also known as the Toyota Cup as it was sponsored by the motoring giant and staged in Japan. Rugby could shamelessly imitate that, sponsor-dependent of course.

There would be huge benefits to staging the match in Japan. It would raise the profile of rugby in that lucrative and developing market; it would provide a neutral venue; and the travel requirements of the teams would be similar.

The major obstacle to such a fixture would be the already crowded rugby calendar, and specifically the conflict with the start of the mid-year international programme. However, given that an intercontinental match would require IRB endorsement and it is the IRB who has the power to alter the international programme, it surely would be possible to accommodate such a high-profile and prestigious game by delaying the international programme a week.

Essentially, if the IRB was interested in such a fixture as a global showcase for rugby, it could tweak the timing of the other fixtures it controls.

Perhaps I'm over-simplifying things given I don't know how the IRB goes about business. But other issues, such as player workload, could be overcome by the yen that would be generated and shared, as seems to be the case with the added Twickenham international the All Blacks will play this year.

From a player's point of view an intercontinental match would be an exciting concept in terms of prestige and the natural curiosity that exists to see which competition really is best - and the money would be an attractive bonus.

For rugby followers in both hemispheres, that debate about which competition is stronger could be answered yearly. But, more importantly, it would be a high-profile showcase for rugby in the big money markets of Europe and Japan.