The Sharks have been approached by the Crusaders about playing their match on March the 25th at Twickenham in London.

The Crusaders cannot play their scheduled matches at AMI Stadium as it was damaged by the earthquake that hit Christchurch last month.

Their second round match against the Hurricanes was cancelled and the Crusaders played the Waratahs last week in Nelson where they will also host the Brumbies this weekend.

The Crusaders next home match is on the 25th of March as they play the Highlanders in Dunedin next week.

Sharks CEO Brian van Zyl says that he has been approached by his Crusaders counterpart about playing the game in London.

“It is under discussion but we will only make a decision on whether to accept after our game against the Rebels in Melbourne on Friday,” Van Zyl told the Witness.

“While we understand their difficulties, we must make a rugby decision that is best for the Sharks’ campaign.”

“It must be a decision in the best interests of the team and our stakeholders.”

The Crusaders are looking at the match as a money spinner as they cannot afford to keep playing matches in stadiums with a capacity which is about half of what they normally get.

The problem with moving the match is that the Sharks would have to agree to it as they would have to fly for 24 hours from New Zealand to London for the match and then after the match fly for 11 hours to Johannesburg and then on to Cape Town to play the Stormers the next weekend.

However rugby players in the modern day especially Super rugby players are accustomed to long haul flights between matches.

An advantage for the Sharks is that London is on a similar time zone to South Africa so the Sharks would not suffer too much with jet lag.

The 82,000 seater Twickenham stadium would not doubt be filled with ex-pat New Zealanders, South Africans and even Australians and the Sharks could expect a cut from the game for the inconvenience of flying.

The travel schedule favours the Crusaders as they have a by after the Sharks match which gives them more time to recover from the travel and jetlag.

The Sharks would have the advantage of playing the Chiefs on a Friday while the Crusaders play on the Saturday which gives the Sharks an extra day recovery before the match.

Crusaders CEO Hamish Riach said: “We can’t get through our year on 10 500 people every week (in the smaller stadiums in outer Canterbury) so we want to do something big and dramatic.”

The match is scheduled to kick off at 0635 GMT on Friday the 25th of March which is hardly suitable for playing a match in London but as there is no match Super Rugby scheduled for the Friday night the kick off could be delayed 12 hours.

London is becoming a popular city for exhibition matches with sports like American Football (NFL) taking the sport to London and now hold a match in London annually and it has proved to be such a huge success.

The NFL matches in London have grown the market outside it’s traditional borders of the USA and a Super Rugby match in London could have the effect for Super Rugby.

However, the RFU want enough time to be able to market the game and sell tickets which suggests that April or June might be a better time to host the match.

Twickenham plan to re-lay the pitch in June ahead of England’s World Cup warm-up Test against Wales in August but they have suggested that they could work around this potential fixture.

The RFU would also need clearance from the Police to stage the match as it falls on the same day as the Harlequins vs Gloucester Aviva Premiership next door