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Good to see that Germany (17-28 loss to Georgia) and Poland (8-20 loss to Romania) were both competitive as well. Seems like the tier 3 European countries are on the rise and that augurs well for the 24 team world cup.

Why not? Why does it matter that much where say half the players come from if they're living in and playing for your city/region and showing pride in the jersey etc? If you look at most of the biggest sports clubs in the world they don't have many locally produced players at all, and it doesn't...

It's only worth considering if it would actually keep the Rebels alive. If it brings in monetary support from world rugby and governments, while acting as a pathway for both PI AND Victorian/Australian players then maybe it could be viable.

What if the merged team was still called the Melbourne Rebels but half the squad had to be eligible for Samoa or Tonga? The rest of the squad predominantly Australian players, with an emphasis on locally produced guys.

This is such a no brainer. It's like a WWE storyline at this point, Eddie is the perfect bad guy. Organise a joint press conference with Eddie and a couple of Wallabies / RA reps taking shots at each other. Start Michael Hooper and Quade just for the heat, or at least involved in some way. It...

I think they should add 1 extra European qualifier and 1 extra American qualifier and then select the rest through a repechage. The next best Asian and African teams have been too weak over the last few years. Kenya were hammered in the repechage tournament last year by Portugal and the US, and...

I think Italy suffer a little from almost only playing tier 1 teams. A better structure would have them, as well as others around that level playing close to an equal number of games against both higher and lower ranked teams every year.

Yeah I think it's an improvement for the majority of the top 24 nations. The biggest winners being Japan, Fiji and the bottom of the 2nd tier. It's the handful of teams just outside the top 12 that are maybe losing out a little bit.

I think it actually is worse in the years the tournament is played. At the moment a lot of the 6 nations teams will play a T2 team in the window, and then have a 4th game against the Wallabies or All Blacks outside the window. That won't be possible now, and I doubt the smaller teams will be...

There'll be 12 games per round, I'd guess they'll play 3 games on both Saturdays and Sundays, and no more than 2 games any other day. So that would mean at least 5 days of games per week during the pool phase.

When could they play these extra tests that the likes of Georgia could be involved in? Isn't the release window only 3 weekends in both months, and they'll need all 6 for the new tournament? I don't think playing tests outside the window is really an option for T2 teams with a lot of France...

While that's true for the lower ranked tier 2 teams, it's evidently not true for the top few. How are the likes of Georgia, Portugal, Samoa, Tonga etc supposed to improve if they don't get to play at least some games against better teams in the July/November windows or have realistic...

I think it'd be fine if the promotion/relegation was automatic, rather than through a playoff. 2 up 2 down every time would create so much more interest in both the battle to avoid relegation and the battle for promotion in the 2nd tier. With the playoff there is such a big advantage for the...

Yeah, it's a silly argument, obviously the Wallabies would be a lot stronger if there was only one rugby code and all the athletes suited to rugby played it from a young age. Plenty of people make the opposite dumb argument as well though - that if rugby league didn't exist the Wallabies would...

Should have been a penalty the other way, so it's a 6 point swing. It came up on the screen before the kick too, are TMO's not able to intervene on penalty calls?

I think it's just about expected value. They'll typically take the gimme shots at goal, because the expected value is pretty close to 3. But if it's wider and it's say a kick you might expect to make 50-60% of the time, then the expected value is only 1.5-1.8. If they kick for touch they must...

The points difference for each team in the pool really showcases this, by far the closest in the tournament: +85 (Wales) +5 (Fiji) -1 (Australia) -39 (Portugal) -49 (Georgia). And it's crazy that Wales biggest win in the pool was against us. You'd have got massive odds if there'd been a market...

On the other hand England were lucky to beat Samoa and Fiji have been a little better than Samoa pretty consistently. I think Fiji struggled with the pressure of expectation against Georgia and Portugal. Against England they'll be underdogs with nothing to lose and it wouldn't surprise me if...

That already exists (Rugby Europe Championship), but it doesn't give them exposure to the top teams. With seemingly no appetite to expand the 6 nations, having a larger European Cup once every 4 years (so keep the 6 nations and REC in the other 3) might be more palatable. Asia-Pacific Cup...

Portugal have been great all tournament, and brilliant to watch. Fiji not at their best, especially their handling, hopefully they can step up against England. But full credit to Portugal, they've been the surprise of the tournament and outperformed expectations in every game. Really feels...