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Yeah I thought that was actually perfectly set up. Japan could easily have 2 tries already if it weren't for a couple of sketchy calls. Now they have to take advantage of this 2 man advantage. Keeping it too tight.

Ridiculous that didn't go to the TMO. Bet it would in a match featuring tier 1 teams. Didn't look like a clear and obvious forward pass to me.

Both teams will have a chance to progress if South Africa wins too, though Japan would have to rely on Scotland losing to Samoa.

I highly doubt it. The only way it could be possible IMO is if South Africa lose to Scotland tonight. But there's a very big incentive to top the pool so we should play our best team. Come 2nd and our path is likely to be South Africa in the quarters, New Zealand in the semis. And I don't...

That was a Georgia B/C team as well. Georgia use the Tbilisi Cup as a development competition for younger players. Georgia have improved quite a lot on their own but imagine how much more they could improve if they were part of a tier 1 competition. Or even if they just got to play a couple of...

Geez imagine if Georgia's lineout had been working! Might have kept the margin under 20. If the AB's play like that in the quarters they'll lose.

Lacey was terrible but Fiji also have themselves to blame for continually losing the ball too easily in contact.

I don't disagree with any of that. And I did start this thread. I clearly want to see an expanded tournament. I'd also like to see a lot more 'opening up' of test rugby outside of world cups. But I want to see a world cup where Georgia play New Zealand at full strength, where Romania pick...

My point is that the rotating of the squads isn't good. I don't mind the 6 team pool option otherwise and I agree with the potential benefits (though I do think it might drag on a bit). But the main problem is that it makes a mockery of the game when you have B teams selected at the world cup...

The reason is they expanded to 32 teams. Rugby will hopefully expand to 32 as well in time but isn't in a position to go straight from 20 to 32. Soccer went from 16 to 24 to 32. They had a different format in the first year of 24 teams (1982) - 6 pools of 4, top 2 from each made it to the 2nd...

So pretty much 3 weeks - or 4 weekends. You're talking about playing 5 games over the same time period. It'd be tough, and teams would have to rotate their squads. The alternative is 3 pool games per team played over about 15 or 16 days, followed by 4 weekends of knockout games.

The pool stage is currently held over 3 weeks. 4 games per team are fit in by having teams back up after 4 or 5 days, which leads to teams resting players and targeting certain matches over others (and you end up getting situations where the likes of Romania and Georgia end up playing weakened...

It happened in the 1986 and 1990 tournaments. Why is that such a big deal? I know it's not perfect but IMO it's a minor problem that is more than made up for by the advantages of such a format. We're talking about the teams coming 3rd in the pool. Teams have it in their control to come top 2...

4 pools of 6 takes too long as well. Luck of the draw will always be part of any cup tournament. I don't see what the problem is with the 4 best 3rd place getters going through. If it was good enough for the soccer world cup then it's good enough for the RWC. Those 4 teams that manage to...

Then you'd have match ups like New Zealand vs Namibia and Australia vs Uruguay played twice, which is completely pointless. You'd also have the existing problems associated with an odd number of teams per group and you'd need extra time to finish the tournament.

There's no way the main world cup will be reduced to 16 teams. The secondary tournament would be ignored. And Tier 2 and 3 teams won't improve just by playing each other. They already do that. A team like Romania would go from playing Ireland in front of 90,000 people at Wembley with the...

Good effort by Namibia. They've been a lot more competitive than I thought they'd be before the tournament. I think they'd beat Uruguay.

Part of the reason England lost to Wales is because they kept kicking away the ball. I'd be surprised if they kick it as much against us.

If they take night flights they can just sleep most of the way and there's not a big issue.

That shouldn't be much of a problem as it's basically the same time zone.