24 Team World Cup

[Slim 293]

A bit of a left field idea..........

4 pools of 6 teams...........

Winner of each pool gets a week off following the pool stages...........

Teams that finish 2nd and 3rd in each pool play an elimination round, e.g.:

2nd Pool A v 3rd Pool C
2nd Pool B v 3rd Pool D
2nd Pool C v 3rd Pool A
2nd Pool D v 3rd Pool B

Then the following week we have the quarters with the pool winners v the winner of the elimination finals...........

Then semis, then the Final.

 

[Omar Comin']

The problem would be the length of the tournament. It's very unlikely to increase. That format would need an extra 1-2 weeks.

 

[qwerty51]

The problem would be the length of the tournament. It's very unlikely to increase. That format would need an extra 1-2 weeks.

Yeah it's tough one isn't it. Rugby just needs week turnarounds so we're kinda up against it, no one wants a longer tournament than now, people begin to lose interest.

 

[Slim 293]

The problem would be the length of the tournament. It's very unlikely to increase. That format would need an extra 1-2 weeks.

That's true, and the idea is to try and extend the length of the competition without people losing interest and I think ultimately that can be helped by having more teams advance past the pool stages..........

If you add more teams then you're going to have to extend the competition regardless to squeeze in more pool games.........

 

[Omar Comin']

If you add more teams then you're going to have to extend the competition regardless to squeeze in more pool games...

Not with 6 groups of 4 teams and a round of 16. You'd just have more games during the week in the pool stage. But the two finalists would play the same number of games as they do now.

A 32 team tournament (8 pools of 4), which should hopefully be the ultimate aim, would take the same amount of time.

 

[Marcelo]

I support the tournament with 24 teams. Ok, maybe that's mean to see 100 points again, but like Namibia, those teams (Russia, Spain or whatever) could improve in 10 years and be like the current Namibia (A team who lose vs ABs by 60) and thats is a forward step for them.

The campaign slogan for the 24 team RWC could be "Bring back the 100 point floggings!"

Hahahahahaha you are right. The teams have improved their strength and conditions and that is so good. Even the Tier 3 nations now have an excelent fitness level. That's the main reason why We don't see 100 points easily. Even Namibia against the ABs

 

[Marcelo]

Something like that:

Pool A

New Zealand
Wales
Japan
Russia

Pool B

Australia
Scotland
Uruguay
Spain

Pool C

South Africa
Ireland
Canada
Kenya

Pool D

England
Italy
Samoa
Namibia

Pool E

Argentina
Georgia
Tonga
USA

Pool F

France
Romania
Fiji
Chile

And the formart should be like FIFA World Cup 1990:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_FIFA_World_Cup

The top four third places qualify for the next stage. This will make that the Tier 2/3 teams will strive to take the bonus point against Tier 1/2 nations.

Next stage with 16 teams in a knockout stage, then the quarters, semifinals and the grand final. New markets like Russia, Spain or Chile, more games, more points, a longer tournament. I don't see any risk, is just beneficial from all angles.

A team still have to play seven games to win the WC

 

[Slim 293]

Not with 6 groups of 4 teams and a round of 16.

But how do you get a smooth transition to 16 teams from 6 pools?

 

[Omar Comin']

But how do you get a smooth transition to 16 teams from 6 pools?

It's not completely smooth but you'd just have the best four 3rd place getters go through. Based on points in the pools.

You can't have a perfect format unless you have 16 or 32 teams. The junior world cup for example has 12 teams - 3 pools of 4, and the best 2nd place getter makes the semis with the 3 winners.

 

[Marcelo]

But how do you get a smooth transition to 16 teams from 6 pools?

Just have to copy the FIFA model:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_FIFA_World_Cup

 

[Beer Baron]

You want the qualification based on wins - not who flogged the minnows by the most.

 

[Highlander35]

Then bonus points and points difference act as tie-breakers rather than simply being put into a table of 3rd places.

Besides, by then the bonus point should be +3 tries as it is in the Top14 and NRC, rather than the 4 tries as it is now.

 

[Caputo]

I think this is a good idea and expansion can't hurt.

One of the big game changers has been the intro of 7's to the Olympics with the increase in professional players at the minnows. Example USA and Canada.

Another thought is Continental Championships every four yours like soccer. Asia Pacific an 8 team tournament NZ, AUS, FIJ, SAM, TON, JAP, +2 Maybe Hong Kong, Korea, Cook Islands, PNG, Niu

America was mentioned with Brazil - URU ARG USA CAN BRA CHI BER +1

Maybe we could practice tournament play.

 

[Braveheart81]

You can't have a perfect format unless you have 16 or 32 teams. The junior world cup for example has 12 teams - 3 pools of 4, and the best 2nd place getter makes the semis with the 3 winners.

I think it's more that you need to have a multiple of 4 as the number of pools for it to work out perfectly.

 

[Omar Comin']

Another thought is Continental Championships every four yours like soccer. Asia Pacific an 8 team tournament NZ, AUS, FIJ, SAM, TON, JAP, +2 Maybe Hong Kong, Korea, Cook Islands, PNG, Niu

America was mentioned with Brazil - URU ARG USA CAN BRA CHI BER +1

Maybe we could practice tournament play.

Yeah I would love to see that. You could even just have an extended European Championship (say 12 teams) and a Rest of the world / Continental Championship.

The latter could be 12 or 16 teams - 4 Rugby Championship teams, 6 PNC (Pacific Nations Cup) plus the likes of Uruguay, Chile, Hong Kong, Korea, Namibia and Kenya.

It would give countries like Australia the chance to host a significant multi-nation rugby tournament more often too.

 

[Muglair]

As Papabear says, the more the merrier. Bigger global TV audience, more global interest. The lower nations have really benefited from RWC floggings to slowly lift their standard. On the other hand it is like watching grass grow. It would be nice to think that the IRB would devote a lot of funds from the RWC to facilitating better games for the 2nd tier games so they can challenge. Am I too cynical to suggest the Home Unions and France are happy with the status quo?



Probably my greatest source of pleasure from each RWC is the consistent narrowing of the gap and I think it can only be speeded up by expanding the number of teams but splitting the tournament into a RWC and a Plate. In 2011 I really felt there was a Top 12 and therefore perhaps a 24 team tournament; 2 pools of 6 in the RWC would involve 5 pool games, SF and a Final.



Progress of the game has been good in that there is now pretty much a clear Top 16 or thereabouts. The faster we expand then the faster the global standard will lift. Therefore I would now think 32 teams with 4 pools of 4 contesting the RWC (Fri – Sun) and 4 pools of 4 the Plate (Tue – Thu).



There should be pretty much be no blow out easy games in the Top 16 and a full week turnaround in the pool stages. I suspect you might get some big scores in the Plate pools but note it will be 2023 by then maybe there will be parity there too.



It means reasonable quality rugby virtually every day for the first three weeks and then more rugby games during the knockout stages. The Plate games could be taken all over the host country to smaller venues and great for tourism in the host country.




It would be even better to enable rounds of 16 so that the top plate teams could progress and play the bottom RWC teams but I think that is too complicated. It might create more interest in the Plate and could be achieved by a short turnaround to squeeze the extra round of 16 and still finish before the RWC final and 3rd place play off.

Another alternative would be making seeding and qualifying for the next RWC dependant on results; Top and bottom 8 in the RWC and Plate would drive different pathways to the next tournament.

 

[Muglair]

Omar's idea of giving countries the chance to host significant multi-nation rugby tournaments could be adapted to create pathways involving qualification pools to the next RWC.

There could be a qualification pathways which at each successive round deliver pools of 4 with each pool being played over 3 weekends in a host country with the top 2 progressing

 

[Dewald Nel]

8 pools of 3 teams each - each team plays the others twice. Thus 4 matches per team. Top 2 go through to round of 16.

Same amount of group games as now per team, and 1 more round of play-offs.

 

[Omar Comin']

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 match televised around the world to playing say Kenya in front of 2,000 at a venue no one's ever heard of with a similar number watching a live stream online.

A secondary tournament for countries that don't qualify for the world cup is not a bad idea but it shouldn't come as a result of a reduction in teams in the main tournament.

 

[Highlander35]

Splitting is a bad idea IMO. Takes away from the legitimacy even more than varying break lengths.

A lot of the NH comes down to money and players. There's money in the States, and to a lesser extent, Japan and the Canadians. We want them to develop and do well. There's no money in Eastern Europe or the Pacific islands, so while we use their players, and are happy to see them do well, we're not going to put resources forward to bring them into the 6 Nations, or what not.

What I think we need is bona fide regular/regional tournaments taking place every 4 years, much like they do in Football. As far as I can tell, World Rugby has 5 zones, Europe, Asia, the Pacific, Africa and the Americas. 8, 12 or 16 teams from each zone, or even combining some weaker zones or whatnot, playing on a cycle would give teams something other than the world cup to develop and build for, as well as give exposure to a greater proportion of the teams.

Eg. A European tournament with 16 teams could look like:


Pool A

England
Italy
Portugal
Poland


Pool B

Wales
Scotland
Germany
Moldova


Pool C

France
Georgia
Spain
Belgium


Pool D

Ireland
Romania
Russia
Netherlands

Not, there would be significant blowouts for the first handful of tournaments, but I think that the more teams involved "1 tier down", the closer we would be to the ideal 32 team World Cup. In addition, big losses would be significantly more "acceptable" in a lesser regional tournament. Depending on how qualification would be changed for an increased number of teams, regardless of how many, a handful of positions (say 2 or 3) could be handed out at each competition.