The most competitive RWC ever

[Sluggy]

Don't they have that with the Churchill Cup?

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

If the eagles could have a regular 4 nations series with canada, uruguay and argentina A that would be good.

Will they tour Europe in November?

I'd add in Chile who beat Uruguay for this years CONSUR A Championship. They already have the Americas Rugby Championship format to work from and it should be thoroughly investigated.

Would also like to see if they could even possibly organise a Tri-Nations like competition with Canada, USA and Japan. Setup a proper home and away South America sereis with the Jaguars, include the above two and Brazil.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

Don't they have that with the Churchill Cup?

Churchill Cup is no more. Ended this year.

 

[Bowside]

I'd add in Chile who beat Uruguay for this years CONSUR A Championship. They already have the Americas Rugby Championship format to work from and it should be thoroughly investigated.

Would also like to see if they could even possibly organise a Tri-Nations like competition with Canada, USA and Japan. Setup a proper home and away South America sereis with the Jaguars, include the above two and Brazil.

Yeah japan is an option but they seem to be doing their thing with the pacific nations.

The 'Americas cup/shield/plate/bowl' idea could start out just USA, Canada and Jaguars, and over time bring in uruguay, chile and brazil.

It would work out well for all involved as the argies need as many blokes in the professional set up as they can get to build depth, whilst the north american teams need regular competition.

 

[darkhorse]

A contributing factor to this newly discovered competitiveness of the non- Tier 1 nations, must be the number of their players who ply their trade in the various competitions in the Northern Hemisphere and Japan. A better standard of competition and a professional training regime would be big pluses and doing battle with a lot of the big names on a fairly regular basis would diminish self doubt about competing with the world's best.

The challenge for the minnows will be to replicate their first up efforts for another three games. Let's hope they can.

How many of the Namibian's are in Europe or Japan? I can only think of Burger, but I am not exactly up-to-date with European or Japanese rugby.

I am absolutely stocked with the quality of rugby so far. I am so glad because it should hopefully stop the cries for the world cup to be reduced to a pool of 16 teams. I know it's contentious but I am in favour of expanding the pool stages to include 32 nations at some stage. Sure players being in a professional environment is unbelievably helpful, but the world cup must have a huge impact in developing some of the minnow nations, through experience and generating interest in the game. I would really like to see Kenya, China and another South American team at future world cups. There would be a lot of blow out scores at the beggining but I believe this year has shown that the minnows can be brought up to speed quickly. Besides it will allow the USA and co. to get a win.

Edit: Ah, WCR I missed your post saying pretty much the same thing. Sorry to harp on about old new.

If you had 24 teams, how would you structure the WC? 4 pools of 6?

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

Yeah japan is an option but they seem to be doing their thing with the pacific nations.

The 'Americas cup/shield/plate/bowl' idea could start out just USA, Canada and Jaguars, and over time bring in uruguay, chile and brazil.

It would work out well for all involved as the argies need as many blokes in the professional set up as they can get to build depth, whilst the north american teams need regular competition.

No reason why Japan couldn't play both. that said, I'd also like to seem them begin to take on more Tier One opponents in the near future. The Pacific Nations Cup is also another option for the US and Canada.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

How many of the Namibian's are in Europe or Japan? I can only think of Burger, but I am not exactly up-to-date with European or Japanese rugby.

I am absolutely stocked with the quality of rugby so far. I am so glad because it should hopefully stop the cries for the world cup to be reduced to a pool of 16 teams. I know it's contentious but I am in favour of expanding the pool stages to include 32 nations at some stage. Sure players being in a professional environment is unbelievably helpful, but the world cup must have a huge impact in developing some of the minnow nations, through experience and generating interest in the game. I would really like to see Kenya, China and another South American team at future world cups. There would be a lot of blow out scores at the beggining but I believe this year has shown that the minnows can be brought up to speed quickly. Besides it will allow the USA and co. to get a win.

Most of the Namibians have been playing in the Vodacom Cup for the last two years and it really shows in their performance. They are even running a team out of Windhoek.

I'd go for 24 teams in 2023. Rugby isn't Soccer and I think for another little while after that it would stay that way until the new comers begin to show progress like those this year. Eventually, 32 teams would be a good number and hopefully its a lot sooner than I hope for because that would be fantastic to witness.

 

[darkhorse]

This world cup has so far been incredible with no 50+ blowouts yet! I think we are approaching to the point were we need to be getting these emerging nations at least one game against a top tier nation a year. wouldn't it be good to have these nations that are based in europe play a midweek match against a SH side during spring tours instead of some club team? maybe it's time to look at some forms of regional competition that is outside the world cup and includes both top tier and emerging nations. they wouldn't need to be played each year like 4 nations or six nations but it could be a way of having these nations getting their top players released to have a real chance for a result more often than just once every 4 years. of course it would be much easier/simpler if the IRB just threw the book at clubs who refused to release players for international duty.

Wouldn't a European Cup be great? Once every four years, in b/w the world cup. At the beginning the finals would consist of the 6nations, but I reckon it'd get interesting very quickly.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

A European Championship would be interesting.

 

[spectator]

The Under 20 competion has two world competitions annually. One for the first tier and another for the next 16 countries which is played a week or two before. The winner of the second tier gets promoted to the main comp in the following year, at the expense of the last placed in the top comp. Lots of qualifying games beforehand and really good to see the likes of Russia, Cook Islands, PNG and Zimbabwe getting a chance to play decent international rugby.

I wonder if there could be a similar second tier World Cup for the grown ups?

 

[Guru]

We are a week into the turnament or so with the first round over, and I've gotta say the games have been great. No one has scored 50 points yet. In the past we've seen up to 3 100 point margins by now.

Has all that irb money from 2003 and 2007 actually gone somewhere :O?

I agree the lower ranked nations have improved, but for anyone analysing the refereeing and listening to the communication between the refs & lower ranked nations players, it is very clear that the referees decisions are leaning strongly in one direction. While top teir teams are being pedantically penalised with no warnings or communication from the refs, the lower ranked teams are getting several warnings and plenty of advice, then often a blind eye being turned to obvious penalties. It may help with lower scores against top tier nations but i find it very frustrating to watch.

 

[Geeves]

Well the competitiveness will unfortunately disappear as the comp goes on. For some of the minnows there is such a short turnaround in time between games. For example both Georgia and Nambia are twice expected to play with only a 4 day gap between games. The breakdown for all is here

Basically if these sides pick up niggling injuries they are either forced to play injured or dig into the wider squad. Either strategy will have a negative impact on the score.

 

[tigerland12]

I agree the lower ranked nations have improved, but for anyone analysing the refereeing and listening to the communication between the refs & lower ranked nations players, it is very clear that the referees decisions are leaning strongly in one direction. While top teir teams are being pedantically penalised with no warnings or communication from the refs, the lower ranked teams are getting several warnings and plenty of advice, then often a blind eye being turned to obvious penalties. It may help with lower scores against top tier nations but i find it very frustrating to watch.

I'm sorry mate, but are you suggesting referee's are being biased to lower ranked teams......at the World Cup? With all respect, I find that very very very hard to believe.

 

[Sluggy]

Churchill Cup is no more. Ended this year.

Did the IRB fund it to any extent?

Anyway they should help fund an Americas tournament to replace it.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

Did the IRB fund it to any extent?

Anyway they should help fund an Americas tournament to replace it.

On the Churchill no, pretty the funding came from the RFU.

The IRB does fund the Americas Rugby Championship. They need to get behind that and make it the premier tournament for both continents.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

Well the competitiveness will unfortunately disappear as the comp goes on. For some of the minnows there is such a short turnaround in time between games. For example both Georgia and Nambia are twice expected to play with only a 4 day gap between games. The breakdown for all is here

Basically if these sides pick up niggling injuries they are either forced to play injured or dig into the wider squad. Either strategy will have a negative impact on the score.

I expect that too, but it would be good if it lasted at least another round.

 

[Guru]

I'm sorry mate, but are you suggesting referee's are being biased to lower ranked teams......at the World Cup? With all respect, I find that very very very hard to believe.

I'm not suggesting...... Its quite a bit more obvious than that :nta::nta::nta:

 

[Antony]

I'm not suggesting...... Its quite a bit more obvious than that :nta::nta::nta:

Most of the penalties given against the main teams are for deliberate slowing tactics, or maul collapses, or other kinds of professional fouls. You don't really want a ref holding their hand through that. Conversely, the penalties given against the minnows are for things like 'failure to roll away, because a Scottish prop is sitting on me and I'm Romanian and fuck you this has been a bad day already'.

I'm fine with them being cut a bit of slack (if that's what's happening).