Are there too many lower-ranked teams in the World Cup?

Thread title changed from "Should England be allowed into the next round early?" - KRD

Its clear Georgia, Romania and Scotland are really poor teams, is there any real point in these games going ahead, I mean England are going to win all three so is there any point in playing them and risk English players picking up injuries, which would ultimately rob the tournament of their skills and talent in the later stages.


These games are going to be cricket scores.

Yes, but only if they have to play NZ followed by Australia on the same day as their QF tie. If the NZ game runs into extra time, Australia (or those willing to participate, so obviously not Quade Cooper) are allowed to join in the period of added time multi-team.

please fellow posters, see this article for what it is, and don't reply.

I'm sorry rugbydreamer but this is my point of view, why should English players risk getting injured to play lower grade teams?

Simmer down HERSHY old bean, I've missed your mania, but it's far too much for 11 o clock in the morning...

Having a point of view is of itself insufficient. It needs at least to be rational enough to have a debate. Time for a cup of tea I think.

Actually you may have a point Hersh.

Clearly England aren't a good enough side to compete with the 3N teams, so perhaps we should just send them home now rather than risk some Australian players picking up injuries, which would ultimately rob the tournament of their skills and talent in the later stages.

Seen the flaw in your argument yet?

Kiwireddevil wrote:Actually you may have a point Hersh.

Clearly England aren't a good enough side to compete with the 3N teams, so perhaps we should just send them home now rather than risk some Australian players picking up injuries, which would ultimately rob the tournament of their skills and talent in the later stages.

Seen the flaw in your argument yet?

Kiwireddevil wrote:Actually you may have a point Hersh.

Clearly England aren't a good enough side to compete with the 3N teams, so perhaps we should just send them home now rather than risk some Australian players picking up injuries, which would ultimately rob the tournament of their skills and talent in the later stages.

Seen the flaw in your argument yet?

or Argentinians players

Kiwireddevil wrote:Actually you may have a point Hersh.

Clearly England aren't a good enough side to compete with the 3N teams, so perhaps we should just send them home now rather than risk some Australian players picking up injuries, which would ultimately rob the tournament of their skills and talent in the later stages.

Seen the flaw in your argument yet?

imagine the anger when his own argument is used against him

Seen the flaw in your argument yet?



No not really, England will be able to compete against the big three, Georgia and Romania can't so what’s the point in playing them.

The World cup format needs to be looked at, maybe a qualifying round first for the weak teams and then two groups where by a round robin is played with the top four teams from each group go into the quarter finals.

HERSH wrote:Seen the flaw in your argument yet?



No not really, England will be able to compete against the big three, Georgia and Romania can't so what’s the point in playing them.

The World cup format needs to be looked at, maybe a qualifying round first for the weak teams and then two groups where by a round robin is played with the top four teams from each group go into the quarter finals.

Funnily enough GreyGhost posted a similar suggestion yesterday

Must have been the main topic then at the annual wum convention.

rugbydreamer wrote:please fellow posters, see this article for what it is, and don't reply.

So why not lock it?

Funnily enough GreyGhost posted a similar suggestion yesterday


First time I agree with him, most of these games at the moment are pointless and dull contests, roll on the knock out stages.

the IRB need to pull there finger out and change the format of the RWC.

Perhaps the question of this post should be :

Should HERSH have his posts locked and deleted early?

Otherwise other posters might get injured as their brains explode from reading such drivel and blatant attempts to wind people up by clearly a really poor poster. I mean if other posters heads have exploded it will rob 606V2 of their skills and talent at later stages.




Most WUMs are witty, funny and well thought out. This one does not qualify in any of those regards.

its not a wum.

Seriously who cares about Georgia and Romania these teams are just lumps who hold the ball for a few phases, not proper International rugby teams.

Where is the ambition and skill etc...


Gavin Hastings is currently on Talksport bigging up the Scots, they're awful maybe their 6 nations status should be looked at, no tries against a weak euro team!

Easy Rugger. This thread isn't doing any harm, and certainly hasn't devolved into personal abuse.
Until the (soon to be removed) post that came up while I was typing mine that is


Personally I think Hersh's basic (after ignoring the silly jingoistic part of the argument) premise of shortening the cup and attempting to reduce meaningless contest has some merits in terms of streamlining.

However, for me some of the best games at world cups have involved plucky minnows punching above their weight and giving the more established sides a scare or even beating them. Remember Georgia against Ireland in '07, or Samoa/Fiji vs Wales in multiple Cups. I'm happy to have the odd mismatch in order to keep those unexpected close games.

There's also the growth of the game to consider. Russia and Georgia are rapidly improving nations, and are on track threaten the established sides in future - why not encourage their development by letting them play the best occasionally.

In 2007 the AB's demolished Portugal. But after the match the 2 teams had an impromptu football match together. That kind of experience for the minnows is priceless. The RWC is a celebration of rugby, the more the merrier I say.

I do actually agree that the world cup format should change. There are too many games in which only one team can win. There's a problem that teams with a lucky draw (England this time) could get to the final having only played one top team. South Africa's win four years ago - when they played Fiji in the 1/4s then Argentina in the semis - highlighted that the lack of depth in the world cup can enable a team to win the competition without really earning it - IMO

Would a set up with two groups of six teams work better? The top four in each group would then go through to the quarter finals.

Not wanting to exclude the up and coming nations, they could have a tournament the year prior to the world cup and the top two countries would earn qualification to the 12 team world cup the follwing year.

Think of two groups like this playing

Group 1

South Africa
New Zealand
France
Wales
Samoa
Argentina

Group 2

England
Australia
Ireland
Italy
Scotland
Fiji

There would some truly great group games to look forward to - when at present, not many are that challenging for the world's top teams to be honest.

Kiwireddevil wrote:Easy Rugger. This thread isn't doing any harm, and certainly hasn't devolved into personal abuse.
Until the (soon to be removed) post that came up while I was typing mine that is

damn, was that me ..?

sorry

Well it would avoid the risk of any more players being cited and suspended,and they probably need the time to iron on new numbers onto their jerseys.

What shall we call this new cup ? We cant call it the world cup if it's only available to the chosen few.

It has been suggested (perhaps undiplomatically) that pool games are essentially a waste of time, as the same 8 teams will make it through to the QFs anyway.
However, I'd like to voice my support for the pool stages. Imagine you are an amateur player in the Namibian side - it must be the pinnacle to run out against Wales or South Africa.
In any case, average scores have shown that the "minnows" are competing much better at this WC than previous. Who knew Johnno's prediction would be correct....

Cymroglan wrote:What shall we call this new cup ? We cant call it the world cup if it's only available to the chosen few.

they can get round that like the yanks did with the 'World' series and have it sponsored by a newspaper with the word 'World' in the title

tri nations has a good ring to it,.

rugbyfan I agree 100%

Cymroglan wrote:What shall we call this new cup ? We cant call it the world cup if it's only available to the chosen few.

valid point - how about keeping 20 teams but instead of going to quarter finals after the group stages the top two teams from each group would each go through to two form more groups of four, where they play each other. the winners of these secondary groups then play the final

I know, I know, it would extend the length of the competition but I'm just looking for options. For me, the current format simply doesn't work. Unlike in other sports such as football or cricket, upsets are rare, very rare, in rugby. The top teams needs to play each other more.

HERSH wrote:rugbyfan I agree 100%

now they'll be calling me a WUM as well!!!!

Sometimes you have to get peoples attention to get to the real issues, but don't worry rugbyfan I'm not a wum despite what some people say just because they don't agree with me.

it depends on your definition of top teams, theres also the money involved, freezing out the developing nations out the RWC would deny them the chance to advertise the sport in their home nations and compete against the other sports.

This is a WORLD cup and it should give nations a chance to play against the best.

If the Argies hadnt had the chance to play in 07 would they have been given the chance to play in the 4N ...no, cos their leagues are still amateur

But the Argies are one of the top teams as are Samoa Fiji etc and deserve there chance but Georgia Romania Namibia!!!!

Come on! these games are a waste of time.

I know why don't we all stand round in a circle and vote on who should be the world champions? that way nobody gets injured and we don't need to worry about matches that HERSH doesn't care about

Damage I agree - but at the moment I think there are too many lesser nations - having 3-4 is fine but at present it's about 8. Close games so far yes, but upsets no. Will there be any real upsets this year?

Hersh your narrow minded views would mean that rugby would be going backwards not forwards.

I think the rugby world cup set up as it is is excellent. Better than the football world cup and cricket world cup in my opinion.

These developing nations get a chance on the world stage to show what they can do which I think is great for rugby.

mckay1402 wrote:I know why don't we all stand round in a circle and vote on who should be the world champions? that way nobody gets injured and we don't need to worry about matches that HERSH doesn't care about

Because it's not fair that circles get used. Why not stand around in a triangle? Or a square?

This calls for immediate discussion.

rugbyfan wrote:Damage I agree - but at the moment I think there are too many lesser nations - having 3-4 is fine but at present it's about 8. Close games so far yes, but upsets no. Will there be any real upsets this year?

Did you not just see Canada beat Tonga?

but closer compared to the last rwc..?

it has taken a while but italy have really pushed Ireland, Wales and Scotland in the 6N. yes they play every year, but how else are nations going to get better?

Well I think a circle is more inclusive but I suppose in the spirit of the original thread perhaps we could just let England decide who's going to be world champions. that way it saves messy shapes which HERSH doesn't care about

damage_13 wrote:it has taken a while but italy have really pushed Ireland, Wales and Scotland in the 6N. yes they play every year, but how else are nations going to get better?

True, but Italy are hardly ever likely to beat a team like, say, France, now are they?

But they don't show or add anything to the RWC imo!

I'd rather watch a colts match.

now then, now then.

les Froggies are one of the best teams in the world when they don't know what they're doing. When they do however, its anyones guess.

mckay1402 wrote:

rugbyfan wrote:Damage I agree - but at the moment I think there are too many lesser nations - having 3-4 is fine but at present it's about 8. Close games so far yes, but upsets no. Will there be any real upsets this year?

Did you not just see Canada beat Tonga?

Canada are ranked 14th in the world, Tonga 12th - hardly an upset is it?

HERSH wrote:But they don't show or add anything to the RWC imo!

I'd rather watch a colts match.

They ADD x amount of thousand/million Euros in money and viewers.

They ADD new styles of play and national pride in this wonderful varied game.

They ADD far more than anything like-minded people like yourself will ever do if you were in charge of the irb

The Defence Rests

HERSH wrote:Thread title changed from "Should England be allowed into the next round early?" - KRD

Its clear Georgia, Romania and Scotland are really poor teams, is there any real point in these games going ahead, I mean England are going to win all three so is there any point in playing them and risk English players picking up injuries, which would ultimately rob the tournament of their skills and talent in the later stages.


These games are going to be cricket scores.

Hersh, that is a conceited opinion about england and their opponents.

Even if england were to win all those matches, they would still need to remain match fit, if they were to "sit" out their pool matches, they will be unprepared and very rusty by the time they meet a quarter final opponent.

As far as the rest of the teams in their pool goes, matches are always won up front, first and foremost, only if that foundation is solid cana team use their back line to determine by how many points they can win.

Scotland has been struggling for some time now, to score plenty of tries ina match, but they have a good forward pack, and Georgia and Romania have been very solid there. There for their forward packs will give the "mighty" england a good workout, irrespective of the "runaway" scores.

Don't be such a snob!

NO - the rugby world cup is great as it is.

I would say that changing the appalling ITV coverage is a higher priority!

They ADD nothing IMO

Once again spot on rugbyfan

Some people need to get a grip, the marketing men at the RWC have fooled most of the posters on here into believing these games matter!

If people aren't interested in the pool stages, for whatever reason, they're more than welcome to take up knitting until the knock-out matches take place.

They matter to the teams taking part.