Time for a radical shake up in rugby's tournament structure?

ivuernis

After a w/e spent watching the QF's from my sickbed (flu) I had plenty of time for idle thoughts on how the rugby calendar could be revamped. It's obvious that the current annual tournament formats (particularly in the Northern Hemisphere) have become somewhat stale and over-familiar. It is even more apparent that a rugby power like Argentina needs an annual competitive tournament to partake in immediately. Also, the current 4-year gap between each World Cup is too far apart for the world's nations to pit themselves against each other in a meaningful and competitive tournament. This maybe okay in football which is a true global sport and has other competitions to fill the years in between (European Championship and Copa America) not to mention the club tournaments. To facility my idea for a more meaningful rugby calendar and more competitive competitions will not necessarily involve more games, just that those games that are played have something at stake. It probably will however involve the scrapping for the most part of the "tour" and I would even go as far as to the "Lions" have no place in this new era. The shambles of the 2005 tour to NZ showed that it's place in the modern game in an anachronism.

Tri-Nations (annual tournament)
Teams (3): New Zealand, Australia, South Africa

This is the one tournament I would leave alone primarily because of the logistics involved of adding say Argentina or teams from the Pacific Nations. The already long distances involved will only make it even made arduous adding any more teams. So, the Tri-Nations remains an annual tournament between NZ, AUS and SA played on a home/away basis and scrap the idea of teams playing each other a 3rd time that was used in 2006. Total 4 games played per team.

European Championship (annual tournament, replaces Six-Nations)
Teams (8): France, England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Italy, Argentina, European Nations Cup winners

A major re-vamp in needed here. While the Six-Nations has been good for Italy in raising their standards I don't think it has helped elevate the traditional home nations. As has been suggested by others the Six-Nations should be expanded into an 8-team tournament (let's call it the European Championship) with promotion/relegation between it and the European Nations Cup. The extra 2 places would go to Argentina and the winner of the European Nations Cup. The format would be 2 groups of 4 teams that play each other in a Round-Robin format. The top 2 teams from each group go into a knock-out stage consisting of Semi-Finals, 3rd/4th and Final. The bottom placed team in each group would have a play-off against each other with the loser being relegated to the European Nations Cup and the winner of that tournament gaining promotion. The 3rd place teams could play a "dead-rubber" between each other so that all teams play at least 4 games with the maximum being 5 games for semi-finalists.

Pacific Championship (every 2 or 4 years)
Teams (8): Argentina, Uruguay, United States, Canada, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Japan

This brings Uruguay into the fold and allows the emerging nations from North America and Japan along with the existing Pacific nations to compete against each other in a meaningful competition. As the European Championship would probably only be open to European based Argentineans the Pacific Championship would allow them to blood new players still playing in Argentina. Would probably have an affect on existing competitions like the Pacific Nations Cup which may have to be made biennial instead of annual. Same format as the European Championship with 2 groups of 4 teams, Semi-Finals, 3rd/4th and Final but maybe on a home/away basis or organise the 2 groups based on geographical locations, e.g. Argentina, Uruguay, United States, Canada in one group, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Japan in the other.

World Championship (hosted every 4 years alternating between hemispheres)
Teams (8): Top 5 from previous 4 years in the European Championship and the 3 Tri-Nations teams

This would be an interim tournament played amongst the traditional powerhouses of the game and allow them to compete outside of the amateur-era "tour" format and provide a true barometer of the best teams in the world. Should be great for New Zealand who don't have to wait every 4-years in an attempt to win the World Cup and falls right into their usual pre-World Cup peaking cycle. Also means the World Cup dosn't become an overriding factor and the be-all-and-end-all for the big nations. Again the format would use 2 groups of 4 teams, Semi-Finals, 3rd/4th and Final.

World Nations Cup (hosted every 4 years)
Teams (16+): Those ranked outside the top-12 or those that finished outside the top-12 in the previous World Cup

As has already been mooted by the IRB this would be hosted the year before the World Cup and give an global tournament for the emerging nations and could also provide 4-8 places at the following years World Cup for the semi/quarter-finalists. It could also be used to perhaps provide a competition where the Tier-1 nations could maybe send their "A" sides which could provide a good development opportunity.


The tournaments would still be held in a 4-year cycle but instead of filling the intervening years with out-dated "tours" and relatively meaningless test matches it would now consist of a much more structured format providing an array of competitions for all tiers of rugby playing nations, e.g.

Year-1 Pacific Championship
Year-2 World Championship
Year-3 World Nations Cup
Year-4 World Cup

These could still be run in conjunction with the existing annual tournaments and because nations would not compete in all of the tournaments the number of matches played per nation should be quiet manageable even allowing for the other tournaments such as European Championship, Tri-Nations, Pacific Nations, etc. I know there is bound to be problems with fitting these in with an already congested calendar and might warrant some streamlining of other competitions especially the major club-level tournaments such as Heineken Cup, Super-14, Top-14, Premiership, Magniers League, etc. but if it could be achieved then I think the global game would truly benefit.

Third_Echelon

A lot of interesting ideas there. I definitely agree with you that the current setup does need some sort of re-vamp.

The current setup means that the weaker nations are getting no experience and are getting nowhere in terms of improvement. (was it 15 or 16 tries or something NZ scored against Portugal? Bit of a joke for the tournament).

Logistics for this would definitely need to be looked at, but overall it would help improve the game and ultimately make world cups a lot more interesting.

daveirl

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