'99 RWC format

legendary.xix

While the '99 RWC was not a good one for Ireland, I thought the competition had a better system than has been in place in the last three RWC's.
In recent RWCs there are 4 weekends of group games and 3 weekends of knock-out matches. Lower ranked nations draw the short straw in having to play games midweek, having short rest days between some games.
One easy solution to keep the current system would be just to add an extra week. This way every team plays at the weekend. Each team will have one rest week, i.e. the old 5 nations.

The only alternative I see to the current format is going back to the '99 format. A read of wiki says however: The five group runners up and the best third place team from the group stage (which was Argentina) contested the Quarter Final Play-Offs in three one-off matches that decided the remaining three places in the Quarter-Finals, with the losers being eliminated. The unusual format meant that two Pool winners in the quarter-finals would have to play each other. From the Quarter Final stage it became a simple knockout tournament.

I'm not sure why whoever wrote that reckons it is unusual. The Heineken Cup could be consider unsual but it works well even with 4 groups winners facing a group winner in the quarter-finals.

Anyways if the '99 format was brought back, all nations would play group games over 3 weeks. The 4th week would be for play-offs with the last three weeks quarters onwards etc.

The IRB could leaf could be taken out of the Heineken Cup for the quarter-final play-offs:
A. Best runner-up v Best third team
B. 2nd runner-up v 5th runner-up
C. 3rd runner-up v 4th runner-up

Keeping the Heineken Cup influence for the quarter-finals:
1. 1st group winner v winner match C
2. 2nd group winner v winner match B
3. 3rd group winner v winner match A
4. 4th group winner v 5th group winner

Semi-finals
Winner match 1 v match 4
Winner match 2 v match 3.

EKClarke

Don't say that to this guy.

Digifriendly

IMHO RWC is too long as it is - adding another week will make it even longer though as you say it would be fairer.

Podge_irl

It wouldn't actually add a week as there would be one less group game.

Honestly, I prefer the current set up. It gives minnows more games amongst themselves and I prefer a straight shoot-off for the QF spots as opposed to some going into play offs and some not. At least with the next RWC in England there shouldn't be such a screwing over of minnows wrt scheduling. It's been brought up as a problem and more importantly big teams can play on a weekday night and still draw a big TV crowd - Wed night games for European teams are infinitely preferable to Wed 7am ones that we would have had in NZ.

johnnysmack

Why not make all teams play mid week and actually have to use their entire squad instead of the same 15 guys being rolled out every week. In fairness some guys were in NZ more or less on holidays eg buckley, mcfadden, cullen. these guys saw very little of the bench not a mind the pitch itself! and it was the same for every team out there not using players. condense the tournament and make them use the entire squad.

Eoin

I think the IRB confirmed that the top tier games will have mid-week games as well.

Though I'd rather they still get to pick the players they want to, and they don't have to play tacklebag holders like Buckley if they don't want to.

padser

johnnysmack wrote: »

Why not make all teams play mid week and actually have to use their entire squad instead of the same 15 guys being rolled out every week. In fairness some guys were in NZ more or less on holidays eg buckley, mcfadden, cullen. these guys saw very little of the bench not a mind the pitch itself! and it was the same for every team out there not using players. condense the tournament and make them use the entire squad.

Problem is someone still gets screwed.

Most likely outcome is something like NZ get a mid weekend game against Japan where they would have rotated anyway and ireland play someone like Italy mid week while needing to play NZ that weekend.

The real issue in the rwc is that you have 20 teams, but only 4 / 5 have a shot at winning and only 8 - 10 have a reasonable expectation of being competitive against any teams.

JustinDee

We travelled back here from Australia for '99 RWC and from my memory, there was very little going on during the week. We were bored between the weekends, trying not to blow all out money and avoiding the maxing out of credit cards.
That's what I remember anyway.

legendary.xix

JustinDee wrote: »

We travelled back here from Australia for '99 RWC and from my memory, there was very little going on during the week. We were bored between the weekends, trying not to blow all out money and avoiding the maxing out of credit cards.
That's what I remember anyway.

You know with 5 groups of 4, groups games could be played every day for 15 days:
Day 1: Group A, Day 2: Group B, Day 3: Group C, Day 4: Group D, Day 5: Group E and Day 6: Group A etc. up until Day 15: Group E.

ArmaniJeanss

legendary.xix wrote: »

You know with 5 groups of 4, groups games could be played every day for 15 days:
Day 1: Group A, Day 2: Group B, Day 3: Group C, Day 4: Group D, Day 5: Group E and Day 6: Group A etc. up until Day 15: Group E.

The RWC seem to have an obsession with having the majority of the games on at weekends. So in the last World Cup there was frequently 3 (even 4) games on a Saturday and Sunday followed by multiple blank days.
I'm guessing this is mainly for financial reasons, easier to get both a crowd and a TV audience on a weekend.

Lets say the competition starts on a Saturday. Under your system Group E will play on Wed/Mon/Sat/Thurs. With kick off times of say 5.30PM and 8PM?
What will such a structure, with 3 midweek games, mean for the finances of the tournament if the Group E seed is Australia or NZ?

I do actually like your structure but I don't think rugby can afford to do something like this at the moment. Its not football whereby FIFA can put on Brazil or Spain at 3PM on a Tuesday and know that crowd, TV and sponsorship will not be affected in the slightest.

legendary.xix

If the competition did start on a Saturday, with 5 groups of 4, you're looking at 3 group games. 5 group winners into quarter-finals. 5 runners-up and best third placed team into a play-off round aka RWC '99. Group E follwing a Saturday start for the competition would see two games on Wednesday, two games on a Monday and two games on a Saturday.

You do have a good point regards TV though, I accept that. 5 groups of 4 is 10 games each weekend. Possibly play one game on a Thursday and Friday. Three games on Saturday and Sunday. Then have one game on Monday and Tuesday. Run it like that for the first 3 weekends with the 4th weekend being for the play-offs and the 5th/6th/7th weekends for the quarters, semis and final.

Under the current system the top 3 of each group qualify for the next World Cup. In 5 groups of 4, it'd be the top 2 in each group plus best third placed team. The 4 remaining third placed teams could play-off for the 12th spot. The 8 not making it would just have to enter the qualifiers as normal in the following years.

Podge_irl

There will be less of a need to cram games into weekends at the next world cup because of no time zone problems

Blut2

Podge_irl wrote: »

There will be less of a need to cram games into weekends at the next world cup because of no time zone problems

Apart from for the fans in Oz/Nz/Argentina? Admittedly less of an audience than that in the European/SA timezone but still a fairly decent share of world viewers.

Podge_irl

Blut2 wrote: »

Apart from for the fans in Oz/Nz/Argentina? Admittedly less of an audience than that in the European/SA timezone but still a fairly decent share of world viewers.

Massively smaller audience. The TV viewing market is dominated by Europe/SA all on the same time zone. I imagine there will be fare more tier 1 teams involved in midweek evening games. That's prime TV time here.

ArmaniJeanss

Podge_irl wrote: »

There will be less of a need to cram games into weekends at the next world cup because of no time zone problems

'Less need' perhaps but that doesn't mean they won't do it.
Looking at 2007 where there was also no time zone problems....

Englands games. Sat/Fri/Sat/Fri.
Ireland. Sun/Sat/Fri/Sun.
Wales. Sun/Sat/Thurs/Sat.
Scotland. Sun/Tues/Sun/Sat.

So 14 of 16 group games for the 'home nations' on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

***************
I'd suspect that for 2015 that everyone will agree in principle that they accept the need for more midweek games and a fairer schedule for the weaker teams. But the top 8 seeded teams will also want 6/7 day gaps between their games, so inevitably we will end up with a similar structure to the last World Cup with games shoehorned into weekends.