Should there be two rugby world cups? Tier A and Tier B?

gormdubhgorm

I am a casual rugby watcher. But to me the "World cup" is just the six nations plus the big three of South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.

Most/if not all of the other teams should not be in it, they are making the group stages redundant.

I did managed to catch the last half hour of Japan's win v South Africa. But how often is that sort of upset likely to happen?

I think it be far better to have the following:

1) with just the six nations teams and the big three above.
2) Also the winner of the "Tier B" world cup could qualify of the "Tier A" world cup.
3) This would give 10 teams two groups of 5 (seeded of course). The winners of each group then play in the final.

I realise there is an argument to grow the sport worldwide, but it is not entertaining in the current format with lots of mismatches in the group stages.

lologram

No

MikeCork2009

No.

Stan27

Nope don't agree how will smaller teams inprove.
They need to be involved. The only thing I would chance is these mid week games, was unfair for Japan. If the tournament goes on for an extra week or two, what about it.

Crimsonforce

There should be relagation from Tier 1 of the six nations to tier 2 and promotion from tier 2 if they win it. That would allow the likes of Georgia, Romania to get better and give Italy a kick up the arse. The same with the 4 nations and the pacific nations. You win you get promoted , you finish last you get relegated.

jaykay74

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

I am a casual rugby watcher. But to me the "World cup" is just the six nations plus the big three of South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.

Most/if not all of the other teams should not be in it, they are making the group stages redundant.

I did managed to catch the last half hour of Japan's win v South Africa. But how often is that sort of upset likely to happen?

I think it be far better to have the following:

1) with just the six nations teams and the big three above.
2) Also the winner of the "Tier B" world cup could qualify of the "Tier A" world cup.
3) This would give 10 teams two groups of 5 (seeded of course). The winners of each group then play in the final.

I realise there is an argument to grow the sport worldwide, but it is not entertaining in the current format with lots of mismatches in the group stages.

If you were going to argue for a 10 team world cup (and I don't think its a good idea) I think you would skip Scotland and Italy surely ? Argentina would take both surely! Italy are not great these days.

Stheno

Not to mention Argentina!

Avatar MIA

jaykay74 wrote: »

Italy are not great these days.

Hope those words don't come back to haunt us. :eek:

jaykay74

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Hope those words don't come back to haunt us. :eek:

We'll take Italy by 20+

RedemptionZ

Frankly, this is a terrible and backwards suggestion. Expanding the sport globally is much more important than you not having to watch France vs. Romania.

There already are competitions for the tier B nations and they get **** all viewership or recognition, the World Cup is the best chance these teams have of making headlines and winning fans over. In this tournament so far other than Japan winning, Canada came very close to beating Italy.


You say there are the 6 nations+SANZAR, plus you forgot to mention Argentina but since Scotland and Italy aren't always particularly competitive I'll say there are 8 nations with a hope of winning the thing. If you take a look at the FIFA world cup, how many teams actually have a chance of winning it, normally it's a lot less than 8. How did North Korea do in their group in 2010?

NATLOR

Wouldnt be much of a world cup with only ten teams

awec

Crimsonforce wrote: »

There should be relagation from Tier 1 of the six nations to tier 2 and promotion from tier 2 if they win it. That would allow the likes of Georgia, Romania to get better and give Italy a kick up the arse. The same with the 4 nations and the pacific nations. You win you get promoted , you finish last you get relegated.

The 6 nations is where all the money comes from, they'd be loath to change it I think.

France finished bottom in 2013 for example and no nation is going to want France not in it.

And as we have seen with Italy, it takes time for teams to improve. Romania coming into the 6 nations for one season would just see them getting thumped and "relegated" again straight away. There'd be no stability for them.

RedemptionZ

Crimsonforce wrote: »

There should be relagation from Tier 1 of the six nations to tier 2 and promotion from tier 2 if they win it. That would allow the likes of Georgia, Romania to get better and give Italy a kick up the arse. The same with the 4 nations and the pacific nations. You win you get promoted , you finish last you get relegated.

I don't think you realise what that would do to Italian rugby financially, there's a good chance they wouldn't recover, while Georgia or Romania wouldn't magically acquire all the infrastructure and youth systems needed to compete consistently with the big boys. Also why are Italy getting the abuse? They finished ahead of Scotland in the 6N this year.

English Lurker

While I don't particularly enjoy watching Aus gub Uruguay or Ireland putting on an exhibition against Canada all that much, I wouldn't agree with splitting the contest at all - in fact, I want to add more teams.

Reasons

1) We want to grow the game - When kids in Namibia watch people take on the best in the world, they want to emulate that. They want to be Johan Deysel scoring a try in front of 50,000 people who've temporarily adopted their nation. You're not going to get the same out of them playing Uruguay.

2) It's getting closer - Japan beat SA. Bit of a freak result, but amazing none the less. Canada nearly beat Italy, Fiji looked scary vs England and Australia and we're not even fully halfway through yet. So we should keep backing them.

3) It's a *World* Cup. There needs to be a good spread to justify that really, even if some are slightly making up the numbers.

4) MOAR MONIEZ. World Rugby gets more money the way it is, and some of that money goes to building the sport across the globe. We're seeing the effects of it.

I wish the RWC was more competitive all the way through, but I think this is the right way to go about it, not splitting the competition. If we did want a split, then we could split into a Cup/Plate/Bowl format after the World Stages and give the other teams a chance to go for a trophy of their own... no idea if there would be a demand for that though.

titan18

No, terrible idea.

Should have a Rugby Shield though for the teams who don't qualify past the Group stages. Give the smaller teams more time playing at a big stage and against decent teams

Rjd2

NATLOR wrote: »

Wouldnt be much of a world cup with only ten teams

Exactly. We want to grow the game so that in a decade or two that we have fresh rivalries, and without the lure of a world cup why would these teams bother? It will take time obviously, but slowly but surely it is getting better in USA and Canada 2 regions which have fantastic growth potential and even a nation like Brazil have started to improve.

It would be marvellous in 2 decades if we had competitive matches between them, Argentina and Uruguay.

A ten team world cup also would have omitted Japan this time and their defeat of South Africa for many people is one of the most memorable sporting events of all time, why would you want to lose that possibility with such elitism?

Anyhow no guarantee just because they are top 10 sides playing each other we will always get a classic, France v Italy was probably the most boring match of the competition so far.

wp_rathead

So you mean like the Cricket World Cup has gone?
No. The sport needs to grow

bilston

There are far fewer gubbings now than in previous World Cups, it was only 2003 where Australia put 142 points on Namibia and I think Japan shipped 90 against someone in 2007 (although I remember Wales conceding 96 points against SA in the not so distant past!) That just doesn't happen anymore. The investment that World Rugby has put into the Tier 2 nations to make them more competitive at world cups is paying off and will hopefully continue to do so. I also think the likes of Top 14 and Premiership are helping the Tier 2 nations (potentially to the detriment of France and England ironically) as more of these guys are professionals now than ever before. Maybe moving forward we could see some Uruguayans getting picked up by the Argentinian Super Rugby team as well.

To be honest we are getting to the stage where I'd be tempted to increase the number of teams to 24 rather than decrease. Six groups of four with an extra knockout round could potentially add value. We maybe aren't quite there yet but I'd like that to be a target by say 2027.

pickarooney

titan18 wrote: »

No, terrible idea.

Should have a Rugby Shield though for the teams who don't qualify past the Group stages. Give the smaller teams more time playing at a big stage and against decent teams

That's just what England need...

razorblunt

No definitely not, if anything I think the gap is closing slightly all the teams look well structured now, their scrums have improved immeasurably and there are some top class players from the weaker teams, Manu Somoa, Wyles, Burger et al.

I would be a fan of making this a similar structure to the 7s, whereby the teams finishing 3rd and 4th go into a Shield playoff tournament and the bottom teams go into a Bowl structure, it gives them more games and helps fill out the smaller stadiums, which so far have had the best atmosphere during games (Twickenham last night aside).

CIARAN_BOYLE

razorblunt wrote: »

I would be a fan of making this a similar structure to the 7s, whereby the teams finishing 3rd and 4th go into a Shield playoff tournament and the bottom teams go into a Bowl structure, it gives them more games and helps fill out the smaller stadiums, which so far have had the best atmosphere during games (Twickenham last night aside).

would kill off hopes of Ireland hosting a rwc in the future though

This would just create a glass ceiling.

AbusesToilets

As was said above, they should have a Shield for the teams that finish lower in the groups. Similar to Sevens or the Junior competitions. It allows for the excitement of the WC we have right now and also keeps teams from lower ranked nations involved for longer. Think of the buzz a country like the USA or Japan would get out of winning a trophy at the WC.

Didn't propose something like that a while back when they were bidding for one of the tournaments?

marco_polo

AbusesToilets wrote: »

As was said above, they should have a Shield for the teams that finish lower in the groups. Similar to Sevens or the Junior competitions. It allows for the excitement of the WC we have right now and also keeps teams from lower ranked nations involved for longer. Think of the buzz a country like the USA or Japan would get out of winning a trophy at the WC.

Didn't propose something like that a while back when they were bidding for one of the tournaments?

The real sticking point would be alot of those tier 2 guys are playing professional rugby in the likes of pro d2 etc, so getting agreemment from the clubs to release them would be very difficult

Avatar MIA

AdamD wrote: »

This would just create a glass ceiling.

AbusesToilets

marco_polo wrote: »

The real sticking point would be alot of those tier 2 guys are playing professional rugby in the likes of pro d2 etc, so getting agreemment from the clubs to release them would be very difficult

Would that not already be covered by their release for the WC? Presumably some form of Shield competition would run concurrently with the normal Cup. How do those releases work, is for a set time period or for however long the team is involved?

marco_polo

AbusesToilets wrote: »

Would that not already be covered by their release for the WC? Presumably some form of Shield competition would run concurrently with the normal Cup. How do those releases work, is for a set time period or for however long the team is involved?

It would be covered alright I'm sure what I meant is the clubs would lobby very very hard to their respective unions for it not to happen

AbusesToilets

marco_polo wrote: »

It would be covered alright I'm sure what I meant is the clubs would lobby very very hard to their respective unions for it not to happen

Well, I'd tell them to take a leap. This is the marque event in the sport, it takes precedence over the Top 14 tbh. The professional calendar needs redressing at any rate, there shouldn't be any overlap between competitions.

razorblunt

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

would kill off hopes of Ireland hosting a rwc in the future though

I'm willing to do my bit for the sake of rugby as a growing force ... are you?