General Rugby Discussion 3

Is Jean Kleyn available for selection and if not, is it because of the injury he had towards the end of last season, contractual obligations with Munster or both?

No Contractual obligations with munster could stop him from playing or being involved with national team.

Didn't kleyn have surgery after that injury so mightnt be back from that

Won't it be the same length of a tournament as it goes from 4 group games to 3. And you still need to play 7 games to win it.

This will get serious from the quarter final on. Which is there same as the current tournament with a few exceptions.

Worst of all a 6 group tournament with all that "best 3rd" shte.

The other countries needed this. To improve. Now if the 6 nations and rugby championship sides could play others more to help improve them if would be great

Will there be many more hammerings? Currently the top 8 in the world hammer two teams in the group. In this new format the top two teams in their group will hammer two teams.

So what do we do then? Keep things closed shop and just hope other sides improve by being outside the top sides? We need to expand the sport and to do that the rugby championship and 6 nations need to play others more

I don't think this grows the sport either. I think the smaller teams need more than a tournament every 4 years.

But i also don't really see a downside. You give more players the chance to play in a world cup. The groups weren't a very big risk in the current format for bigger teams and as long as you see the round of 16 as just a replacement of an old group game then the whole thing starts at the quarter final stage, which is the same as now.

Namibia have been at every World Cup since 1999 and have come last in their Group all but once (when they came 4th due not have the worst points difference). Have they improved at all in 25 years? Not an iota. The idea that teams that haven't been good enough to qualify for the World Cup to date will suddenly get noticeably better by being in a WC is fanciful at best and deluded at worst.

A team that racks up a cricket score against a minnow team is getting no benefit from that run-out. And the team that gets a cricket score put on them also gets no benefit.

The reality is that there are good and bad teams in every sport and that's just how it is.

That's just not true that the groups weren't a big risk in the current format.

At the last World Cup Japan (12th ranked), Scotland (5th), Italy (13th), Australia (9th) all got dumped out in the Group stage.

If you see the round of 16 as a replacement for a group game then the only one there that will really change is Scotland. And that was just a fluke of the draw.

In the old format they were gone after 4 games. In the new format they will be gone after 4 games. And the real tournament starts at the quarter final stage.

I think we essentially agree with the nub of the issue which is that smaller nations aren't getting better but putting them (or teams who are worse than them) in a World Cup won't help them. If anything, they don't have to find as hard in smaller games to get into the World Cup as the bar for qualification will be lower.

If it hasn't changed in 25 years (taking Namibia as an example), its certainly not going to change in the next 25 years. A lot of these smaller countries don't have the player base, national infrastructures, local infrastructures etc. to ever compete so the concept of 'giving them games against bigger teams' won't change a thing.

I'm not saying the changes make the group stage utterly pointless. Im saying the group stage is already pointless. IMO there is no real risk of the better teams not making the quarter final in the current format and hence the group games arent very important. Yes, you got great games between NZ/France and Ireland/SA, but that was for top spot which will still apply in the new format.

A team like Scotland might get knocked out by a fluke of the draw but that chance was fixed by changing when the draw is done so the seedings are more accurate.

I enjoy watching rugby but there are an awful lot of games i didn't watch in the last world cup. No one can look at the France/ NZ group at the last tournament and tell me the group stage was important.

The fact is there are only between 8 and 10 decent teams in world rugby. So making any format competitive before the quarter final is almost impossible.

I bring up Scotland as they were ranked 5th. Australia were ranked 9th so shouldn't have made the quarter final based on ranking. It was a fluke of the draw. Having the 1st, 2nd and 5th ranked teams in one group was highly unusual.

5 team groups is not optimum. It gives you a group of death possibility but since one team has to sit out the last round then you have a lot of dead rubbers.

In a 4 team group every game will mean something essentially. Even in a group where 3rd wont get out of the group, then 3rd versus 4th will be for automatic qualification for the next world cup. Now in the groups 4th versus 5th means nothing essentially.

I don't like the proposed format. But I don't think it will mean a lot more hammerings, or an easier route to the quarter final for the bigger teams.