20 or 16 for the 2011 Rugby World Cup decision delayed
There is still time to add your voice and vote for the decision on 20 or 16 teams in 2011. The IRB have decided to extend the decision time and it will now be November at the earliest before they make their decision.
Nick Blitz said,
October 14, 2007 @ 4:40 am
Until the 2007 tournament started, so based largely on 2003, I might easily have supported a move to reduce the number of teams to 16 in future. This would be to eliminate the (apparently) pointless non-competitive games against the global minnows, in a bid to keep the games as high quality as possible and to maintain elite standards. Might then also have argued in favour of establishing a second, ‘junior nations trophy’, just as cricket has done.
After seeing the Group Stages of the 2007 RWC it was quite clear what substantial strides have been made by Pacific Island teams: while Samoa will be disappointed with their overall performance, Fiji and Tonga were real revelations. Who would seriously argue against the proposition that Fiji participated in 2 of the 4 best Group stage matches!
Elsewhere, Georgia, mere minnows in 2003, clearly made great progress, despite the country’s geographical isolation. In rugby terms: Georgia is an excellent exemplar of the progress which the minnows of World Rugby may make, provided that they are exposed to high quality teams. While not yet a ‘top table’ participator, Japan is fast becoming a serious rugby centre in East Asia: but without the World Cup, where would Japanese (perhaps even Korean players too) get any exposure to competitive, international rugby?
It was clear that the USA is making good progress and while Canada did little to excite, they certainly merited their places. (Which also demonstrates the value of the Churchill Cup.)?
So yes, while it seems odd to see Namibia and Portugal present, but as Georgia were the true minnows that Georgia in 2003, their progress flags up the importance of having these smaller rugby-playing nations present. Clearly the one country which has failed to make material progress in the past 20 years is Rumania, which was once expected to be to be responsible for making the 5-nations in to 6, until Italy beat them to it …as a consequence of Italian progress seen in the earlier RWC tournaments!
So who will be the next non-Anglophone countries to be taken into the higher ranks of World Rugby? Well surely Deutschland and Russia really ought to top the list. While we have seen Uruguay, how about the other sporting (and increasing economic) giant from South America, Brazil?
Given the elitist isolationism shown the Tri-Nations trio, which means that the Pacific Islanders live on scraps (and remain at risk of being undermined by so many of their players being compelled, for economic reasons to play in N.Z. …and then even play for the ABs) then the RWC remains vital to their eventual prosperity.
As for Argentina not being part of that Southern Hemisphere elite, then our antipodean friends need to contemplate their collective navels and while eating a very full diet of humble pie, need to address how their credibility will survive if they fail to address the issue of admitting Argentina to their elite number …pretty damned pronto! In the meantime, there is no serious doubt that Argentina now belongs at the top table of World Rugby …but at present, in a truly international, competitive, arena, they only have the RWC to demonstrate their wares!
Conclusion: alert to the short-term financial costs incurred by having those smaller terms present, it seems that to squeeze them out would be to set-back the development of the game globally. For me the case has been made by the empirical evidence of their impact at the 2007 tournament: it should remain a 20 team tournament …and we better have an eye to the future and start wondering whether the game’s expansion may require it to expand further to 24 within the next 2 decades. Failing that, will there need to be more meaningful qualification stages, as seen in both European and World football!
Sean Fisher said,
October 18, 2007 @ 12:21 pm
It is ridiculous to think that reducing the number of teams in the world cup will improve the game globally. It may make the tournament a week shorter but for crying out loud it only happens once every four years. It may get some of these supposed mismatches but if you actually look there has only been 5 matches in world cup history where the score has gone into triple figures.
How is fair on smaller nations that play for the reasons that rugby used to hold dear. Pride, passion, enjoyment. These nations go out there full of passion & pride for their countries, nomore was this evident with Portugal, of course they were very unlikely to win a game, as this was their first ever exposure to big international competition but they still put every bit of heart & soul into each game & more often than not came out shinning more than their opponents. They could even had sneaked a victory in their game with Romania.
I personally think that expansion not retraction is the option to look at. It is terrible for the big nations simply to say you can’t play as you are not as good as us, of course their not, you don’t give them the chance. You have had 130 years more exposure to high class international competition, give them the chance & they will not let it go.
It has been evident in the smaller countries, qualifying for their first & second world cups that the interest & participation in the sport at home has increased greatly.
It the short term it may be an idea to look at the qualificaton process to give everyone a fairer chance to reach the top table. Numbers should not be cut now that so much work has been done to get to this stage. It will not be long before lesser nations start to make the knockout stages, such as the USA, Japan, Georgia etc. There also will be with more help from bigger nations & effort to spread the game more new teams getting to the finals, such as Russia, Chile, Tunisia, Morroco, Korea, Germany, Czech Republic.
It is obivous that for the game to go truly global these teams need to be exposed, this was clear with Portugal, who even being European Nations Champions in 2004, were not recognised as a Rugby Playing Nation by the general public. There are over 100 rugby playing nations in the world yet most people would not be able to name more than 25.
Give the teams the chance & you wont regret it!