Rugby World Cup needs overhaul
THE Rugby World Cup features 20 teams in a quadrennial battle for global supremacy, the ninth instalment scheduled for Japan next year, but don’t expect too many surprises from an event which almost invariably goes according to the script.
First, more or less the same countries will participate. The only change to the 2015 line-up was Uruguay for Russia, in 2011 it was Russia for Portugal, and in 2007 Portugal for Uruguay. That’s it. One new team per tournament, and not a solitary débutante in 2015.
Twenty teams are undoubtedly too many. This not only allows third-tier minnows to qualify, it makes it virtually impossible for the elite teams to miss out, and exceedingly difficult for second-tier teams to do so. If they fail to qualify directly, they receive further chances through inter-continental play-offs and repêchages.
The top 12 teams don’t event have to qualify. This has been a steadily decreasing process since the turn of the century.
It reached its apogee in the late 1990s when all but the previous tournament’s top three teams were required to play qualifying matches. But after finishing fourth in 1999, perennial giants New Zealand balked at the indignation, and it’s been all downhill from there.
The World Cup proper is mind-numbingly predictable. At least nine times out of 10 you know who is going to win.
In 2003 there was only one upset in 48 games, for instance (Australia beating New Zealand in the semifinals). It’s true that the last World Cup witnessed perhaps the biggest surprise in international rugby history, when Japan stunned South Africa, but this was one of just a handful of surprises at the event – and certainly the only major one.
The elite teams will dominate the post-group stages as usual. New Zealand has not only won the World Cup three times (including the last two), it has reached seven semi-finals from eight tournaments. South Africa and Australia, both two-time champions, generally feature at the business end of the competition as well, as do 2003 winners England and threetime runners-up France.
There is little contact between the elite teams and the minnows in-between World Cups. The top 10 teams play in two major international championships – Europe’s Six Nations and the Southern Hemisphere’s Rugby Championship. These are both closed-shop. There is no promotion-relegation. The only contact they have with the remaining teams between World Cups is the occasional friendly.
Not one of them has ever visited Georgia, for instance; an up-and-coming rugby nation currently ranked 12th in the world. Fiji is ranked even higher than that, ninth ahead of France, but rarely hosts internationals against the elite teams. This, of course, places so-called second and third-tier teams at a major disadvantage.
Five-team groups. These do not allow for equal scheduling and have drawn complaints from nonelite teams who feel they are being disadvantaged by shorter breaks between fixtures. They also make for protracted group stages, and perhaps one too many games for the weaker teams, who tend to be well out of it by the fourth. If the tournament can’t go back to a 16-team format, then perhaps it should move on to 24 – and four-team groups again.