Five Things to Worry About
1: Failing to Fire
England played well in the semi-final, but perhaps they were allowed to play better than they really were because the All Blacks just didn't get it together on the night.
It was a poor performance from the All Blacks in Yokohama – there is no getting away from that. They were poor at the lineout, didn't push hard enough on defence, made poor decisions on attack, lost their discipline at critical times and failed to execute their basic skills.
2: The Demise of the Pacific Islands
Fiji were present in Japan. They played well against Australia and were hard done by as Reece Hodge should have been sent off early in the game. They played well against Wales, too but they also lost to Uruguay, while Tonga and Samoa offered nothing.
Samoa were particularly bad and World Rugby has to come up with a plan that sees the Pacific Island sides get better by 2023 and actually punch somewhere close to their weight.
3: The Gap Opens Further
It wasn't just the Pacific Island sides that struggled in Japan, all the minnows did. Uruguay were the big improvers from 2015 but they were still a long way off being a credible threat to Tier One sides, while Georgia, Namibia, USA and Canada didn't look like they had improved at all since 2015.
The Tier Two sides are stagnating at best and Japan, which runs a professional league and is an economic heavyweight, can't be held up as an example of the gap closing because they are not a real minnow.
Something needs to be done to give the emerging nations a chance to get better.
4: Seeing Red
The pool rounds turned into a nonsense with the edict around refereeing contact to the head being so severe.
The intent of protecting players' heads is to be supported. Big tick there. But at all costs? Doesn't make sense and it became farcical that so many games were turned by red and yellow cards for incidents that were mostly a consequence of the speed and fluidity of the game rather than any malicious intent.
What made it worse was that the effort to police high tackles came at the expense of refereeing the offside line.
Rugby is going to be in real trouble if it doesn't find a way to create more space for teams to attack.
5: Haka Controversy
The world game has to find a way to make peace with haka. Either accept it as part of the game – something that creates intrigue and a point of difference.
Or tell the All Blacks they can no longer do it. But the endless bickering about it – whether it is fair or unfair or how it should be faced – is tedious. It's either an acceptable part of the pre-game theatre or its not. No grey areas. RED RAGE The cards were constant throughout the pool rounds.