Its funny you say that I was thinking very similar things when the USA beat Uruguay, about the tournament. I think we need to re-do the entire tournament frankly. Have a sub tournament of teams 10-24 come up with two countries from that and have them go into a 12 team tournament. I mean the big 8 countries are a given. THe only discussion is who Argentina has bumped out of the top 8 in the last 5 years.
Actualized RWC groups : Pool A : England, South Africa, Samoa, United States, Tonga Pool B : Australia, Wales, Fiji, Canada, Japan Pool C : New Zealand, Scotland, Italy, Romania, Repechage 1 Pool D : France, Ireland, Argentina, Georgia, Namibia
It's always the same problem. How can the small nations develop if they can't take part to the big tournament ?
I think the reasons for large disparities in rugby are two-fold. First, clearly superior teams usually win. This is in contrast to soccer where a weaker team can play bunker defense and maybe get lucky springing a counterattack. Also in soccer, a team can be as strong as their strongest player (an exageration), but in rugby a team can only be as strong as their weakest player. In soccer, you can teach players to play bunker ball and feed the ball to your strongest player. In rugby, any player is part of a unit. The forwards work together in scrums, rucks and mauls to achieve a unified result; a supremely-good lock might still find himself in wheeling scrums if that other lock is a weakling. The backfield work to pass the ball from one to the other, so a weak link suddenly makes your star wing player ineffective. Second, I think quality comes from the effectiveness of the domestic professional system. The top eight have established domestic professional leagues which elevate play and keep players in the national system. I don't know about Argentina, they either confirm what I am saying or contradict it. Where there is not a strong domestic league, rugby has to be developed against other more attractive (domestically) sports. So I think the international order of things will be pretty static. The top seven or eight will always occupy the top five rankings, so the semifinalists will always be familiar faces. There will be lots of competition amongst #8 to #17 to relative rankings, which is about where the cutoff for the knockout rounds of the World Cup are. And 30 of the 32 qualifying teams will always be the same, with about five teams fighting for two spots on the bottom. To think about what it would take to shake up this order: 1) Development of a strong professional league in a new country, or 2) the collapse of a strong professional league in an established country. For the former, Argentina is obviously the strongest contender, and just based on financial potential Japan and the US (dragging Canada up with them). For the latter, the rugby leagues in the Celtic nations always seem to be on the verge of collapse. Where this leaves the island nations? Poaching of talent by New Zealand would have to end, but basically New Zealand also has to "adopt" these countries, which is basically what is happening now. These Islanders are probably doing as well as can be expected and for pure financial reasons I expect that fourty years from now they will remember our present as being the best they could expect to do in the professional era.
A third possibility (or perhaps a variation on the first) could be to invite countries that cannot sustain a professional domestic league but might be able to support 1 or 2 professional clubs to enter those teams into existing professional competitions in other countries. I read something recently by a former Welsh rugby executive about the desirability of replacing the existing European domestic competions with one season long European tournament, if something like that were ever to see the light of day then it would be fairly straight forward to bring in teams from currently amatuer rugby nations such as Romania or Spain.
Repechage Round Repechage 1 PORTUGAL - Uruguay : 12 - 5 / 12 - 18 Qualifiers now are done. Portuguese book a place at the finals for the first time.
RWC 2007 groups : Pool A : England, South Africa, Samoa, United States, Tonga Pool B : Australia, Wales, Fiji, Canada, Japan Pool C : New Zealand, Scotland, Italy, Romania, Portugal Pool D : France, Ireland, Argentina, Georgia, Namibia
Portugal! They defiantly will be interesting to watch though they will get stuffed. Hope they get good support. Is there much of a build up starting in France yet toul?
There are many people of Portuguese origin in France, so I guess they will have some support. The World Cup fever hasn't begun, but I'm confident (only if France does well...). In my town, Toulouse, there is a RWC 2007 store and a countdown but for the moment that's all.
It's still a bit early, but here are my tips. 1st NZ - or maybe "not NZ" they are always favourites but always choke 2nd France - don't know if they'll meet NZ earlier but at home they deserve 2nd favouritsm. Semis Australia and Sth Africa - mostly because I think they'll finish on top of their groups and should have an easier QTR - but Ireland is as good as either. QTRS Ireland - see above England - No real competition in there group after Sth Africa, but deserve top 8 regardless Wales - See England, not as sure they deserve it though. Italy - seem to have the form over Scotland - unfortunate that the groups turn out this way, but good for rugby I guess. Unlucky Argies - I'd put them 7th ahead of Wales, Italy and Scotland ATM - but in a group with France and Ireland - no chance. Samoa - If they got the group with Italy and Scotland we could see an island nation in the qtrs, Fiji v Wales is a slight chance of an upset as well I guess.
Argentina always seems to get screwed by the IRB when it comes to RWC draws. Although I think they've beaten France on most of the recent occasions the two sides have met so they have a real chance of progressing.
The Aussies all the way. Their cricket team is pretty well unstoppable in this years edition of the Cricket World Cup and I think that will translate over into RWC success. Other than that, France in #2 with South Africa and NZ in #3 and #4. England won't be far behind and Italy and Ireland should make it into the top 10. As for the US (Yeah Eagles!), we will win our games against Tonga and Samoa (I hope!) and make things respectable against England and South Africa. Canada will loose all their games.
Come on I'm aussie and our team sucks at the moment and I think a place in the semis would be sufficient with this current team, the forwards are completely soft and get pushed around by every team in rugby even Italy dominated us in the forwards last year when we played them, if it wasn't for some individual brillaince form the backs we could of had a 'Wales' done on us. If I had to pick a winner at the moment it would be the All Blacks then daylight followed by South Africa or France.
France or Australia (even though they dont seem that amazing they always do well) will win. I hope a northern Hemisphere team wins. The 4 to 1 record embarrasses me.
The true-believer in me wants the French but the realist in me thinks the Aussies will win due to the fact that the French are so unpredictable. Using French success in soccer (this is a soccer forum after all), when they are on their game, they are unbeatable (World Cup 1998, World Cup 2006), but when they are off (World Cup 2002), they crash big time. This year's 6 Nations was a good example. They looked like they would win the Grand Chelem (as they call the Grand Slam) up to the England Match but that went out the door after loosing to England. The team that showed up for that match didn't seem to be the same team that showed up for the other four matches.
That was a strategy to receive Celtic nations votes. Ireland also was given some games but as Landsdowne Road isn't available, they gave them back. Sincerely, I don't know if that was necessary to beat England for the organization of the World Cup.
Seems kinda weird i think. Means more travelling for fans and decreases the size of the tournament in France. But Wales and Scotland may have voted England as its the seem country and would have been good for the economy or something. Though it could be very successful. In the future when the WC is in Europe they could have a match in a country like Romania which would be good for the game there. (btw England is as Celtic as Ireland/Scotland/Wales)
As it turned out France won the vote by a large margin, with only England getting just three votes (and England has two votes itself) so the Celtic votes were unnecessary, but France didn't know that before the vote occurred. England had a good bid but it was obvious that it was France's turn to host the tournament. I wasn't impressed with the way the Celtic unions behaved to be honest.
Why what did they actually do? Seems like it was Frances fault for thinking they needed to let Ire/Scotland/Wales stage matches in order to get the WC when they more than likely didnt.