Keep the Party Going
The final round of exciting pool stage games have now passed and we find ourselves saying farewell to the likes of Portugal and Samoa, some of the teams that have really turned heads this tournament. While we always expected to see the backs of the likes of Namibia and and Uruguay, one sentiment that is constantly repeated when talking about the state of the emerging nations is that they’re desperate for regular high level fixtures. World rugby are missing a huge opportunity here to keep the Rugby World Cup party going after the Pool stages to increase unique fixtures with the teams that are already there.
Portugal celebrating an historic win against Fiji.
Brian Moore in his recent article for the Telegraph suggests a Plate tournament for the unqualified teams. While this will add some exciting matches to the fixtures list it will not fix the problem of lower ranked teams getting the games they need. Assuming for a plate tournament you mirror the main tournament only with the third and forth ranked teams then that still leaves the fifth place teams and the ones with dyer need for meaningful fixtures without any. That would mean Namibia go back to play Zambia and Kenya for three more years before heading to Australia to face the All Blacks again. It would also become a logistical nightmare for the poorer nations, not knowing till the last game if they qualify for the plate or not. And even if they do qualify for the plate that will also leave them with a mismatched opponent. For example as it stands after this weekend Uruguay would have to face Scotland, Tonga would be looking at Italy and on the other side of the draw it would be Portugal versus Japan and Australia versus Samoa. Great games for sure but also fairly predictably and this extra bit of silverware will undoubtedly end up with Scotland or maybe Australia and then tonga would have only had one or two extra games.
contrasting emotions yet still both going home.
My solution to this is to create three leagues after the pool stages. The top two teams in the Pool carry on as normal into their knockout rounds while the remaining teams get put into a round robin league with their equal counter parts in each group. Let us call the group of the third place finishers the Gold league, the forth place finishers the Silver league and the 5th place finishers the Bronze league. First of all for logistic reasons, all teams heading to the world cup will know they will be away for seven weeks (minus the teams knocked out of the Quarters and Semifinals of the main tournament) four weeks of group stages then three weeks of knockouts or Gold/Silver/Bronze League. We could also base these leagues at set locations for the whole time so fans can stay in one place to support their team and even watch the meaningful games of the other teams in that league. The Gold matches could be based in larger cities so they can host the likes of Australia and Scotland while the Bronze league could be set in smaller towns that still have great stadia.
Teams would have to take a few more players but it would get these countries the unique fixtures they’re asking for. In this set up no team will ever have to repeat a fixture while also playing for something tangible right to the end. This will in turn create a more accurate World Rankings table after the tournament. The six nations often goes right to the wire as its such a small league which therefore creates many permeations. Now imagine this with a four team league, where all teams have recently been seeded in the Pool stages, so we know they’re on par with each other.
an overall table after all the pool stages
Timing wise it would mean everyones world cup would start and end at roughly the same time and it would keep fans coming back for more. We could even have some mid week games continued along with some noon kick-offs on the weekend to act as an appetiser for the big knockout fixtures.
Three more weeks of this!
This opportunity only rolls around every four years and so it should be a celebration of the game. Let’s listen to the emerging nations and the fans and give them what they deserve. More meaningful rugby!