24 Team World Cup

[Omar Comin']

A few months ago Brett Gosper flagged the possibility of expanding the world cup to 24 teams and I think the Japan v Scotland match showed why this would be a good thing. With 6 pools of 4 you'd avoid teams having to back up after short turnarounds against fresh opponents. Scheduling shouldn't have any impact on deciding the pools, but there's no doubt it does at the moment.

The way I see it is you'd have a round of 16 featuring the top 2 from each pool plus the four best 3rd place getters. Thus the tournament would be the same length and you'd have more knock out matches.

I think there's two things to balance here. The integrity of the tournament and driving the growth of the game. The best format in the long term would be 32 teams like the soccer world cup, but rugby is clearly not ready for that yet. 24 would be a good stepping stone though - I think it'd help grow the game in more places without negatively affecting the integrity of the tournament.

In every pool you'd want at least 2 teams capable of winning the pool, a 3rd team capable of upsetting at least one of those teams and a 4th team that can put up a fight and not lose by 100. I think world rugby is almost at that point now and certainly should be in 8 years.

Thoughts?

 

[qwerty51]

I like it, include Russia, Spain, Hong Kong and Kenya.

Not sure about the format.

6 pools of 4. Top 2 progress. 12 -> 6 -> 3 and then a 3-way series to declare the winner.

 

[Slim 293]

6 pools of 4. Top 2 progress. 12 -> 6 -> 3 and then a 3-way series to declare the winner.

I don't think you can have a 3 way battle for the title.........

Need to have a number of pools divisible by 4, so the next stage would be a 32 team competition of 8 pools of 4 teams, but that would probably be a few too many...........

However, there would be 16 teams reaching the second stage beyond their pool which would be great for some of the minnows..........

But agreed that 24 - 28 teams would probably be preferential for now, but need a format that works without increasing the number of teams in pools.

 

[Braveheart81]

Surely if you went to 24 teams you'd stick with four pools and make it six teams per pool.

I don't think it is a better competition to have pools of four meaning only three pool games for each team and then a round of 16 where you have 2/3 of the competition progressing past the pool stage.

 

[Omar Comin']

Surely if you went to 24 teams you'd stick with four pools and make it six teams per pool.

I don't think it is a better competition to have pools of four meaning only three pool games for each team and then a round of 16 where you have 2/3 of the competition progressing past the pool stage.

That'd be a lot of pool games though. It'd drag on like the cricket world cup. And the tournament would take an extra week to complete. Can't see that happening.

2/3rds would progress past the pool stage but that means most teams would play at least 4 matches. The pool stage would essentially seed the teams from 1-16. I think knock out games are the best part of any world cup.

To begin with a lot of the round of 16 matches would be pretty predictable, but I think it'd be a lot more intriguing watching the likes of Italy, Georgia, Tonga etc play a top 6 team in a knockout game than in another pool game.

 

[wamberal]

I like it, include Russia, Spain, Hong Kong and Kenya.

No country would be guaranteed a place, except those who qualify, one way or the other.


If we are talking about our druthers, I would rather have a team badged "People's Republic of China". Most of the players would be from the Hong Kong representative team initially - but who knows, it might lead finally to some serious Chinese involvement in our code.


I'd like to see that!!!

 

[Jagman]

I like it, include Russia, Spain, Hong Kong and Kenya.

Not sure about the format.

6 pools of 4. Top 2 progress. 12 -> 6 -> 3 and then a 3-way series to declare the winner.

I think Gosper said the nations he wants in the 24 predominantly are Russia and Germany. I think Germany was higher up the chain when he said that. Makes a lot of sense financially.

 

[Braveheart81]

If you look at qualifying for the 2015 RWC, the last three teams to miss out were Russia, Zimbabwe and Hong Kong.

Germany was the second last European team to get knocked out.

 

[Pfitzy]

Pools of 6 to start with, so that even numbers can run, with 5-day turnarounds on average. The situation where the host nation only plays weekends is shite.

 

[Omar Comin']

If you look at qualifying for the 2015 RWC, the last three teams to miss out were Russia, Zimbabwe and Hong Kong.

Germany was the second last European team to get knocked out.

A lot can change in 8 years. In 2007 Portugal qualified and Morocco were pretty close to making it. Now those teams have fallen away.

I think Brazil will be one of the countries to really develop. Rugby's had good growth at the grassroots there which should start to pay off in the next decade. They'll be part of the new Americas 6 Nations starting next year and while they'll be cannon fodder to begin with they'll surely improve. They also have an ongoing partnership with the Canterbury Rugby Union, which is helping develop coaches etc. Plus it's a huge market so WR (World Rugby) will target it for investment.

 

[Braveheart81]

A lot can change in 8 years. In 2007 Portugal qualified and Morocco were pretty close to making it. Now those teams have fallen away.

I wasn't insinuating anything except adding more info to the thread.

Obviously no one knows who the next four teams in 2019 will be but this gives some info of what might be the situation if it was a 24 team tournament in 2015.

 

[Omar Comin']

Yeah fair enough. I think (with the exception of Russia) that those teams are not currently close enough to the level of Namibia or Uruguay so it shows that we're not quite ready for 24 teams. I know Namibia only just qualified out of Africa last year but with their full strength team this year they crushed Zimbabwe and Kenya. I think Hong Kong, Germany and Zimbabwe would all lose by 100+ to any top 5 team. But hopefully by 2023 we'll have more teams that are at least as competitive as Uruguay are now (and ideally a little better with more pro players).

Spain are probably another team that could be instantly good enough to compete were they to qualify. There's a lot of decent French based players that are eligible for Spain but who don't play for them regularly.

 

[papabear]

IMO the more teams the merrier.

but having a 16 team second round will make the pool rounds irrelevant, with most of them progressing through. Losing interest, world cup lustre etc.

IMO - you have 24 teams, with 8 groups of 3, winner progressing to the quarter finals.

That way each game is must win almost. You just have to make sure teams are seeded properly and the northern part of the union doesnt overrate their shit brick useless northern sides in comparison to the brilliance in the southern hemisphere.

 

[Braveheart81]

8 groups of 3 means only two matches for 2/3 of the teams. I think that is too few.

I think it was too few matches when the RWC was 16 teams and only three pool games.

4 seems like the golden number of pool matches but the flipside to that is that increasing the size of pools to 6 teams would be good from the perspective of reducing uneven turnarounds between matches.

 

[Omar Comin']

I think the tournament will always be run over 6 weeks like it is now. Can't see it being extended by a week, especially given the growing power of European clubs. 6 team pools would mean you'd need an extra week - that or you'd consistently have 5 day turnarounds for everyone, which means teams would not really be able to play their best team every game. And that favours the big teams as they can play a 2nd XV that's almost as good as their 1st. I think we want to avoid lower ranked teams having to play 2nd XV's (that are much weaker than their 1st) against top teams in an effort to rest players for a more winnable match.

The round of 16 would ensure most teams get to play at least 4 games. The pools would still be important for the top teams because they would determine seedings. 8 teams would only play 3 matches but I think that's probably enough for the very weakest teams.

 

[Highlander35]

Maybe take a leaf from cricket?

Preliminary group stage of 16 (4 pools of 4), where the top 2 in each pool go into a 2nd pool stage (4 pools of 4) then quarters, semis and finals as per norm?

Host, last years winner, top 2 or 3 from the 6 Nations 2 years before top 2 or 3 from the Rugby Championship 2 years before and the winner of the PNC (Pacific Nations Cup) 2 years before go into the 2nd pool stage, the rest of the teams from those comps go into the 1st pool stage, and the final 8 teams qualify from regional games?

 

[papabear]

Maybe take a leaf from cricket?

Preliminary group stage of 16 (4 pools of 4), where the top 2 in each pool go into a 2nd pool stage (4 pools of 4) then quarters, semis and finals as per norm?

Host, last years winner, top 2 or 3 from the 6 Nations 2 years before top 2 or 3 from the Rugby Championship 2 years before and the winner of the PNC (Pacific Nations Cup) 2 years before go into the 2nd pool stage, the rest of the teams from those comps go into the 1st pool stage, and the final 8 teams qualify from regional games?

crickets world cups get slammed when they muck around and the world cup goes for too long.

If you want more games for the shit sides.. I am not sure why thats necessary, its more about finding the best rugby side in the world, but if that is an important consideration. You have four groups of 6 sides, thats a shitload of games but jam them all in their.

IMO prime athletes should be fine backing up after five days for a one off tournament that is the most important in their career every four years.

That way top 2 still only make it through so you still have to win most of your games to progress, keeping those games meaningful.

 

[wamberal]

The thing is that even games featuring minnows get big attendances.



More teams, more money, apparently - and wouldn't it be good to see nations like Russia, Brazil, and maybe China involved?


The sort of thing that your code can only dream about, and blame us for.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

When I saw this thread I was wondering what you guys were on with suggestion to add another 4 teams....but on reflecting the minnows have improved over the years so no longer get the 100+ thrashings e.g. nambia game vs nz much closer than predicted...

which in large part does reflect efforts to improve the minnows by IRC in terms of second tier comps etc...so in actual fact having another 4 teams may not be so crazy as have enjoyed watching the minnows....and others like Spain, russia etc not that far behind teams like Urugray...

 

[Braveheart81]

The campaign slogan for the 24 team RWC could be "Bring back the 100 point floggings!"