Two Rugby world cups

One consisting of the top tier teams and one consisting of the 2nd tier teams.

Why? Because it would create far more evenly competitive games that would be alot more entertaining to watch and give hope to every team because they have a greater chance of winning. What is the use of scores that blow out to 50 -0 or even 80-0 or even worse 100-0. This is a lose lose situation for both teams. No one really wins.

Far better to have the top twelve nations battle it out for the RWC while twelve of the second tier sides battles it out for the Minnow RWC.

So.... a wild suggestion could be: ( I hope I've got my maths right)

The first RWC would have 12 teams to make up 4 pools of 3:  England. Wales. France. Ireland. Scotland. Argentina. South Africa. Australia. New Zealand. Italy. One from out of USA, Canada and Japan. And one Island team out of Samoa Tonga or Fiji.

Each team would be split into 4 pools of 3 and the first 2 teams go into the quarters. Semis and the final.

Pool 1. England. Argentina. Island team. Pool 2. NZ. Ireland. Scotland. Pool 3. South Africa. Wales. Italy. Pool 4. Australia. France. American/Japan team.

The team with the least points drops down to the 2nd RWC for the following RWC.

The 2nd RWC would also have 12 teams to make up 4 pools of 3: One Americas and Japan. Two Island teams. Georgia. Russia. Namibia. Uruguay. Japan. Spain. Portugal. Kenya.

Pool 1. American team. Russia. Georgia. Pool 2. Island team. Portugal. Namibia. Pool 3. Japan. Russia. Spain. Pool 4. Island team. Uruguay. Kenya.

Winner of the final is promoted to the first RWC for the following RWC.

The second RWC games would be played just before the first RWC games.

This would not only make every match more entertaining but give every team a real chance of winning. The 1st RWC incentive would be to be world champions and the 2nd RWC incentive is to not only win the 2nd RWC but get promoted into the 1st RWC.

???????????? 

Yeah, basically start the tournament with a loser's and winner's bracket based on rankings.

Was just thinking this morning that SA's next few matches are basically nothing games. Same for NZ.

I noticed how few "big" games are left before the quarters. England/Arg, England/France and Australia/Wales pretty much. A few interesting side shows, but nothing that should upset the balance. But then, I think a lot of the spirit of the World Cup revolves around putting the smaller nations on the big stage.

"But then, I think a lot of the spirit of the World Cup revolves around putting the smaller nations on the big stage."

Exactly. 

But not if they get thumped...where's the thrill in that? They will be on the big stage on their level....and playing in the overall RWC..rubbing shoulders with all the best teams in the world over the entire tourn ament.

Plus it would be over 4 weeks instead of a long drawn out 6 weeks.

Yes, it's not ideal.

Nothing's perfect bit it's a lot better than the current model..it would be interesting to see what all these countries wanted if this scenario  was put up to them.

Japan vs Boks 2015 is the biggest upset I can remember. And even then, Japan would be in tier 1 so not even that would result be excluded by Razor's idea.

A 50 to 3 scoreline does indeed not achieve a thing outside of a warm up for the better team and embarrassment for the losers.

Razor makes some very valid points

It does not do much to promote the game around the world , or even build up another team, when sides are getting hammered 87 - 14

I would support a second competition and have the promotion and relegation in place as well

"I would support a second competition and have the promotion and relegation in place as well"

Making that a "preamble" of sorts to the actual RWC can be interesting. Give some of the minnows 4 to 6 weeks to fight it out for a chance ro rumble with the big boys.

Once every four years a few of the minor nations get the opportunity to measure themselves against the big team.

This means they can see where they fall short and attempt to improve and build from there.

"I suggest we take that opportunity away from them and keep them uninvolved. I suggest they have to play in their own reserved pathetic little second-rate competition so that they never have the opportunity to measure themselves against the elite nations. We are only going to expand the games to other nations by keeping the pathetic second rate teams at arms length. "

What a stupid argument.

If anything, we have to involve the tier 2 teams more, not less. That is the only way to grow the game. Competitions like the 6 nations and the Rugby Championship reduced the opportunity for the other nations to compete at the top level outside a world cup year due to the programmes during those competitions.

Sounds like elitist bullsh|t to me...

Guess foregone conclusions are part and parcel RWCs. 

Cricket has it easier because it's innately a more random game. More upsets are possible.

Still, I'd like to hear what Namibia, Tonga, and Canada have to say.

Would they prefer to play teams of their relative ability for most of the tournament with the possibility of a wildcard entry into the quarters? Or be put into pools where the majority of draws will never see them make it out of the pool stages.

Leave as is. The current format serves to grow the game. 

It would be huge for the game is the USA, Canada, Japan rise to the upper echelons. Ditto Russia! 

It is called a world cup for a reason.

Unfortunately rugby like all professional sport it has become a cash cow and the rugby folks at the top are ensuring that they get every drop from this milking process.

Reduce the teams to 8 or 12 and have a round robin format with the team with the most points being declared the winner.

Or, have the round robin and have the top 4 teams play a semi with the two winners going into the final.

It will ensure the best team wins and it will eliminate these one side  games.

The way the guys are running the WC at present it won't take them long to introduce the North American way of determining a winner. Sure will fill the coffers??????????

I don't believe being thrashed and humiliated by another team that is vastly superior in every aspect of the game is beneficial to either team. They already know before they play that they're inferior and the massive lop sided result just confirms that. What do they do in their post mortem: Right guys we need to vastly improve our set piece, our running game, our lineout, our kicking game, our passing skills, our defence, our attack, our tackling, our goal kicking, our dicipline, our scrum, our fitness to try and keep up with them etc etc.

As I said they already knew than before they played.

It must be extremely difficult to improve when your being constantly pounded for 80 minutes.  Better to play that 80 minutes on a level playing field where you can put everything you've planned into practice... have the thrill of scoring tries... kicking penalties...winning lineouts and have a huge driving incentive to win the game...possibly win your pool or be one of the two teams to get to the Quarter finals...then on to the semis and hopefully the finals and the ultimate goal to be promoted into the first tier competition.  

Every match is a realistic bench mark to improve their game. 

Yes we should be including the second tier nations alot more and grow the game globally but this current RWC model is not the way to do that IMO.  Six minnows make the tournament instead of sixteen. Far better to grow the game with sixteen developing teams competing in the same RWC as the first tier... rubbing shoulders with them...playing in the same stadiums and being included as part of the global rugby family. 

So they go home and say they played against the mighty Springboks. How did it go? Well we got totally manshamed for 80 minutes and they put 80 points on us...a point a minute...it was a great thrill to finally play against them at the start but by full time I really felt like shit as I crawled off the field battered to a pulp like I'd just done 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali. What did you learn? That we were totally out of their league and it was embarrassing experience....seriously...give me a competitive game any day.

Instead what do we have with the current RWC: just to give six minnow nations the buzz to play with the big boys we have to stretch it out to 6 long  weeks (instead of four with my suggestion)...watch (or most probably not watch) 20 lop sided boring games and 10 competitive Minnow games where both teams have no hope of even getting out of their pool.

Razor

What you suggested is a very good format.   It is similar to what  was proposed iro of annual tests and the NH unions had a fit -  especially the potential relegation issue.  It seems that some NH teams may fall into the relegation zone and they will lose out.   

The answer is that World Rugby wants to expand the game worldwide and that approach would trump all proposals to change the format of the World Cup,   

Maybe they should start with the annual competition and that would later move into contention for the format of the WC      

SR has served the Pumas very well.

No reason why other national teams cannot join competitions in Europe. 

USA, Canada, Georgia, Russia and so on.

Fiji, Samoa and others could join NZ and OZ. 

The only problem is travel times and jet lag. And it's not an insignificant one.

Right now, these minnow teams don't play many televised games.

You won't grow the game through having Canada thrashed by all comers every four years.

It'll grow when people are invested in their team through watching them compete weekly.

Word of warning. Do not get the Yanks too interested. Nobody e lse will win anything ever again.

“ Posted by: Plum (4163 posts)

SR has served the Pumas very well. “

That is true and they did a much better job than the Sunwolves, but they have also not served SR well and it’s not their fault. 

Let me explain. The only reason why I say that they have not served SR well is because they virtually fielded a national side in a competition that is not supposed between national teams. But, as I said though, it’s not their fault because they were allowed to and it would have been stupid not exploit it. 

When the opportunity to play in the competition arrived, they did exactly what the Sunwolves should also have done. They stacked their side with their best players from all over Argentina. The Sunwolves decided to go the same route as the Japanese national side and stack their side with players from SA, NZ and AUS. That did nothing for the development of Japanese players. Kudos to them (Argentina) for doing that because their national side directly benefitted from SR. That, in hindsight, is a good thing IMO. Maybe now is the time where they should have allowed a second Argentinian team into the competition.

All in all, Argentina’s inclusion in SR was a big success. The Sunwolves experiment was a big balls up. 

Well done Japan .... almost unbelievable. The word match fixing comes to mind.

Japan has improved immensely due to exposure in RWCs [ from record hidings to beating last weeks Number 1 ! 0 and the SR comp .A 2 tier cup would have denied them the chance to improve to tier 1 and the chance at creating history !

Wardad... Japan would be in the Tier one RWC in my RWC. 

Blik, I thought the same thing, but it can't be. Japan played really well. There will be lots of interest in their next 2 matches. Samoa and Scotty...what's the odds?