Posts Tagged ‘rugby minnows’

The Rugby World Cup Should Have a Plate Competition For Minnows?

Romania in the rugby world cup

The world cup is well underway and apart from Ireland beating Australia there has been no real upsets and even Ireland beating Australia is not a huge upset as Ireland can beat anyone on their day. However this year has seen some of the minnows give a good account of themselves and have given tier 1 countries tough games which turned out to be rather close.

These teams are no longer the pushovers they used to be when cricket scores were a comman occurrence. We have been some very close matches for example Canada beating Tonga and Romania leading Scotland until the final quarter. 

I firmly believe that for the tier 2 nations playing in the world cup are generally playing better than in previous years and are obviously getting better with the more matches they play. It seems a shame that these countries walk away with nothing to show for there efforts after the group stages.

I think that the minnows flourish in playing against better teams in a Rugby World Cup tournament and will get better the more matches they play. I propose that teams that go out of the group stages should then enter the plate competition in a format similar to the Sevens World Series. Do you think this is a good idea or one that is not workable?

Also what could be done to make the tier 2 countries more competitive on the world stage? The world cup will in my opinion be won by any one of 4 teams as is always the case. I cannot see that changing unless fully professional leagues are established in these tier 2 countries, perhaps the IRB should be doing more?