Rugby World Cup 2019 Japan The hunt for Webb Ellis

jacool

Podge_irl wrote: »

I highly doubt they will want to scale back to 28 matches from the 48 they have now. There is definitely going to be no appetite for scaling back on high profile knockout matches. Anyway, 16 teams is too few - you are eliminating all chance for teams to grow. Japan likely would not have made a host of previous world cups and look at them now.

They are already eliminating teams chances to grow by stating that if you finish in the top 3 of your group, you are already qualified for the next World Cup. This means that by this weekend, in 2019, we will already know 12 of the 20 teams from the 2023 tournament!
Besides that, its unfair on Italy, and cruel on the players who planned to either bow out against the greatest team currently, or knock them out! Their final game is already behind them.

Naggdefy

munsterlegend wrote: »

I think we need a good performance on Saturday. We won’t know about Scotland japan game until Sunday so who knows what will happen.

I'm not 100% definite but the talk seems to be we'll know in advance if Scotland v Japan is cancelled.

Funny thing is if it was a November international we'd play 5 or 6 main starters only and usually win. I take your point re. confidence and of course it's not a November International. Still I'd go with the gamble of having a fresh team to face NZ in that scenario. If we pick up more injuries etc our chances diminish.

Podge_irl

jacool wrote: »

They are already eliminating teams chances to grow by stating that if you finish in the top 3 of your group, you are already qualified for the next World Cup. This means that by this weekend, in 2019, we will already know 12 of the 20 teams from the 2023 tournament!
Besides that, its unfair on Italy, and cruel on the players who planned to either bow out against the greatest team currently, or knock them out! Their final game is already behind them.

What is wrong with the auto-qualifying? It gives teams something else to play for in the group and there would have been absolutely zero point in having England playing Belgium to qualify for this world cup (not least as England aren't even in the qualifying competition).

BattleCorp

BattleCorp wrote: »

Italy were rightly shafted.

Ridiculous comment, anybody and everybody has a chance. there have been far greater sporting upsets in the past few years.

Jump_In_Jack wrote: »

I can't say I know anything about cricket, but what's your point?

The Irish cricket team are, essentially, the same as Georgia or Japan......i.e. well able to punch above their weight and were getting results against the big boys for a few years without any official recognition. We've since been awarded test status (basically Tier 1), but it was long overdue.

Anyway, as a wise man once said.....cricket....there's no demand for that, because its shyte.

Podge_irl

Naggdefy wrote: »

I'm not 100% definite but the talk seems to be we'll know in advance if Scotland v Japan is cancelled.

Funny thing is if it was a November international we'd play 5 or 6 main starters only and usually win. I take your point re. confidence and of course it's not a November International. Still I'd go with the gamble of having a fresh team to face NZ in that scenario. If we pick up more injuries etc our chances diminish.

We won't. They aren't making a decision on Japan v Scotland til Sunday. I imagine if the storm worsens somehow it may be cancelled early but if it continues as is then they will decide basically after the storm has passed on the basis of how much damage has been done.

Eod100

Christy42 wrote: »

I saw a suggestion to replace the meaningless matches with the important ones. The others have ranking points and qualification to the next WC on the line but can be postponed later in the competition.

Which games though? And not sure if would be that easy just to swap.

lawred2

LastLagoon wrote: »

What about Qatar, it’s on in winter , no games going to be cancelled. gonna be great having actual competitive World Cup games to look forward to in November/December

Give me a break.

Delighted for you that you're looking forward to football in the desert. How about taking your glee elsewhere. Maybe start a 2022 WC thread.

Shefwedfan

LastLagoon wrote: »

What about Qatar, it’s on in winter , no games going to be cancelled. gonna be great having actual competitive World Cup games to look forward to in November/December

Seeing as the amount of corruption around the awarding of the competition it wouldntbe a huge surprise if Qatar win the trophy......couple of million in someone bank account will sort anyone out in soccer

blackwhite

Podge_irl wrote: »

Knock-out Matches


Cancelled Matches
Where a knock-out Match cannot commence within the two days following the scheduled Match day (or such longer period as specified by RWCL) or is abandoned prior to half-time and cannot be postponed and rescheduled within this period, it shall be considered as cancelled.

In such situations, the following sequential criteria shall apply to determine the winner of the cancelled Match:

The Team with the most Match points from the pool phase (applicable in quarter-finals and semifinals).
The Team which in all its Tournament Matches has the best difference between points scored for and points scored against.
The Team which in all its Tournament Matches has the best difference between tries scored for and tries scored against.
The Team which in all its Tournament Matches has scored most points.
The Team which in all its Tournament Matches has scored most tries.
Where all criteria above are not able to determine a winner, the Team that is higher ranked in the official World Rugby World Rankings at the time the Match is scheduled to be played (this criterion will not apply for the Final; in the case that the winner of the Final cannot be determined from the above criteria the two Teams shall be jointly declared winners).

Really goes to show how much of a clusterfuck the tournament regulations are.

Hypothetically - England and New Zealand progress to the Semis, and another Typhoon hits. Disruption is so bad they cannot get it played within the 2 days and game is deemed cancelled.

On that basis - England progress having gotten 17 points to New Zealand's 16 during the group stages.
However, New Zealand missed out on a likely bonus point against Italy, whereas England's missed game was against France where a bonus point wasn't 100% a given.
NZ's score difference is currently 36 better than England, so if they'd both played their final games then there's a decent chance that NZ would actually hold the tie-breaker instead.

Utter mess of regulations - very obvious they never seriously considered the possibility of games being lost to weather, and certainly didn't run scenario tests against the tournament regulations.

Loafing Oaf

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Seeing as the amount of corruption around the awarding of the competition it wouldntbe a huge surprise if Qatar win the trophy......couple of million in someone bank account will sort anyone out in soccer

I seem to remember Qatar used to be pronounced cat-AAR but the way people say it now sounds closer to 'gutter'...

Naggdefy

Podge_irl wrote: »

We won't. They aren't making a decision on Japan v Scotland til Sunday. I imagine if the storm worsens somehow it may be cancelled early but if it continues as is then they will decide basically after the storm has passed on the basis of how much damage has been done.

Fair enough.

Barney92

Jump_In_Jack wrote: »

I can't say I know anything about cricket, but what's your point?

The cricket world cup has been decreasing in size since 2007 which had 16 teams, falling to 14 in 2011 and then down to 10 in 2019. The standard of play in the countries ranked 11-16 had improved over that time. However, due to a variety of reason it was decided to cut the tournament down giving teams less opportunity to play in the World Cup especially since there were actually only two qualification places up for grabs in the qualifying tournament (which was a sham for other reasons too).

There were a good few teams not in the World Cup that had beaten teams in the World Cup in the year or two before the event, e.g. Scotland beating the tournament winners England a year before the tournament. Cricket has gone down a bad road in terms of cutting access to big tournaments and thus giving 'lesser' teams fewer opportunities against the bigger teams.

I agree that the format for the rugby world cup isn't ideal, but I disagree with cutting the number of teams in it. Uruguay were one of the fifth pool teams and they beat Fiji who were a fourth seed because of a very tough group last time around, but were ranked in the top ten at the time of the draw.

Barney92

Jump_In_Jack wrote: »

Teams can grow outside of the world cup.
The world cup should be about the best teams competing to be world champions.
A "B" world cup would serve better to help teams grow, and once a team becomes competitive they should start to play tier 1 teams more regularly and eventually be good enough to qualify into the top 16 on merit.

I agree that World Rugby would not wish to scale anything back, they prefer to dilute the pools than make it a better spectacle. More matches and teams are more impressive to sponsors. As a spectator I would rather the quality of the competition was increased by making the matches more competitive.

Why stop with 16 teams though? Italy are almost always going to be in the top sixteen but they've little to no chance of winning the whole thing so why have them in it? Samoa and Fiji have gotten to the quarter finals but no further. Tonga have never been out of the group stage. Japan haven't gotten out of a group before either (they may do this time but probably won't go too much further). If you want it to be about the best teams competing then why include these teams?

Bogwoppit

The BBC pulling no punches here; Rugby World Cup: Typhoon Hagibis met with 'woeful intransigence' in Japan https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/50003523

schmoo2k

Jump_In_Jack wrote: »

I can't say I know anything about cricket, but what's your point?

Ireland have reasonably consistently beaten or come close to beating tier 1 nations, but don't get invites to the world cup. And they have no vehicle to get consistent matches against trier 1 teams, so can never get better...

Guy:Incognito

LastLagoon wrote: »

I’m not wishing it on anyone it’s an inevitable consequence of the way game has been played in this era, basically consisting of big lads running into a wall over and over again

Surely we should have been seeing this from league players well before now so?

Bogwoppit

Bogwoppit wrote: »

The BBC pulling no punches here; Rugby World Cup: Typhoon Hagibis met with 'woeful intransigence' in Japan https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/50003523

can't argue that World Rugby haven't been pig-headed and stubborn in this situation by sticking to their guns on "the rules".

Muahahaha

Question- had the Italy NZ game been a quarter final and the same typhoon came along what would have World Rugbys decision been then? It would have to be re-scheduled surely? Or were they just going to toss a coin to see who gets to the semis?

Muahahaha

Muahahaha wrote: »

Question- had the Italy NZ game been a quarter final and the same typhoon came along what would have World Rugbys decision been then? It would have to be re-scheduled surely? Or were they just going to toss a coin to see who gets to the semis?

Rules were covered a few posts back

Dave_The_Sheep

I wonder how this will affect World Rugby's relationship with the unions of Italy, Scotland and to a degree Ireland when it comes to future ... discussions.

Jump_In_Jack

Barney92 wrote: »

Why stop with 16 teams though? Italy are almost always going to be in the top sixteen but they've little to no chance of winning the whole thing so why have them in it? Samoa and Fiji have gotten to the quarter finals but no further. Tonga have never been out of the group stage. Japan haven't gotten out of a group before either (they may do this time but probably won't go too much further). If you want it to be about the best teams competing then why include these teams?

16 teams is a good number of teams for a World Cup.
I wouldn’t cut it any further.

ScrubsfanChris

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

I wonder how this will affect World Rugby's relationship with the unions of Italy, Scotland and to a degree Ireland when it comes to future ... discussions.

After the fiasco of the 2023 bid, I'm sure Ireland and World Rugby aren't on good terms as it it.

Ishmael

I think WR and or the Hosts have painted themselves into an awkward corner on this Typhoon Scenario.

I know the rules around the Typhoons stated that if games can't kick off at their selected times or a bit later on the same day would be cancelled and that is understandable from the point of view of the pool games. There is a very tight schedule between pool games and delaying one or two games in the early part of the pool stage could mess up a lot of other pool games and have a lot of knock on effects. However, the games affected here are the last games of the pools and rescheduling for a day later in the same location shouldn't be that big of a problem. In fact, I think most would agree that not having the games has more knock on effects than having them or at least making every effort to have them.

The Japan - Scotland game is in question because it is a day after the Typhoon so the weather still may make it unplayable or other factors around the stadium etc... may give them reason to call it off, Yet, they are still willing to wait it out and make a call on it 6 hours before the scheduled kick-off with a possibility of delaying it maybe?

The Stadium where England were playing France is not far from where Japan will be playing Scotland so the question is why couldn't that game be delayed 24 hours? If they are willing to wait and see on the Japan - Scotland game, i can't see why waiting on the England - France game would be such a problem and even more so for the NZ - Italy game which is further away from the path of the storm.

For England - France and NZ - Italy, it is almost a free bet to just wait as if the games get called off anyway, then it has no impact on the teams that go through and they can at least claim they did all they could. If the conditions are good enough to play, some fans get put out but at least the games go ahead and there is a only a small impact on turnaround times for the QF.

By cancelling the Eng - Fra game and the NZ - Italy game, they have now set out that they are going to follow the rules exactly and painted themselves into the corner of having to cancel the Japan - Scotland game if conditions are not going to be right at kick off.

If they show flexibility for the Japan - Scotland game, then Italy would rightly be pissed off at getting screwed over by little more than a technicality. If they don't show flexibility, then Scotland get screwed over on a technicality.

adox

The cancelled games sort of ruins the tournament and skews more than the group results.

Really poor decision making to just straight out cancel the games imo. I’ve been really enjoying the tournament so far but this just really takes the shine off it. Some teams being handed huge advantages with these decisions.

letsseehere14

Anyone know what World Rugbys plan would have been had this hit next weekend? What's their contingency then?

TTTT

We should be delighted it not our game getting called off as we would possibly be out.

If we had beaten Japan we could have rested our players this weekend too and had 2 weeks rest before quarter final.

Ishmael

letsseehere14 wrote: »

Anyone know what World Rugbys plan would have been had this hit next weekend? What's their contingency then?

Different rules for Knock-out stages. Games would get moved / rescheduled if possible.

mystic86

If the Scotland game is not going ahead it would be better if the Ireland game was cancelled too, gives us an extra week to rest and then prepare for NZ.

Looks like it's NZ forcing the situation, as all participants need to agree to any deviation from the rules. They want the extended break, read full thread from below.
If this is true then all other countries should publicly state their preference

https://twitter.com/brianmoore666/status/1182355309337153537?s=20

Podge_irl

Eod100 wrote: »

So Japan obviously wouldn't agree to anything bar cancelling.

Except for the part where he states they were happy to play...

Eod100

Podge_irl wrote: »

Except for the part where he states they were happy to play...

Yup, typed too soon. Deleted since

TheRiverman

Major World sporting event awarded to country prone to typhoons in peak typhoon season and we are expected to believe this was legitimate and above board.

Exclamation Marc

LastLagoon wrote: »

Delighted, cements the legacy of this World Cup as a farce. Integrity of tournament completely shot now, you wouldn’t see FIFA ****ing up this bad.

RWC is a joke of a tournament as it is , a bloated mess that doesn’t seriously get going until the groups are over , dragged out to **** too, should be a 16 team tournament for sure.

Rugby’s popularity with kids will nosedive in this country once a few big name players from past few years start displaying the consequences of repeated concussions, it’s still abstract to a lot of parents but it’s game over once they see big names as a shadow of their former selves

Cool story bro.

The fact you're delighted says a lot more about you than World Cup tbh.

Rockbeast2

"Major World sporting event awarded to country prone to typhoons in peak typhoon season and we are expected to believe this was legitimate and above board."

Ah, here, it was an absolute feck up but it's not right to question if tournament is legitimate.

There is a Conspiracy Theory page somewhere else on Boards.

Podge_irl

TheRiverman wrote: »

Major World sporting event awarded to country prone to typhoons in peak typhoon season and we are expected to believe this was legitimate and above board.

October is not peak typhoon season for one.

The Lost Sheep

Jump_In_Jack wrote: »

Absolutely agree.

4 pools of 4 is ideal.

Let 12 teams automatically qualify (6N, RC, Jap, Fij) and have a qualification process for the last 4 places.

With 4 pools of 4, put top team from each pool straight into a semi-final, and then a final, and forget about the quarter-finals and the 3rd place playoff.

Much simpler and would only take 5 weekends instead of 7.

If teams below that have the interest in competing in a "B" rugby world cup then that should be arranged also, no harm catering for the Tier 2 and Tier 3 teams in a separate competition.
That would be much better than letting them get slaughtered against Tier 1 teams.

In the current system, look what happened to Fiji when they put out their B team against Uruguay's first team. The scheduling is such a mess with 5 teams in each group. One team getting 4 days between matches and another getting 8 days. Utterly ridiculous and totally unfair.

That is such a poor idea and backwards IMO
It doesnt help sport expand and develop. We should be pushing towards having 24 teams. Quarters and 3rd/4th place need to stay as well. Expansion to 24 teams solves 5 team pool issue as well.

Van.Bosch wrote: »

If Ireland and Samoa can go ahead in two days, why not move all 3 games to that stadium for that day.

Ireland play Samoa, you clear it out and the other two matches get played in the safe stadium with no fans. You have medical teams on standby from game 1. The teams can travel safely today before the typhoon. It’s far from ideal but surely it’s better than scrapping. All games get played.

moving 3 games to one stadium isnt feasible between security pitch etc.

Jump_In_Jack wrote: »

Because there's no need for them.
If a team isn't the best in their pool then there's no need for them to progress any further.

Possibly one dead rubber in the final round in each pool for the bottom two teams but they could still be very competitive matches.
The seeding and schedule should pit the top two teams against each other for the final round so that it would be like a quarter final anyway, assuming they won both of their first round matches.

that shouldn't happen either. You shouldn't look to have top two seeded sides playing last round either all the time.

LastLagoon wrote: »

Delighted, cements the legacy of this World Cup as a farce. Integrity of tournament completely shot now, you wouldn’t see FIFA ****ing up this bad.

RWC is a joke of a tournament as it is , a bloated mess that doesn’t seriously get going until the groups are over , dragged out to **** too, should be a 16 team tournament for sure.

Rugby’s popularity with kids will nosedive in this country once a few big name players from past few years start displaying the consequences of repeated concussions, it’s still abstract to a lot of parents but it’s game over once they see big names as a shadow of their former selves

Haha rugby's popularity is growing all the time. Expansion of game in clubs across Ireland. Number of clubs going senior at adult level based on success of kids teams over past decade and more shows that as well.

Jump_In_Jack wrote: »

Teams can grow outside of the world cup.
The world cup should be about the best teams competing to be world champions.
A "B" world cup would serve better to help teams grow, and once a team becomes competitive they should start to play tier 1 teams more regularly and eventually be good enough to qualify into the top 16 on merit.

I agree that World Rugby would not wish to scale anything back, they prefer to dilute the pools than make it a better spectacle. More matches and teams are more impressive to sponsors. As a spectator I would rather the quality of the competition was increased by making the matches more competitive.

except teams cant really grow outside of world cup when top sides dont and refuse to play next tier on a regular basis.
A b world cup just sees sides who already play each 9ther regularly play once again when these sides need more games at a higher standard to learn and grow.

Podge_irl wrote: »

What is wrong with the auto-qualifying? It gives teams something else to play for in the group and there would have been absolutely zero point in having England playing Belgium to qualify for this world cup (not least as England aren't even in the qualifying competition).

12 from 20 qualifying for next tournament isnt ideal though or help with expanding tournament to new teams qualifying

Jump_In_Jack wrote: »

16 teams is a good number of teams for a World Cup.
I wouldn’t cut it any further.

going to 16 is very like cricket going to 10 sides. Completely closed bar 1/2 new sides every tournament.

adox wrote: »

The cancelled games sort of ruins the tournament and skews more than the group results.

Really poor decision making to just straight out cancel the games imo. I’ve been really enjoying the tournament so far but this just really takes the shine off it. Some teams being handed huge advantages with these decisions.

tough to try find places to play the games again though

Podge_irl

Podge_irl wrote: »

October is not peak typhoon season for one.

It is the tail end of the season (nothing to legitimise the conspiracy theory)

April, in Japan, is perfect rugby weather. Would have required 6 Nations and Champions Cup rescheduling. Probably why not even considered but would have been far far preferable to this sh1t show and NZ antics

Podge_irl

It’s not ideal but realistically it’s the only thing that makes sense. It would be great if there was any point to a qualification tournament but it would just be a waste of time for the 6N/4N teams.

Podge_irl

Podge_irl wrote: »

It’s not ideal but realistically it’s the only thing that makes sense. It would be great if there was any point to a qualification tournament but it would just be a waste of time for the 6N/4N teams.

Maybe there should be, which encompasses everyone.
Good way of lower ranked teams get real test matches

Podge_irl

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It is the tail end of the season (nothing to legitimise the conspiracy theory)

April, in Japan, is perfect rugby weather. Would have required 6 Nations and Champions Cup rescheduling. Probably why not even considered but would have been far far preferable to this sh1t show and NZ antics

The “season” lasts 5 months though...

April is probably close to peak tourist season for Japan too which wouldn’t be ideal. But it’s an interesting point in general. Some flexibility on the timing of the World Cup wouldn’t go amiss but with competing calendars in the NH and SH it’s just so difficult.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Looks like it's NZ forcing the situation, as all participants need to agree to and deviation from the rules. They want the extended break, read full thread from below.
If this is true then all other countries should publicly state their preference

https://twitter.com/brianmoore666/status/1182355309337153537?s=20

NZ don't want an extended break, they just don't want a shorter break than the scheduled one heading into the knockout. Assuming, of course, that the people Brian Moore talked to who said this about NZ actually exist, and are telling the truth.

letsseehere14

Ishmael wrote:

Different rules for Knock-out stages. Games would get moved / rescheduled if possible.

Ya read back the last 10 pages. Blackwhite presented a very good scenario. Shambolic

Former Former

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Looks like it's NZ forcing the situation, as all participants need to agree to and deviation from the rules. They want the extended break, read full thread from below.
If this is true then all other countries should publicly state their preference

https://twitter.com/brianmoore666/status/1182355309337153537?s=20

This isn't correct. There's nothing in the rules that allows a game to be played a day later, even with everyone's agreement.

hahashake

Let me guess, the All Blacks magic was so powerful it cancelled the France England game too?

hahashake

hahashake wrote: »

Let me guess, the All Blacks magic was so powerful it cancelled the France England game too?

IF you flex for one you flex for all. Can't say one is cancelled while another is rescheduled

Former Former

Former Former wrote: »

This isn't correct. There's nothing in the rules that allows a game to be played a day later, even with everyone's agreement.

Rules are set by the governing body and agreed by the participants. Scotland are pointing to Force Majeure clause allowing flexibility, apparently.



https://twitter.com/brianmoore666/status/1182355315804770308?s=20

Basil3

Basil3 wrote: »

NZ don't want an extended break, they just don't want a shorter break than the scheduled one heading into the knockout. Assuming, of course, that the people Brian Moore talked to who said this about NZ actually exist, and are telling the truth.

Sure because they planned on their full 1st XV playing Italy anyway.

hahashake

Deleted User wrote: »

IF you flex for one you flex for all. Can't say one is cancelled while another is rescheduled

Brian says there are 2 camps. Camps would imply it is 2 groups. I'm sure England and possibly France are happy to stick to the rules, but he conveniently doesn't mention their preference.

ABs are relatively injury free while England are stricken with illness and Billy V is in a moonboot.

hahashake

hahashake wrote: »

Brian says there are 2 camps. Camps would imply it is 2 groups. I'm sure England and possibly France are happy to stick to the rules, but he conveniently doesn't mention their preference.

ABs are relatively injury free while England are stricken with illness and Billy V is in a moonboot.

Which is why I said that all countries should have to state their stance on the matter of playing their games.

shootermacg

You really see the sportsmanship when it comes to these decisions.