2023 RWC Buildup, Squads, Fixtures 'etc'

I can guarantee you that any excitement generated for this world cup has been, in part, down to the bravado and exciting rugby played by Uruguay and Portugal. These teams came here to do their country proud and promote the game back home - and as Chile's own setup remarked, are going home happy and having succeeded in their aims.

It's a damn sight more interesting to watch than some of the tedious Tier 1 slog merchants whose rugby is an eyesore.

Dropping to groups of 4 when the tournament goes up to 24 teams will remote the week 5. A Round of 16 probably giving Scotland, Japan, Argentina and other Tier 1s extra time at the tournament.

Where are you getting it that Portugal would be in the round of 16? Assuming 6 groups of 4, we'd have 12 qualifiers from 1st and 2nd place leaving 4 teams to make up the shortfall. And that's presumably gonna come from the best 4 3rd placed teams - and that's gonna be Fiji, Scotland, Japan, Argentina, etc. If anything there are gonna be fewer lopsided match ups, not more. Unless Portugal get much better in the next 4-8 years ... in which they're position in knockout rugby will be earned.

Don't sealion. You can have any opinion you want - and my opinion in return js bafflement why knowing these teams are poor, you'd choose to watch them anyway when you clearly hate them and have no desire to give them contextual appreciation. "Hate watch" is the term for watching a TV show you don't actually enjoy, just so you can complain about it - never heard of the sporting equivalent.

And yes expanding to 24 will result in fewer minnow games, and more knockout games for tier 1 nations if you think about it instead of raging about the arbitrary number. The group stage will be shorter, the knockout stage feature more Tier 1 nations - it'll be a net positive for competitiveness.

Plus it's a bit disrespectful to say these teams don't take the tournament seriously - of course they do: their lack of experience or comparative training doesn't make them any less committed, or their intensity levels lacking. You only have to listen to the players to see how much this tournament means to them.

TBH given how often our own rare appearances in global sports tournaments occur - rugby notwithstanding - you'd appreciate that being the underdog far below the top table has merit to these smaller nations.

Here's the Chilean perspective, if you missed it.

All I'll say is this: nearly 30 years ago Japan shipped 145 points to New Zealand at the 1995 world cup. Now they're a Tier 1, 1.5 nation who briefly had a club in Super Rugby. Think about that, and how, say, Uruguay can go from heavy (?) defeats to being competitive enough to beat Ireland on the way to the QFs in a few generations. Christ Ireland took 20 years to get here, after another perennial loser Argentina knocked us out. We've scarcely always been a top nation ourselves.

It's not about lauding for it's own sake, it's about development. Identifying potential and giving them the tools and access to be the next Argentina. Maybe Uruguay won't be, maybe they will. We won't know if we don't give them the opportunity.

Well, whoever finishes 1st and 2nd in the 6 groups: which I guess will be the 6 nations, the 4 nations in the SH true enough, as @Buer notes my mistake was reviewing the 20 team competition; so the remaining 6 teams are a grab from Japan, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, I guess Georgia as Tier 2s prime team, then 1 other. Not exactly a shocking drop in quality, Georgia notwithstanding.

So yeah admittedly you might look at a "shock" entry from Tier 2 but so what? It's one extra round and knockout rugby. More at stake in a once off winner takes all. I'd like to think by then maybe the USA has got its act in order by its own World Cup, Uruguay puts more gears in motion to make the France game a regular occurrence and not a once off. If Ireland and Japan are the benchmark it's a 20byear job so might be too soon.

Still don't think its this collapse in quality many are predicting, bar a couple of teams who'll be seen as the "best" get for a Tier 1. And then you get as I said, knock out rugby and some real shock exits when (say) Japan knocks out Wales. I just don't see a major problem, quite the opposite.