New World Rugby Calendar and World Cup format

As others have pointed out a lot has changed in Welsh rugby since that quoted Up & Down. Both institutionally and culturally, rugby there is on the wane and there's no real sense of a solid plan to arrest that drop. I think their baseline is strong enough that they'll probably just rot in mediocrity for the medium term, but any more bumps in the road and it might get worse. We'll see if 2022 & their losses to Italy and Georgia become a norm, or an outlier.

Not sure what the "conveniently" is meant to infer here? I think you're overselling the capacity of these Unions to somehow magic an international tour, or wield clout to make it worth the SH teams coming to their countries (though like I said, Argentina did play a pre-WC match in Madrid); I'm sure their lower status breeds a certain ceiling of imagination, but you can't compare countries that have always had a solid rugby and codified culture with those that don't - and with the coffers to match the disparity.

And your 3 examples are all teams who made the change in status during the amateur era; think it's fair to say that standards, conditioning and most importantly - costs - have increased beyond those earlier eras when even a modicum of organisation and talent tangential to professionalism could yield results. And in the case of Italy, there are plenty of people who make the argument they're barely above Tier 2, depending on the weather or their mood.

Reads like you're trying to "blame" Tier 2 for their own situations? Weird, but it's way more complicated than that IMO. I can't find the article but it was speaking to folks about Romanian rugby in light of their terrible WC showing: the basic thrust was that while yes, ostensibly Romania had a "professional" league, it only meant the players were being paid to play rugby - not that it was a career, or automatically conferred a greater degree of ability or training. And in a country like Spain or Portugal where Soccer is the dominant sport by a distance? I imagine coffers are just as slim there.

How much of Spain's financial and economic clout is available to Spanish rugby? If you know something we don't them give the evidence because to all else it's self-evident rugby in Spain does not have access to deep pockets. Nor are rugby unions public sector agencies. IIRC FC Barcelona doesn't have a rugby team.

By your logic the USA should reign supreme in rugby cos their economy is the largest in the world. They're not even close. While precisely how much clout does Fiji, Georgia, Uruguay have?