World Cup format is flawed
15 Dec 2010
MARK KEOHANE, writing in Business Day Sport Monthly, says the World Cup needs to be revamped so that the most consistent team is rewarded.
It says something for the consistency of the All Blacks that we only seem to remember the games they lose. Unfortunately it says as much for the Springboks in their great rivalry with the New Zealanders that we can remember all the games the South Africans win.
The Rugby World Cup, introduced in 1987, has changed the way results are viewed and it has also encouraged mediocrity in between World Cups. Success is defined by who wins a competition played once every four years and the commercial highlight of professional rugby is a seven-week competition, in which the three play-off rounds produce the only strength versus strength match-ups.
Statistically, no sports team in the world (regardless of the code) has consistently excelled like the All Blacks, and no team can boast winning three from four games in over 100 years against all comers. The All Blacks, since professionalism of the sport in 1996, play the Springboks and Australia on average three times a year home and away, yet they still win 60% of the match-ups.
The consistency in New Zealand’s rugby is reflected in 10 Tri-Nations trophy wins in the past 15 years, three Grand Slam triumphs in three attempts over five years and 13 wins in 22 visits to South Africa. The Boks, in the same period, have won three Tri-Nations championships, no Grand Slams and three in 21 Tests in New Zealand.
The All Blacks in the past eight years have also won 42 from 44 matches against northern hemisphere opposition, but lost to France in a one-off at the 1999 and 2007 World Cups and because of this France are said to have New Zealand’s number, despite historically only winning 12 matches in 49 against the All Blacks.
Knockout competitions are cruel and they don’t always reward form or substance, but is it right that one tournament, played every four years, can render everything else in Test rugby meaningless?
In soccer I can understand the prestige of the World Cup because of the number of teams capable of winning the tournament and the quality of the match-ups from the pool stages.
I remain unconvinced that the measure of a team in rugby is who wins the World Cup every four years because the Six Nations and Tri-Nations, as respective tournaments, are more difficult to win.
Rugby only has five teams capable of winning the World Cup, and all have the ability to beat the other in a one-off situation, which is why winning the Rugby World Cup is more a lottery than it is the successful implementation of a meticulous four-year plan.
New Zealand are consistently the best team in the world, even in unsuccessful World Cup tournament years, and they have the record to back up this view. All Blacks captain Richie McCaw has played 94 Tests in the past decade and lost 10. No other captain in the history of the game has achieved this success over a 10-year period, but two of those defeats have come in World Cup play-off matches, in Sydney in 2003 and Cardiff in 2007.
Does that mean the 84 wins and countless trophies count for nothing? Of course it doesn’t and that is why for the Rugby World Cup to be a true measure of who is a world champion and who is a World Cup holder based on a one-off win, the tournament needs to be revamped to a strength versus strength format, which would reward the most consistent team.
The current World Cup format means one of the top five’s tournament can be over because of 40 poor minutes in the only meaningful match they play.
This kind of format will seldom reward the best, and rugby can learn from the North American approach to sport finals in all their major sporting codes. Firstly, it takes winning consistently for a team to get to the final and secondly, once there it takes the same amount of consistency to actually be crowned champions through a best of three, five or seven series, depending on the code.
The luck of a good day and the curse of a bad one is removed from the equation because over a three-match series, for example, the winner will have needed more than good luck to be the champion.
Rugby nations, pre one-off Tests and professionalism, traditionally played a three or four Test series to determine the winner, so why can’t the game revert to strength versus strength at the World Cup?
The opening month of every Rugby World Cup has been a farce with one-sided pool contests. For the event to have greater credibility it needs greater substance.
Strength versus strength would also give meaning to every Test played in between World Cups because teams would be playing to make the top eight of a premier World Cup tournament.
In a revamped model, which makes the use of a squad of 30 essential rather than an option, the top eight teams play each other over a month period. Each team plays seven matches, two a week, and the top two in this World Cup Premier League qualify for a best of three final to be played over a 14-day period. If a team goes two up, there is no consolation third match. Whoever hosts the World Cup Premier League every four years also simultaneously hosts the World Cup Championship League for teams ranked nine to 16.
This way the game is still grown and the incentives are still there without the embarrassment of mismatches that are
a feature of rugby’s World Cup.
It would also remove the lottery element from who wins the World Cup and again force coaches and their respective administrations to honour the true meaning of Test rugby.
It may also end New Zealand’s search for World Cup glory and start South Africa’s search for year-to-year consistency.
– This first appeared in the December issue of Business Day Sport Monthly.
621 Comments
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17 Dec 2010, 23:04 pm
Boy George
most people would consider that tasteless beyond reason, 27 people dying including teenagers.
But bravery knows no reason for the anonymous blogger. Sicko.
17 Dec 2010, 23:05 pm
Panty the maggot,
the cheap lousy fagg.ot
Pump all the sheep
And leave them in a heap
Happy Xmas you ar.sehole, keep coming back for more…
Please…
BaXXies!!!
17 Dec 2010, 23:08 pm
Panty, gotta love your sense of righteousness….
WTF are you talking about?
Please point out my tastelessness…
17 Dec 2010, 23:29 pm
Boy George
it’s fair to say that this was YOUR year here on Keo. Who will ever forget your bravado-fuelled predictions, lavish in their volume and content, prior to TriN’10 that stated the Boks would sweep all before them and how the historical advantage held by the ABs over the Boks would disappear before our very eyes on the presumption of 3-0 in 2009 continuing unabated.
How strange then that, immediately after Eden Park, you completely *disappeared*. To, um, “France”.
France. What an appropriate bolthole to hide in. Watch out, here come the Germans !
18 Dec 2010, 01:15 am
Schweet… “Karma, karma…”…again
Broken record… nothing left to say…
I love the smell of capitulation…
Its funny how I am still here but have “disappeared”…
Its also funny how a kiwi appoints himself as arbiter of bravery…
A brave kiwi… is there such a thing… ahh Kevvy!
A role model…like Panty…
18 Dec 2010, 01:41 am
@Black Panther : My word you can nag
You have been going on spewing vitriol for months now on this site.If it was not that I knew better I wold have thought that you are a child
By a fishing rod and go fishing, or start pottery or stamp collecting or salsa dancing,……anything…..start a hobbie but just get a life where you are sometimes on your own
Maybe stop reading your old Silverfern copies
18 Dec 2010, 01:52 am
JL1
Merry Christmas to you too fella.
See you in Aotearoa.
18 Dec 2010, 02:03 am
@Heavens Game :
That really isnt a joke. One of my friends was in the mines at the time. You are really the most immature person on here. Throw your abuse and dribble around then your team loses and guess what, you go missing. Come back a few weeks later to spread more. You an a$$hole,by any chance are you coming over to NZ for the RWC??
18 Dec 2010, 02:09 am
@JL1 :
Did you just say the word nag??
lol read most of the threads on here. Its your comrades that have the nagging sown up.
18 Dec 2010, 09:43 am
@Hurricane : There are a few nagging about the same thing but some have not been seen here for a while now
18 Dec 2010, 10:02 am
BP
remember last year after the baabaas game, the calls of 4-0 especially from the likes of the duplicitous miss information aka boy george aka heavens shame aka the invisible man??
the reversal of 4-0 to 0-4 this year has really been fun to watch, coupled with the usual excuses (travel, refs, POB, conspiracy yawn) I dont think it could have been scripted any better, and am eagerly awaiting the next hollywood movie..
“convict us”
a true story about a country with “the best players in the world” and their continual appreciation of the judiciary panel.. and no, its not a feature on Scotland
bwahahahah
18 Dec 2010, 11:51 am
@JL1 : @ 556
Its funny when I read here about others “spitting…vitriol”.
People like yourself. Frankly, Im not sure Ive ever seen anything BUT ‘vitriol’ from you, JL1. Nothing but excuses either. Ever. Much like Connag and BokFan1 and all the Blues-brothers; Bok losses are always explained away, inevitably by opposition/referees cheating or conspiracies that exist only in the minds of Safas.
I see the same accusation made of Skoppah, often…..”keyboard covered in spittle” etc. Funnily enough whenever I read Skop, all I see is a post’er having a complete laugh, taking the p*ss. Maybe tears of laughter hitting his keyboard, nothing else tho. I certainly leave a few on mine whenever I read his posts, some of them are masterpieces.
Its true tho, I probably exceeded my p*sstake-limit here yesterday tho. Y’see, I didnt go looking for trouble but Ive had Transie tracking me all year, like a bloodhound, and this time he thought he was on the trail of something interesting. He wanted to end his Keo Year on high he kept barking, and barking, ever louder. Scraping at the door.
Well, lets just say that it ended up just like all the others. The dead rat he dropped on my doormat turned out to be, instead, an old smelly boot that he’d found on the roadside.
I tried to let him down nicely, and left out a bowl of biscuits. But then along came Boy George and gobbled them all up. I couldnt quite bring myself to shoo Boy George away, because he’s quite an unfortunate pooch in that every time a cat comes on the scene, he hightails it in the other direction and is often found up a tree with the cat licking its lips at the bottom.
The fire brigade have, quite frankly, given up on Boy George, and this time he could be there for some time.
18 Dec 2010, 12:29 pm
Still no discussion about cricket… Keo fearing the inevitable discussion about Hercshelle Gibbs Book… which basically says that most white SA cricket “stars” are backstabbing P ussies. THis is obviously applicable to rugby too… where Psychopaths are nurtured and developed into super P ussies who end up needing big PR campaigns to support their kak abilities.. read Frans Steyn
I see Gavin Rich has signed a PR contract with Rassie to the improve the P-ussies chances of getting promoted from WP under 21 coach which he he pilfered away from Jerome Paarwater.. Typical of the cultural weaknesses of Afrikanerdom.
18 Dec 2010, 12:54 pm
Seems like a ghost town… did I just make everybody spill their beers or follow through on a poep..PMSL
Keo needs a 1000 articles to cause controversy.. I need two paragraphs
19 Dec 2010, 03:09 am
Where exactly did I make a joke of a New Zealand mining disaster?
You farking precious kiwi twat, who is actually being childish?
You presume much like this so called going “missing”…
Another conceited kiwi exposed…
Talk about “Big and brave”….
19 Dec 2010, 03:11 am
@poppa69 : 561. Don’t forget to have a tantrum or throw a hair dryer, ****.
Another conceited sheepshagger exposed…
19 Dec 2010, 03:13 am
@Black Panther : 562. Panty you are repeatedly exposed for the knobberyou really must be… For some reason you think you occupy this moral highground…
A true guardianista…
19 Dec 2010, 09:32 am
548. Black PantherRépondre à ce commentaire :
December 17th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Transie
I wish you and your NBF, Boy George, a happy and fulfilling life together.
Perhaps you can start a business in bomb-detonation or firefighting or mining in Chile.
or not.
and then poopa and another kiwi jump in to protect the orrible gollum hobbit.
pathetic.
19 Dec 2010, 09:42 am
so was heavens game making the joke or was it blackpanty?
hmmm….loose and fast with the truth there kiwis, best you hardenthefuckup
19 Dec 2010, 10:26 am
@rangerman : 569 i know people usually call you dangerman but just to warn you, it is hazardous to engage black BP on duplicity and hypocrisy, thread lightly.
19 Dec 2010, 10:53 am
@Transformation : @ 570
Just a few days til the end of 2010 and FINALLY youve learnt something.
Much like the Boks vs ABs in 2010, I think the 2010 Keo scoreboard reads something like Transie 0 BP 3.
Make sure youre packing some heat in 2011, Transie, because I’ll be playing with home ground advantage (and a i-Paddy in my pocket).
19 Dec 2010, 11:15 am
@Heavens Game : @ 565
Your cowardice knows no boundaries, its really rather sad.
You make a joke that youre now not even prepared to stand by ?!
Tell us then, Boy George, tell us what you were inferring by “…”. All mining is dangerous, whichever country, so what was your angle ?
“548. BLACK PANTHER :
December 17th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Transie
I wish you and your NBF, Boy George, a happy and fulfilling life together.
Perhaps you can start a business in bomb-detonation or firefighting or mining in Chile.
or not.”
“549. HEAVENS GAME :
December 17th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
@Black Panther : Far rather be a miner in Chile than many other countries…”.
Your reply was to a Kiwi; only weeks ago 20+ NZers lost their lives in a mining disaster. Your ‘joke’ was in bad taste, and now youre not even man enough to man up and admit it.
Pathetic.
19 Dec 2010, 11:51 am
@Black Panther :
One South African died in that Mine in the South island as well.
Jacobus (Koos) Albertus Jonker.
Several South Africans involved in Senior Management Roles during the development stage of the mine.
19 Dec 2010, 12:01 pm
Relax chaps. Life’s not meant to be taken so seriously.
Take a deep breath before posting, perhaps.
19 Dec 2010, 12:09 pm
@wooden spoon :
That’s the spirit Spooner.
Time for peace and love.
But NOT for turning the other cheek.
8)
19 Dec 2010, 12:15 pm
@cane : Merry Christmas to you in NZ.
19 Dec 2010, 12:17 pm
@wooden spoon :
Same to You, all of Yours Woody.
Nice to see you frequenting Keo again.
19 Dec 2010, 12:23 pm
@cane : Just a little bit here and there, every now and again…
Starting to look really forward to the S15 and the RWC next year – it will be a bumper year irrespective of results…but… Sharks and SA to do the ‘double’?
19 Dec 2010, 12:30 pm
@wooden spoon :
Without dreams we are but animals.
Not too outrageous a dream.
Sharkies won their last 8 games on end, in last years S14.(I think).
And The Springboks cannot get any worse surely. All go from here. They usually pull themselves together when it really matters.
Usually……….but not always.
19 Dec 2010, 12:39 pm
My view on this topic is that the current format is just fine… there is something endearing about the ‘luck of the draw’ that creates excitement and old fashioned romance. Fiji beating Wales and making the quarters, who’d have thought it? Likewise Argentina making the semis. To a certain extent it levels the playing fields for the underdog. And let’s not forget that a World Cup is meant to be exactly that – hence the need to have the likes of Georgia, Uruguay, Portugal, Spain, Japan, etc competing – rather, efforts should be made to improve the state of the game in these countries than to exclude them.
And btw, football is exactly the same – for the sheer number of countries that participate in the game, only a handful have a realistic chance of winning it – Bra, Arg, Ger, Ita, Fra, Holl and now Spain – Eng aren’t really real contenders at World Cup time and they are ranked 6th!
An extended series between the top nations would just be boring and drawn out, in an era when there are already too many games.
But I accept that the real issue at play here is that far too much emphasis is placed on the world cup in the 4 years between. SA has fallen into the “building for the WC at the expense of results” trap and this does need to change back to a “win every match at all costs to honour the jersey” mindset. We have seen it with Streauli, White and now PDV with their “judge me at the WC” comments.
19 Dec 2010, 12:43 pm
@Black Panther : what is this 3-0 u’re on about “king of the hill”?
19 Dec 2010, 12:44 pm
@cane : there will be highs and there will be lows. Dreams will come true for some, for others they will be shattered (like their TV sets after having something thrown at them).
It’s why we all follow this roller coaster sport, for the sheer rush when things eventually go right. See you in 2011 for the S15!
19 Dec 2010, 12:51 pm
@Transformation : @ 581
who are you quoting, Transie ?
19 Dec 2010, 12:58 pm
@wooden spoon : @ 580
Great summary and 100% spot on too. The beauty of the RWC is the random knockout format, a league system would be boring.
As much as it is painful for NZers, the fact the ABs have repeatedly failed adds to the mystery, much like the ‘Curse of the Babe’ did for the Boston Red Sox.
The ABs, as a team, will continue to place emphasis on maintaining no1 status before, during and after RWCs on the basis that everything else looks after itself. Any team, or fan (good moanin’, Big Hit !) that says ‘only’ RWCs matter is fooling themselves.
19 Dec 2010, 13:00 pm
@Black Panther : “is this a trap?”
19 Dec 2010, 13:08 pm
@Transformation : @ 585
Yes, Transie, but everything is a trap, remember. In your World.
Up yer game in 2011, 2010 has been like fishing for trout in a barrel with a shotgun.
nb – “quotation” marks are used when linking a person with a statement, eg Keo said “NZ rugby is KAK”.
19 Dec 2010, 13:09 pm
I believe in love
but how can men who’ve never seen
Light be enlightened.
Only if he’s cured
will Heavens Lame Spirits level ever heighten.
And Heavens Lame doesn’t know what day it is.
He doesn’t know love or what piety is.
How can he be saved?
From the eternal grave.
19 Dec 2010, 13:19 pm
@Black Panther : hahaha so says the “trap” merchant…happy crowing
19 Dec 2010, 13:52 pm
@Transformation : @ 588
enlighten me, Transie, whats this ‘trap’ accusation based on ?
let me guess……you pestering me (4-5 consecutive posts) to provide evidence of the “NZ rugby is KAK” and me being too busy to reply within 2-3 hours ?
So, me not answering you is my ‘trap’ ?
Surely if it was a ‘trap’, then I would be using bait of some description ? sooooooo, my silence is now the ‘bait’ ?
oh dear, you really ARE my biyatch. Imagine the mess if I really DID try to trap you ?! It would be like that scene in Apocalypto with all the heads rolling down the temple steps.
19 Dec 2010, 14:12 pm
@Black Panther : 589 hahaha you’re brilliant, you ask me a question, then you answer it yourself and then declare yourself the ‘arbiter of retribution’ all in one post
you’re beyond redemption…all hail the ‘king of the hill’ bwahahaha
19 Dec 2010, 14:33 pm
A real Carly Simon aren’t you, and the rest of these moral high horse snot nosed little kiwis jumping on a bandwagon created from a figment of your imagination…
You’re so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You’re so vain
I’ll bet you think this song is about you
Don’t you? Don’t you?
You made the reference to Chilian miners, I certainly did not mention a disaster and did not even imply anything remotely connected with New Zealand in my comment…
The joke is on you and this misplaced righteous indignation you have shown in your comments… The references to the horrific NZ disaster and their trivialisation are all yours…
For your stupidity, Laugh out loud, truly…
Save Kevvy!!
19 Dec 2010, 14:35 pm
@Heavens Game : 591. Not that I needed to but post 591 is meant for King of the Hill Black Panty… The Carly Simon of Keo Posters…
19 Dec 2010, 14:36 pm
@cane : 587. Go back to sleep sheepshagger… Take some Cane for the pain…
19 Dec 2010, 14:38 pm
Transie
actually one thing that is beyond debate is who is answering whose question.
I answered your 1 question about Keos KAK, and I’ve done so with all your others too.
But I have asked you plenty and you’ve failed to answer one of them. And continue to.
Let’s test the theory again shall we. I’ll repeat the same question from this same thread, one that you already ignored (WARNING – this may be a trap):-
“I said, nay repeated, that Keo said here “NZ rugby is kak” ……oops, “KAK”
So why did you ‘ask’, nay repeat, the validity of the same ?” (see post 506).
Dont answer with a question, like you always do, just answer the question – WHY did you repeatedly ask for the validity of that quote ???
19 Dec 2010, 14:38 pm
@rangerman : 569. Nail on head… Truly
19 Dec 2010, 14:39 pm
@Transformation : 581. King of the Hill… Carly Simon
19 Dec 2010, 14:40 pm
Not too much bravery needed to put a Kiwi down…
Its too easy…
Little sheepshaggers…
Ba a a ahhhh…
19 Dec 2010, 14:41 pm
Must say Transie, you have the little Hobbits on the run…
Only a matter of time before you have a song devoted to you
19 Dec 2010, 14:43 pm
Its not hard for sheepshaggers to be economical with the truth…
Save Kevvy!!!
19 Dec 2010, 14:46 pm
You gotta love references to bravery from Kiwis…
Only the Brave, hey…
Kiwis… known for being a “Brave” Nation?
LOL
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