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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15 Dec 2010, 22:39 pm
i dont think you kiwis realise how much we enjoy all your whining about the “easy route” sa had to winning the wc.
it just proves how much it means to you guys and shows keo’s article up for the kuk it is.
so keep singing our little antarctic budgies, keep singing.
15 Dec 2010, 22:42 pm
@Nartjie : the springboks used to be mentally tough. back in the day you would have cleaned out the coaching staff losing 3 in a row to NZ and 2 to Aus instead of grasping at outlandish excuses. These days you are no longer even intimidating playing at home.
15 Dec 2010, 22:43 pm
@GavinH : funnily enough you couldnt find one of that brand of fairweather friend anywhere after 2007
hell, they are all yours buddy.
15 Dec 2010, 22:45 pm
@GavinH : ja, we are not intimidating at home are we.
even after the two as s whuppings your lads got here a year ago. consecutively.
silly boy. now lets get back to the world cup shall we?
15 Dec 2010, 23:00 pm
@rangerman : oh right. because you beat england. well done. congratulations on upsetting england this autumn as well, always nice to see the underdogs win.
England had probably exerted themselves too much playing the all blacks they were estatic to get within 20 points of the ABs, rugby’s holy grail, trying to get their first win against us in a decade. The poms AB Victory Virginity must be growing back by now ; )
15 Dec 2010, 23:01 pm
haha, just watching the aussies vs the boks at ellis park in 2002.
gregan reckons they have scored the winner 5 mins from time and gives the crowd the bird.
werner greef scores after the whistle and converts for the win.
all this after paddy o’fkwit red carded and sin binned boks left right and center.
fk paddy was an inconsistent prck eh? well the kiwis will not be in charge of reffing much longer so watch dckenson “blind as a bat” convict try for the top next.
fortunately the NH is sick of the australasian mafia tactics and will give them the finger.
15 Dec 2010, 23:02 pm
Ha more than 200 posts later and the whiteys are still crying they want their holy enshrined God given game back, got hijacked by a bunch of commie politicians and now the poor whiteys are bleating much better incessantly.
Little do they know that just like the Africans hijacked NFL and NBA and took it to new dimensions they might just take this piddly stupid inconsequential colonialist pommiearsed sport called rugby and jack it up another few notches within a couple generations from now, and then there’ll hardly be a whiteass left calling it Gods Game to the last colonialist dooby dooby doo doos outposts
15 Dec 2010, 23:04 pm
@skopiskoobidoo : shut up.
15 Dec 2010, 23:05 pm
Transie @ 347
I’m so paranoid, I thought someone else posted at 153 !
15 Dec 2010, 23:06 pm
@rangerman : get fucked pomface
15 Dec 2010, 23:09 pm
@skopiskoobidoo : shhhhhhhhhhh
15 Dec 2010, 23:09 pm
Pomface?
That’s novel…
15 Dec 2010, 23:10 pm
@skopiskoobidoo : pomface
now seriously, shut up.
15 Dec 2010, 23:15 pm
aahhhhhhhhhhh…thats better
maybe its a thumbsprain?
15 Dec 2010, 23:17 pm
these poor fuckrs here like this guntergwat twatass and his pommiearsed cousin bumchum rangerprude along with their other goody two shoes pansieface Stormersboytjie like to pretend my posts don’t f’ck them straight between their pommie faced eyes
yet everytime a skopiskoobidoo post comes screaming across their pansiefaced consciousness they simply cannot help it but sluk the poison down whole
first to react every time without fail
Rangerpansie and Guthergwat twatass and their goody two shoes holier than thou well educated highly moralized pea in a pod Stormersboytjie mommy’s psychoanalyst’s baby boy.
15 Dec 2010, 23:18 pm
The phlegm clause on ol fuckadilly’s nokia warranty is about to be tested.
15 Dec 2010, 23:19 pm
no, not a thumbstrain, it just had to wipe the spittle from its mouth.
@skopiskoobidoo : seriously man as a favour to you, shut it.
15 Dec 2010, 23:21 pm
@GavinH
@350
That has always been so since even before my grandfather’s time and will continue to be so for many a decade yet. But in truth that support has been there for every team touring to S. Africa and playing S. Africa in all sports whether it be the Br. Lions of 1955 to 2009(1974 Lions were the cherry on top), or the Wallabies or France or the All Blacks(many cherries here even without your excluded Sid Going et al).
Only most(not ALL) non-black S.Africans cannot seem to wrap their restricted ‘brains’ around that notion and deliberate choice of Blacks for they cannot seem to grasp that even slaves and/or their descendants can choose against the MASTER and, in fact, will on the opposition(ANY) to resounding victory after resounding victory year after year to the present time.
They have never appreciated the concept Black Pride(or as put in song; Young, Gifted and Black) to the extent that they would and have killed adherents thereof, like Steve Biko(who has been immortalised in song by the great Peter Gabriel).
They will live and hopefully learn someday.
15 Dec 2010, 23:23 pm
@gunther :
15 Dec 2010, 23:26 pm
Ranger
It’s not the moisture content that has the good people at nokia stumped.
It’s the excessive bile.
Corrodes everything it touches apparently.
15 Dec 2010, 23:31 pm
when all else fails, when your wit deserts you and your balls shrivel up in a knot of pansiefaced cowardice, resort to a smiley
yeah that all time cop out when what you really thinking don’t mean what you saying, then resort to a chickenassed stupefied idiotic smiley
like a creepass coward up his bumchumsass with an incongruous insincere smiley, why not.
15 Dec 2010, 23:32 pm
@gunther :
poor skopathingy.
15 Dec 2010, 23:33 pm
@skopiskoobidoo :
go chew a carrot because you are now my bunny.
15 Dec 2010, 23:34 pm
Skopapalooza
15 Dec 2010, 23:37 pm
@Rhys7 :
@329 cont.
” 3)Is there more need for black representation in SA rugby although South Africa has won the RWC twice with only 3 black players in the starting 15?s out of both finals? ”
Answer, truthfully:
3. Of course there is more need and especially to give a better demorgraphic for just the playing numbers and especially to counter the vice-like grip the ‘verkrampte’ types of ALL of the old Tvl. & OFS & Natal and elsewhere have on the rugby structures which prolongs and maintains that control they have on this sport.
In short, the old regions and their structures have to be demolished, and different and better regions and structures, representative of the whole country, set in its place to break that ‘verkrampte’ stranglehold, for without that we will never have genuine NON-RACIAL rugby.
What was first should, more or less, now be last and vice-versa much like the Chinese re-structured everything, including sports. And look where the Chinese are now and look too as to who is in FINANCIAL debt to them now.
15 Dec 2010, 23:38 pm
Poor fuckadilly
Your balls and your wits deserted you a long time ago.
What I am really thinking is that you are a lobotomised gibbon that should be left unattended.
Have a smiley.
15 Dec 2010, 23:38 pm
So lets get back to brass tacks, as I was saying before I got so rudely interrupted by these lily white inconsequential pommiefaced pratasses
Before too long this holy enshrined white mans pommiefaced God given sport to the lost white tribe of Africa is going to all but disintegrate into one huge heap of Africanization, just like every other pommiearsed colonialist sport before it.
Kiss it goodbye whitey whiteasses, here today gone tomorrow, your pathetic entrenched attachment of self righteousness gonna get whipped right out from under your holy white feet, watch it go one steady step after the next… poof.. just like NBA and NFL, gone, usurped by the more athletically endowed black man. Tickets.. too bad.
15 Dec 2010, 23:39 pm
This idiot saying that “Africans” hijacked the NFL…. What a farking racist sonofabeech…
The racism of the statement is obvious, assuming that what this fool was trying to say was that the NFL has been hijacked by African-Americans or “black” people:
- “Hijacked”?… How is the NFL “hijacked”?
- If you are black then you are African…? WTF!! Not many players born in Africa play in the NFL
Last time I checked LaDainian Tomlinson was not African… He is a Black man born in the US of A
Last time I checked, Tom Brady, Drew Rees, Peyton Manning are all white/caucasian/”non-black” or however the fark you want to label them… They also happen to be the QB “brains” of their respective teams. Also, none of them are African.
Farking stirring gobbledygook from a senile Bob the builder racist armchair social commentator that knows farkall about life.
Full Stop. Exclamation!
15 Dec 2010, 23:40 pm
@gunther : skopa-pa-looza indeed
ok, i am out.
gunther and keolings, seasons greetings to you and yours.
skopathingy, be wise, adjectivise.
tjorts.
15 Dec 2010, 23:48 pm
All these poor fuckrs will be left with is skittle sticks, haa haa, cutting and thrusting and late cutting and googlying to eternity, skittle sticking it away for posterity
least they might still have one piffle little pommiearsed sport they can still call ‘their own’,.. oops, almost forgot, I think the Indians already might have staked a claim to that.
15 Dec 2010, 23:52 pm
you too Heavens Game get fucked
another one these pommie pom pom fucked up poeftas thinking this game belongs to them
You so behind the times you are outa sync squatarse
NFL was a pommiefaced white mans sport just like rugby is today, till the Africans hijacked it and now how many whitearses you got claiming they still ‘own’ their hereditary pastime? fokol almost zero, thats how many doosface.
15 Dec 2010, 23:59 pm
so its the white brains that play QB and all the asswhip blackasses hightail it down the touch line to score the TD’s
maybe there’s a little bitty use still left in that almost useless whitey brainlessness, between their Harvard educated ears.
16 Dec 2010, 00:01 am
Yip and the Boks are going to ‘fluke’ the next one too. I can feel it in my bones. Going to be big tears.
16 Dec 2010, 00:02 am
” pommie pom pom ” – says the twat who reminisces about his time searching for good vibrations of theosophical agriculture in pommie pom pom land of all the places…
Not only racist but as duplicitous as a sheepshagging kiwi….
Any way the wind blows, hey…?
16 Dec 2010, 00:03 am
Just wanted to come say hi…
Now saying goodbye…
Nighty night…
16 Dec 2010, 00:05 am
@Rhys7 :
@329
” 4)Is there too much emphasis on transformation in South African rugby and not enough players being picked on talent? ”
The simple answer is NO bot allow me to elaborate further.
Please understand that the concept of changing(transform) is used as a tool here to address and redress the wilful and negligent denying of teaching and development skills to millions of people who have as much right to those as any favoured grouping. Merit(which is impacted by talent) has never featured before in S.African’s way of life even and especially in rugby so the noise about it now is eminently HOLLOW and worthless until such time as those who were last are developed to be closer to the top of the pile. What has been done over the last 15 years to redress this deliberate undevelopment of Blacks cannot by any stretch of the imagination undo what has been deliberately worked towards through racism over 350 years or so.
” 5) Are there enough systems and platforms in place to ensure continuous high standards of development for South African rugby? ”
No there is not since the numbers have increased immensely since the attainment of political freedom(but not economic freedom) and those that do exist are not ever really to be found in the communities that were denied these and now thus need them the most.
This is clearly one reason why again it should be stressed that rugby, and its structures, need to be re-organised and rebuilt from the ground upwards, tsking the new, and now whole, rugby playing community into consideration, and forward to betterment of the sport.
Rhys:
These are just a few of the cuff responses to your questions but if you are busy with a college paper these should get you an ‘A’ grade.
Good luck.
16 Dec 2010, 00:07 am
@skopiskoobidoo : 382. Tell that to Michael Vick.
NO ONE GIVES A DAMN ABOUT THE COLOR OF ATHLETES SKIN.
Nor should you.
16 Dec 2010, 00:11 am
@cab :
Cabbie for your undivided ATTENTION:
‘Scars of apartheid remain’
December 15 2010 at 08:37pm
——————————————————————————–
Independent Newspapers
Studies show that despite attempts to heal scars left by apartheid, low levels of trust, inequality and social injustices between South Africans remain a reality, the South African Human Rights Commission said on Wednesday.
“Studies suggest that despite the support of a progressive constitution and various laudable attempts to heal the deep scars left by apartheid, low levels of trust amongst South Africans of all various races continue to be our reality… ,” said HRC spokesman Vincent Moaga.
“This to a large extent is as a result of deepening levels of inequality and social injustices that continue to prevail.”
Moaga said in a statement that as the country commemorated Reconciliation Day on December 16 the nation should ask itself whether it had managed to create a country that reflected the wishes and aspirations of all people within it.
Social trust was regarded as an important prerequisite for unity, which contributed to social integration and harmony among all people, he said.
The commission, through engagements with various sectors of society, established that although statutory racism was outlawed, “deep levels of racism” still existed.
“Inhumane and racist conduct in farming communities remain a worrying feature, and serve to show that black people are still dependent for their employment and existence on their white counterparts.”
The power distribution remained unequal because one group still depended on another for its livelihood, a factor that often provided fertile ground for interracial tensions, he said.
The commission said unfair racial discrimination cases presented before the equality courts also indicated that blacks continued to be victims of racial prejudice and bigotry.
These also served as indicators that racial intolerance, negative racial perceptions and racial slurs continued to find their way into South African society.
“The recent racial remarks by Steve Hofmeyer and other incidents of racial intolerance continue to undermine the reconciliation process started by President Mandela 16 years ago.”
He said the commission believed there was an urgent need to accelerate the speed of socio-economic transformation to enable the country to address the power imbalances that “continue to frustrate efforts of bringing unity and social cohesion.
“As we reflect on the words of President Mandela, ‘the time for the healing of the wounds has come, the moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come, time to build is upon us’, we should also ask if these words ring true or have become hollow, 16 years after our democracy.” – Sapa
16 Dec 2010, 00:12 am
i think they should vote who the crappest journalist of the year is every year so we can see how inconsistent mark keohane is in his judgment!! since i have started reading this site you moan and moan, if its not the south african coach, its the ref, if its not the refs its the systems we have in place, we dont make the rules we just play by them get on with it, make us believe in something good, i mean if you want to support the all blacks just flippin do it, you might find yourself a more consistent happier person if thats what you looking for, me on the other hand i’m looking for those moments of glory if i can count them on one hand so be it, it makes them taste sweeter, stop wishing we were something else just accept what we are try and improve, otherwise it will only lead to your disapointment, which in this example is clearly the case.
16 Dec 2010, 00:13 am
@SodaJoe :
Me and my Leeds don’t, and that’s why we are NOW #4 on the nPower log.
16 Dec 2010, 00:16 am
388 ET
u got no argument from me, I don’t need studies to tell me there are massive discrepancies.
Are we going to toy-toy?
16 Dec 2010, 00:16 am
@SodaJoe :
You can watch S.A vs. India at cricket much of tomorrow in your snowed out Minneapolis starting at about 5am(your time) at
http://www.allcric.com
16 Dec 2010, 00:19 am
@E.T. : MOT.
16 Dec 2010, 00:19 am
@E.T. : I wish.
16 Dec 2010, 00:19 am
@cab :
You and I with bottles of red wine in each hand?
Yes most definetely, just give me the time and place then i can show you a decent toyi-toyi, Gugulethu style.
16 Dec 2010, 00:20 am
thats right no one should give a damn about the color of an athletes skin, quite agree
yet all you hear on this piffly little white mans forum for disgruntled colonialists is how the commie black politicians have hijacked this hereditary God given f’ng idiotic white mans religion called rugby
At least over there in the States its open season for all, no such f’kng garnishing and gnashing of wailing fucked up whitearsed colonialists crying and bewailing their sorry sad fate that the black man has come and usurped all the glory on the football field or the basket ball court. No such f’ng thing as a white mans sport or a black mans sport in normal societies.
Only in fucked up Neanderthal extremities such as this do you get idiots crying and moaning how the commie politicians have taken their holy enshrined gravy train whitewashed rugby religion away from them, boo hoo f’ng hoo.
16 Dec 2010, 00:23 am
@SodaJoe :
But there is nothing to do in your snowed-out region other than to stay at home.
Hell when I thought about sunshine in Florida travelling down from Philly Sat. and Sun.(driving) I did not think my balls would freeze in Florida.
Last night and Monday night my lows temps were 23 and 22 degrees F, in effin Fl.
16 Dec 2010, 00:23 am
Lol, I’m not much of a protester, in fact I’d like to knock half them out, but u can tell me about Steve B.
U see the pommie students and Greeks are going apeshit and forming lynchmobs – need to get some of our police out here.
16 Dec 2010, 00:27 am
What the commie blocks have hijacked our game?!
Waar is my voorlaaier?
16 Dec 2010, 00:28 am
nothing like a good toy toy to get those really deep seated primitive juices flowing
Shoshaloza my bra
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