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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16 Dec 2010, 00:33 am
rory kockitt signed with lions. Fark me those lions are really getting back at the sharks now!
16 Dec 2010, 00:35 am
@cab :
Unlike Trev. Man. who liked the fron-row, for the camera I am a behind the scenes guy, away from the maddening crowd.
Yes it seems we are going round in circles. Now we are back in the days of the 1960s student uprisings.
I like someone else’s chaos. It make sme feel good to see all the cheaters being reduced to levels of fear like ‘ol Charlie boy and his Camel(Parker).
16 Dec 2010, 00:39 am
@E.T. : Philly Steak. I do not want to discuss the fkg weather at all. Ever. I am so the moere in, and your temps are positively balmy.
16 Dec 2010, 00:40 am
@E.T. :
yip trevor manuel pretty shrewd puppy, SA did well to make him economics minister. are u going to be minister of sport when you return or you just going to buy a tub and soak in your speedo in clifton?
16 Dec 2010, 00:41 am
@grant10 :
Hey G10, you are up late, must be the festive season at play again.
Just watch how in the new S15 season some of the chosen ones duck aand dive from playing the tough games as they ‘save’ themselves for the 2011 WC as Joubert and De Wet and Joe V.N. and others did in 2007 with WP/Stormers.
16 Dec 2010, 00:42 am
@SodaJoe :
come come soda, a little snow and ice never hurt anyone, just put bing crosby on the wireless and sip your scotch in front of the fire – isn’t that what they do in minnesota?
16 Dec 2010, 00:46 am
@E.T. : ja….been damn busy work wise, which is a great blessing given the credit crunch, so am making up for lost time…..been working literally 20 hours a day, but its been awesome and i certainly am not complaining…
We will need to manage the workloads carefully next year….kiwis gonna be a handfull at home…..but i remain fairly confident.
16 Dec 2010, 00:46 am
@SodaJoe :
S hit for you but definitely not for me.
How do you get around.
Five years ago I worked with a Ph.D. from your Minnesota and he described Philly as wonderfully pleasant weather-wise and I was thinking he was effin mad as I experienced my first street snow there.
It’s all relative.
16 Dec 2010, 00:50 am
@cab :
Since I don’t carry an ANC card I just hope to teach physiology and exercise physiology and be close to the sea say near Kommetjie where the crayfish bite well and my friend knows how to get them with simple ring nets and snoek ‘koppe’.
16 Dec 2010, 00:53 am
@grant10 :
The local component of the S15 is where the ‘ou manne’ will fear being taken out as the younger guns take aim at them in the S.African rugby war. It will, as usual, be hard & brutal those local games.
16 Dec 2010, 00:55 am
@E.T. :
sounds pretty cool, night.
16 Dec 2010, 00:59 am
@cab :
Fine. Rest well in cold Europe.
16 Dec 2010, 01:11 am
Those statistics of Keo comparing the Boks and the AB’s certainly make for bleak reading.
However, many of the AB wins were on the backs of some very dubious officiating by there ANZAC cuzzies.
The Boks were simply blown off the park by cheating ANZAC refs. They became hesitant in their play for fear of ending up with 14 and sometimes 13 players.
The AB’s of course had no such fears and got away with play that the Boks would regularly be penalised for and often had a player sin binned.
So, yep Keo is correct regarding the statistics, but it has hardly been a level playing field.
16 Dec 2010, 01:36 am
@Connag : Only losers whine.
Having lost too many games for whatever reason, we need to get our sh it together.
I love the RWC. I love winning it, and the euphria is brilliant.
It does not help me feel better when we lose in the other games.
Show me a good loser, and I will show you a loser. (No reference to you by the way).
16 Dec 2010, 02:00 am
@SodaJoe : Soda I agree with you regarding the RWC, love winning it.
Yep we are not good losers, but that does not mean we cannot say it the way it is. We have for far too long rolled over and been shafted by the ANZACS.
If it means I’m whingeing…so be it.
The playing field has not been level.
Having said that we certainly have contributed to some of those results.
Stoicism is an admirable quality, but when we are continually cheated and we accept this “rogering” it becomes stupidity. (Not aimed at you).
16 Dec 2010, 02:43 am
what I think really shows SAs duplicity is they continually cry about being cheated by refs, yet can’t admit that the single biggest referee cheating occurred in the 07 WC
thank goodness it wasn’t SA who copped the Barnes minus his whistle in a WC quarter
the conspiracy would have been monumental.
16 Dec 2010, 02:55 am
@poppa69 :
aahhh, wind your neck in doos! Leave your friggn gereralisations in your pocket for once……..post 416 is a BIG whinge right there!! You are always so high and fekking mighty……..try growing up and checking to see if you aquired any balls at the same time!
16 Dec 2010, 04:16 am
@skopiskoobidoo : “thats right no one should give a damn about the color of an athletes skin, quite agree…”
So, abolish all race-quotas forthwith and fully at every level of sport in SA? Even if it results in all-white merit-chosen teams?
I agree. Great idea!
16 Dec 2010, 04:22 am
@Nartjie : Lost three out of three this year. Or four out of four if we count the Baabaas.
Soft as bearing grease on a hotplate. Runny as.
16 Dec 2010, 07:19 am
@iori Yagami :
“To say that a team with such weak mental strength is the best in the world is ludicrous”
So you think the Boks should be the best in the world?? Who do you think should be the best in the world??
Personally i have no problen with the way the RWC is done. It is a tournament and lets treat it like that. It is not the start and end off test match rugby. Probably you and i know of a few on here think the RWC is the main tournament and yet complains when there team comes last in the 3N.
@Simon :
Blame yourselves that you missed 1987 or have you forgotten already why you were not there? But your arrogance seems to be quite common on here,so go **** yourself
16 Dec 2010, 07:30 am
@whatever :
Is that all you have is the generalisation card?
But understand,i would say only 90% of the bloggers on here are cry baby toy chuckers so Poppa was way out of line
16 Dec 2010, 09:04 am
Hurri
don’t worry about pond life… truth hurts him.
wife beaters, poachers, chokers. all fantastic examples of generalization, but he remains obliviously obtuse when these are bandied about.
I think personally he must have copped a few in NZ, hence his insistence on driving blind down a one way street.
sad really.
16 Dec 2010, 10:00 am
Poops was born way out of line.
He himself is the king of baby toy chuckers with more meltdowns to his name than a pizza parlour.
Keep taking them pills you whackjob
16 Dec 2010, 10:29 am
@Connag : @ 413 & 415
Thanks for these honest posts.
So the playing field was
- not level in 2010
- level in 2009
- not level in 2008
- level in 2007
- not level in 2006…….
ABs win = refs are cheats
SA wins = refs are OK
Yep, that makes it so much easier to comprehend.
Keep praying for Fiji then.
16 Dec 2010, 10:42 am
@gunther : poopa really doesnt like anyone being nasty to nz or even discussing the nz maori.
he loves the country he left so much that he is willing to defend it with his honour, his integrity and his life.
just as long as he doesnt have to live in it.
16 Dec 2010, 10:44 am
@Black Panther : haha, the biggest whinging came from you lot last year regarding merit refs.
oh ja, and in the s14 this year too.
it was funny.
16 Dec 2010, 10:54 am
Was there a loss in TriN 2010 where the Bok Management and fans did NOT blame the ref ?
I seem to remember them being rather magnanimous after Soccer City, where all the odds were stacked in their favour at home, at altitude and with a sympathetic whistleblower in The Only Ref in the Village.
Still lost.
16 Dec 2010, 10:54 am
Ranger
Poor poops…
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
16 Dec 2010, 10:57 am
@Black Panther : hey bp, how are you this morning? i hope u’re feeling more at ease today…
now, about the little matter of the article – nz rugby is kak – can you now unequivocally tell me that you read such an article here on keo?
16 Dec 2010, 10:59 am
@poppa69 : @ 416
thats not strictly correct, Poppa.
True, they had absolutely NO problem with Barnes in 2007 – it is, after all, the result that determines whether the ‘ref cheats’. So, on that occasion, he didnt.
However, you will clearly recall Brisbane’09 when the Boks lost, conclusively, and in a characteristic show of unity, Senor Barnes was adjudicated “a cheat”.
Its quite a simple formula, actually.
SA Lose = ref is a cheat
SA Win = ‘level playing field’.
16 Dec 2010, 11:03 am
@Transformation :
ha HAAAAAAAAA !
Transie, dont tell me youve been up all night scouring the Keo vaults for ‘further’ evidence of Kiwi duplicity ?
If there is one man here who deserves finding the schmoking gun, it is you, sir.
What did you find ? a pea under your mattress ? a tokoloshe ?
come on now, dont be shy. Who said what to whom ?
16 Dec 2010, 11:06 am
@Black Panther : blah blah the boks won in perth with a bonus point to boot, what did pdv say about bryce lawrence?
16 Dec 2010, 11:11 am
@Transformation : @ 432
I dunno
“he’s a cheat” ?
But Transie, am I right about Barnsie after Brizzy ?
16 Dec 2010, 11:12 am
still stalking me Gunter?? gees, and I’m the whackjob. bwahaha. seems whenever I post your there straight after trying to be funny
obsession isn’t a gift grunter.
but glad to see I’ve got under your skin soooo much
16 Dec 2010, 11:15 am
@poppa69 : @ 434
Actually this is Gunther ‘ignoring’ you. If he was really paying you any attention, you would know about it.
16 Dec 2010, 11:17 am
Ranger
I go back every year mate. the fact I can earn more money in Aus, and be back home in 3 hours gets lost in your Neanderthal brain doesn’t it. ?
16 Dec 2010, 11:25 am
@Black Panther : 431 hehe not a chance, i was at my office’s christmas party yesterday so Transformation Forensics pty ltd’s investigation unit was closed
16 Dec 2010, 11:36 am
@Transformation :
And the BS industry sighed with huge relief.
16 Dec 2010, 11:41 am
@Black Panther : 438 so BP if u have no recollection of ever readinf an article penned by keo declaring that “nz rugby is kak”, can we safely say that you’re out perpetuating hearsay as fact when in ur BS u refer to such an article?
16 Dec 2010, 11:44 am
I’m sure you earn more money in oz poops.
The welfare is much better no?
And more blacks to practice your favorite word on.
Summertime and the living is easy.
Plus you have blackie to hold your hand.
Ps are you sure your parents weren’t at Sharpeville?
16 Dec 2010, 12:05 pm
Gunther
you’d know about sharpeville wouldn’t you. bet your ancestors waded right in huh?
u still got their “trophies” ?????
16 Dec 2010, 12:08 pm
@95, Kwagga Robertse
You said:
@TheTackler : Might be, but we might see the choke label being dusted off again…….who knows. They are playing brilliant ruggas at the moment but the also played great rugby in ’94,’98,’02,’06…..just a thought.
You are talking out of your b*ck side as far as past world cup build ups are concerned. In 1998, the AB’s lost all 4 of their Tri Nations matches. 4 defeats in a row equals the AB’s worst ever streak I think. It was a TERRIBLE year.
94 wasn’t great either. The AB’s lost to the French 2-zip at home, and lost the Bledisloe Cup as well. The AB’s certainly weren’t favourites in 95 – the English really fancied their chances after beating the AB’s in 93, and the Aussies were fancied as well. As it happened, two teams that weren’t being picked as winners, the Ab’s and the Boks, contested the final.
16 Dec 2010, 12:11 pm
@bangkok-bok : Serge Betsen, Abdelatif Benazzi, Fulgence Ouadraggo (sic)and im sure Thierry Dusotoir is from Africa as well
16 Dec 2010, 12:12 pm
@Transformation : @ 439
Ive had a leading question like that bring a barely disguised chuckle from the beak.
This is your statement of claim; make your case.
Transie, I will say tho, that if I ever DO get my @rse nailed here, I hope its you.
Sincerely, best wishes on that.
But, Transie, this time remember to read the WHOLE thread. It got a bit ugly this year when you forgot, and the buildup is looking remarkably similar.
16 Dec 2010, 12:15 pm
@grant10 : Rory appoached the Lions, not them him, and they declined the first time.
Then the Sharks spoke with the Lions or something.
Sharks would only give him a 6 month contract so that is why he is leaveing.
16 Dec 2010, 12:16 pm
@Transformation : @ 439
I must say tho, the early signs ARE promising
“perpetuating hearsay as fact”
Its like that scene in Cape Fear where Bob DeNiro comes back as the wronged-man and confronts his attorney with the knowledge that he has gained a law degree whilst inside. And that wonderful moment where Nick Noltes eyes acknowledge that theres a storm brewin’.
perpetuating hearsay, indeed.
16 Dec 2010, 13:44 pm
what’s my favourite word grunter? you love to fabricate don’t you???
this favourite word, how often have I said it ? once that I know of.
youre more a shytstirrer then me.
16 Dec 2010, 13:50 pm
@poppa69 : ag pops, are you still sniffing around looking for a cyber fight?
how frustrated are you man?
get over it and commit yourself to never saying the awful things you have said on here, ever again and you will feel better.
i mean calling your lot sheepshaggers etc is one thing but bringing up rape and murder and human rights atrocities with the abandon you do is a sure sign that you tke all of this way too seriously.
i have decided to forgive you for your awful slurs. i really hope you dont let me down by sliding back into the basement section of your nature anytime soo.
16 Dec 2010, 14:53 pm
Connag @ 413
and the most comical basis upon which to base your opinion sums up the 2010 Year here on Keo:-
“The Boks were simply blown off the park by cheating ANZAC refs.”.
In the 0-3 2010 series, each test was controlled by referees from Ireland (x2) and Wales (x1).
16 Dec 2010, 15:08 pm
@Black Panther : dude any SAFFA who actually believes it was anything other than pathetic rugby from the Boks is delusional.
Seriously, they will do anything to deflect away from PDV and his school of clowns.
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