IRB revamps RWC 2015 schedule

[TRF_heineken]

Wellington - The International Rugby Board said on Monday it has revamped the 2015 Rugby World Cup match schedule to stop giving top nations an unfair advantage by allowing them a week's rest between games.

IRB chief executive Brett Gosper also said he had moved to clamp down on clubs preventing players from smaller nations attending the tournament, although he admitted it was a difficult problem to solve.

Small nations complained bitterly during the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand that the timetable was skewed towards the game's traditional superpowers because their matches were scheduled at the weekends to maximise television audiences.

This gave them six or seven days to recover, while the less high-profile sides often had to play midweek and weekend matches, giving them as little as three days between matches, before a longer break.

Gosper said the timetable for the 2015 tournament in England, due to be released in late April or early May, had been altered to fix the problem.

"There's very strong fairness in terms of rest periods and so on. It will be the same for all teams," he told reporters. "It will be far more equal compared to the last World Cup."

New Zealand Rugby Union chief executive Steve Tew backed the move, saying it was a question of fairness.

"We asked for it," he said. "We thought that it was unjust that the small unions were asked to play a critical event with shorter (rest) times than our games, so tier one nations made that request at the end of the last World Cup."

Gosper said the IRB was also working to address concerns raised by smaller nations, particularly in the Pacific, about European clubs preventing their players from participating in world cup tournaments.

He said the IRB recently held a meeting on the issue, attended by representatives from the English and French leagues, and warned clubs they were obliged to release players and could face sanctions if they refused to do so.

But the IRB chief admitted it was a difficult issue to enforce, despite assurances from the clubs that they would abide by the regulations and not hold back players from international duties.

"It's a bit like tax-dodging, there are always going to be around-the-fringes issues," he said.

"Maybe things will happen behind our backs that we can't quite control. All we can do is make sure that the intentions behind regulation nine are imposed as best as they possibly can be and made as robust as possible."

http://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/IRB-revamps-RWC-schedule-20130422

 

[kovana]

This is good news by the IRB.. However, i still see some uneven schedules due to the 5 teams per pool..

Hopefully by 2019 they either.

1. Keep 20 teams and have 5 pools of 4 teams.

2 Have 24 teams and have 6 pools of 4... then have a top 16 playoff to Q-finals etc... That way i think Japan may have a chance to reach the playoffs.

 

[BZHopenside]

I like to think that by 2019, there will 24 teams that will be able to compete at that level. I don't generally like 24 team tournaments though, because it can encourage running up the score more.

 

[RedWhiteGreen]

Every system will have it's disadvantages. The best numbers are always 2 to the power of something, but a 16 team RWC is too small and a 32 team RWC is far too big. I'd like to see 24 teams for 2019, meaning six groups of four, each team in each group gets the same number of rest days. Not sure if eight or sixteen teams should go through.

On the issue of RWC scheduling, what about bowl and plate competitions? There are gaps between games that could be filled by them, plus giving teams that need more tests more tests. Under the current format, you could have group third places in the plate, fourth in the bowl and fifth in the shield. Maybe use them some way in the qualifying process for next time. They're not alien to big 15s tournaments, the WRWC has them IIRC.

 

[psychic duck]

Every system will have it's disadvantages. The best numbers are always 2 to the power of something, but a 16 team RWC is too small and a 32 team RWC is far too big. I'd like to see 24 teams for 2019, meaning six groups of four, each team in each group gets the same number of rest days. Not sure if eight or sixteen teams should go through.

On the issue of RWC scheduling, what about bowl and plate competitions? There are gaps between games that could be filled by them, plus giving teams that need more tests more tests. Under the current format, you could have group third places in the plate, fourth in the bowl and fifth in the shield. Maybe use them some way in the qualifying process for next time. They're not alien to big 15s tournaments, the WRWC has them IIRC.

IRB already committed to 20 team World Cup for 2019. 2023 earliest possible time for change.

Nobody would go to bowl and plate competitions. It's hard enough already to sell one Namibia v Georgia or Fiji v Romania match, without making a whole tournament of them. Save those fixtures for outside World Cup periods.