[RWC2023] Scotland vs Romania (30/09/2023)

[Dean Cooperfield-West]

How about WR change what the World Cup is?

Have more teams competing to make 5 groups of 5. After the group stages, you qualify for either WC1 (top 2 in each group) and continue as normal. If you don't make WC1, you have WC2, which is for 3-4 in each group.

It will add a competitive aspect for tier 2 nations and give them a sense of achievement.

 

[amz]

It's not great but your man is just around to post in every thread once a team hits the 40 point mark.

It's just where the sport is, you can't force a team to be good at rugby. WR needs to look at this world cup and focus on countries with potential, Uruguay, Portugal and maybe Chile are the standouts. After that, manage the eligibility rules better, Romania shouldn't have got a sniff at that world cup and while the Spanish union have to take on a bit of blame WR should be looking into the eligibility of players before they get on the pitch. Bin Africa 2 and add it to the repechage as well and all of a sudden the 80 and 90 point scorelines become 50s and 60s.

But honestly, there's only so much WR can do. It's a less popular and far more technically difficult game to learn than soccer, basketball and cricket. Numbers and high quality coaching is needed and very hard to produce.

Just to replenish your memory, the team without chances to go to this RWC was Portugal who got a chance because of Spanish ineligibility. Romania advanced on 2nd place while Portugal advanced on 3rd and was sent to repechage. In 2022 Romania was still coached by Robinson, defeated Portugal twice home and away in qualis, held Georgia close, got a 27-20 with Argentina, beat Tonga and so on. Romania was qualified to repechage and Portugal was totally out of qualification process. Then Robinson resigned and the collapse started.