The highlight for me has been the emergence of a couple of new names to threaten the existing order, just what international rugby needs at this time. Italy were well in contention for their 1st-ever shot at a quarter-final. They could well have won their decider against Scotland, which would`ve set up a QF featuring 2 predominantly football-mad countries, which can only be good for world rugby.
Fiji seem to have stepped out of the shadows of their illustrious 7`s background by qualifying for the playoffs with what was an excellently planned campaign. Resting most of their stars for the Aussie game, and heavily targetting the Wales game showed some commendable judgement and campaign management. They`re growing up as a 15`s team.
The performances of a couple of teams who didn`t make it this time around was also excellent. Tonga showed that they belong at this level. Georgia put the fear of God into the Irish, comfortably accounted for Namibia and held the Argies to 3 tries right up to the full-time whistle. The spirit and enthusiasm of Portugal and Namibia has been infectious and brilliantly refreshing.
For me, there have been 2 big disappointments though. Firstly the majority of the 6-nations teams that haven`t performed up to scratch. World rugby needs for these teams to be competitive, a 3-team show for top honours ain`t gonna grow the game into the future. Counties like Ireland, who have been very successful at age-group level a few years ago, England with their huge playing numbers and resources and Wales with their passion needs to shape by the time RWC2011 comes along. Not going to flog a horse that`s down, I do hope and believe that the administrative problems faced by the major NH teams should be sorted by then.
But a very worrying trend for me has been football-style diving and simulation, something that needs to be sorted ASAP.
And finally, on the future participation of 20 teams in the RWC, I`m really liking Brodizzle`s idea of a plate and shield comp. for the teams eliminated from the top 8. Not often that I`ll agree with an Aussie on rugby-related issues :blink: , so there`s gotta be some serious merit in it!
