How long until.............

How long until we see a NH vs NH World Cup Final?

2015
England vs Wales

It's not going to happen.

Will probably happen one day.
Would love a Wales v England Final............Wales Wins!!!!! LOL

You just focus on getting out of your group this time around, and worry about finals later.

Well the final isn't until the 23rd October so at least 5 weeks I'd say...

I would prefer to see a NH v SH final than sides from the same hemispheres playing in a final.

In the next 5 RWC i think we will need a NH final.

It really isn't going to happen. South Africa, Australia and NZ have the highest success rates so far since the tournament's inception and I can't see that changing much in future.

I would like to see the conference system used, rather than the pool/knock out we currently have.

I think it would make a more interesting tournament, vastly slash the cost and lead to more purposeful internationals between the sides out side the competitive top 8.

For example a pacific nations play off, north american, european, 6N, 4N conferences with weighed numbers of participants...e.g. 3 from 6N, 3 from 4N, and one from each of the remaining conferences.

They then go into a truncated drawn round-robin and the top 4 play a semi final/ grand final finale.

It's fairer, more competitive, cheaper and frankly more interesting.

When I've taken over as chairman of the IRB, this will be how it happens.

for 3 whole nations of the 4N fans... the World Will End

2015 a RWC Le Crunch - England Vs France with Wales playing SA in a Bronze Final Grudgefest.

(the kiwis didn't play in this RWC as shortly after the 2011 Final the National team was disbanded. The debacle that was the final saw in the last 10mins an insane fan let loose a heard of black painted sheep onto the pitch and the National side was disqualified).

The rise of the Pacific Island teams thanks to the influx of ex-NZ players resulted in the closest quarter finals in the RWC history. The PI teams only fading away when they succumbed to tactical baa-ing by the opposition supporters.

With the English mentally frail after all the pre-match hype, a couple of million wendyball supporters realised that there was a world cup in England that they actually stand a chance of winning and spend all night outside the England team's hotel chanting En-Ger-Land over and over.

The French go on to win .....

the reverse Azincourt.

TheGreyGhost wrote:I would like to see the conference system used, rather than the pool/knock out we currently have.

I think it would make a more interesting tournament, vastly slash the cost and lead to more purposeful internationals between the sides out side the competitive top 8.

For example a pacific nations play off, north american, european, 6N, 4N conferences with weighed numbers of participants...e.g. 3 from 6N, 3 from 4N, and one from each of the remaining conferences.

They then go into a truncated drawn round-robin and the top 4 play a semi final/ grand final finale.

It's fairer, more competitive, cheaper and frankly more interesting.

When I've taken over as chairman of the IRB, this will be how it happens.

Greyghost it is not often that I wholeheartedly disagree with you, but how would that system be fairer.

You are basically having the top three nations in one conference, so you want to cancel two of them out of the competition, so that you might have a scenario where the semi finals are cimpeted between number 1 nation in the world and then from 4 down.

How does that make sense.

The way I see it currently the seeding system is already flawed as it is.

If you look at tennis the seeds work this way.
Pools

A B C D
1 2 3 4
8 7 6 5
9 10 11 12
16 15 14 13
17 18 19 20

That is the way the pools should work.

Irrespective of where the country is situated.

Now if they go to 12 months before the RWC, and apply that world ranking, then these should have been the pools.

Pool A
New Zealand
Argentina
Wales
Tonga
Georgia

Pool B
South Africa
Scotland
Fiji
USA
Russia

Pool C
Australia
England
Italy
Canada
Romania

Pool D
France
Ireland
Samoa
Japan
Namibia

quarter 1:Pool A winner plays Pool D runner up
quarter 2:Pool D winner plays Pool A runner up
quarter 3:Pool B winner plays Pool C runner up
quarter 4:Pool C winner plays Pool B runner up.

Semi final 1:Quarter winner 1 vs quarter winner 2
Semi final 2:Quarter winner 3 vs quarter winner 4

That is the fairest way of doing it, no use making it that top teams cancel each other out before semi final stage.

Then why call it a world cup?

If it is the top competition it should be doen by rankings.

That's in fact all i can see rankings is useful for.

To determine seeding.

No no no, I said 3 of the 4N qualify from their conference, this would mean the top 3 would have to beat Argentina to qualify for the RWC, or atleast two of the others.

If they didn't, then their chances of winning it would presumably be quite remote anyway, hence the idea of qualifying.

The round robin would then result in the best of the sides at the RWC filling the play off spots.

Chances are NZ, Aus, SA would fill three of the play off spots anyway, so you'd end up with just two rounds of knock out matches: semi-finals such as NZ v Fra, Aus v SA.

It's fairer because you end up with fewer, better teams at the tournament, and less "luck of the draw", since the round-robin stage would see most participants play each other at least once...and the most consistently victorious teams rise to the top. This could also be stimulated with a bonus point system in order to stomp out this nonsense negative rugby.

Much fairer, much higher quality over all. With the conferences acting as an entree to the feast, and replacing the "warm ups" and devalued tri-nations/four-nations/six nations. Everyone would have to field their top squads to qualify...you see.

I tell you, it's genius.

Anyone want to nominate me for chairman of the IRB?

Cari wrote:It really isn't going to happen. South Africa, Australia and NZ have the highest success rates so far since the tournament's inception and I can't see that changing much in future.

Forgetting someone there Cari!

HERSH, England won when the laws were being interpreted incorrectly by the referees, so frankly it doesn't count.

NZ won when the game was played by amateurs and SA wasn't there so it doesn't count

SA only won because of some dodgy refereeing (the semi against France in 95 was disgraceful, and we all know what happened in 07) and food poisoning so they don't count. And Australia won in 91 because of the poor decision not to award a penalty try after Campo's deliberate knock on, so that doesn't count. Finally, France were knackered after hammering NZ in the semi in 99 so Australia's triumph doesn't count there either.

great fun this...

@Mad for Chelsea
What GG and Hersh don't get it that there is no spoon....

the SA win in 07 doesn't count cos their team failed to get a country western into the top 10 of the charts

Mad for Chelsea wrote:SA only won because of some dodgy refereeing (the semi against France in 95 was disgraceful, and we all know what happened in 07) and food poisoning so they don't count. And Australia won in 91 because of the poor decision not to award a penalty try after Campo's deliberate knock on, so that doesn't count. Finally, France were knackered after hammering NZ in the semi in 99 so Australia's triumph doesn't count there either.

great fun this...

Yah, and hopefully the luck will last this time as well. form, game plan, injuries, we just need luck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzm8kTIj_0M

Biltong, you got that wrong, its 'all you need is Love', some tommo style smooching to put the opposition in two minds about contesting the breakdown, that, and a Pink away kit

Funny-most teams that win Bill have Lady Luck giving them a wee bit of help-not that they deserve it any less. It seems to go NZ's way in every other scenario except the WC.

Here's hoping hey

Let's face it, most Kiwi tries either have a forward pass in them, or they have players running blocking lines.

A little bit of bad luck every four years is just the Universe's way of balancing it out.

I do understand how mind-boggling it seems for English people seeing players with numbers 10 and above passing the ball but rest assured it is not illegal nor are the passes forward.

Nor is it illegal for backs to advance onto the opposition looking to receive a pass. This concept is called support play. Backs can take some part in a game other than standing still waiting for the 10 to kick and then chasing it. This may be confusing for defences who've seen nothing but kicking in their own domestic areas, but trust me it is legal too.

disneychilly wrote:Nor is it illegal for backs to advance onto the opposition looking to receive a pass. This concept is called support play.

Unfortunately some referees (for instance Mr Clancy) have never seen it before either, and erroneously rule out tries for "obstruction".

If only there'd been a local TMO on hand he could have referred to...

years ago didn't this used to be called decoy running and be illigal ..?

TheGreyGhost wrote:

disneychilly wrote:Nor is it illegal for backs to advance onto the opposition looking to receive a pass. This concept is called support play.

Unfortunately some referees (for instance Mr Clancy) have never seen it before either, and erroneously rule out tries for "obstruction".

If only there'd been a local TMO on hand he could have referred to...

Erm you do know Clancy was quite right to rule out the try. McCaw's error was in running PAST his own player and INTO the defense, thus taking out two defenders without the ball, which is pretty much the definition of obstruction...

Oh why do I bother anyway?

I disagree with you Mad, the defensive line was advancing, they ran into McCaw as much as he ran into them.

If you take a look again you'll see that in no way were either of the two tacklers ever in position to tackle the ball carrier, who was well wide of McCaw at the moment of contact.

Maybe, but I got the feeling McCaw took them out of the game, which is illegal. Should probably look at it again...

To be fair, if it was the Ozzies against us and it was pulled back, I'd be defending the call.

Given it was Clancy though, odds are he would've let it go if McCaw weren't involved.

On a completely unrelated and random note, how come the headline "Bolt wins 100m in season's best" is under the subsection "Motorsport" on the BBC front page? Is this a not-so-subtle reference to the fact that Bolt is FAST, or a genuine mistake?

disneychilly wrote:I do understand how mind-boggling it seems for English people seeing players with numbers 10 and above passing the ball but rest assured it is not illegal nor are the passes forward.

Nor is it illegal for backs to advance onto the opposition looking to receive a pass. This concept is called support play. Backs can take some part in a game other than standing still waiting for the 10 to kick and then chasing it. This may be confusing for defences who've seen nothing but kicking in their own domestic areas, but trust me it is legal too.

Yes we have heard of those new fangled tactics, we've even seen some foreign chappies doing just that, not for us though

Signed

Board of the RFU

I'm seeing it under Athletics, so either you're telling a joke which I've failed to spot, they've fixed it, or you've got some odd browser that's having a rendering meltdown.

G2 wrote:

disneychilly wrote:I do understand how mind-boggling it seems for English people seeing players with numbers 10 and above passing the ball but rest assured it is not illegal nor are the passes forward.

Nor is it illegal for backs to advance onto the opposition looking to receive a pass. This concept is called support play. Backs can take some part in a game other than standing still waiting for the 10 to kick and then chasing it. This may be confusing for defences who've seen nothing but kicking in their own domestic areas, but trust me it is legal too.

Yes I have heard of those new fangled tactics, I've even seen some foreign chappies doing just that, not for us though

Signed

Board of the RFU

C'mon Board of the RFU? more likely:

"I've seen some foreign chappies doing it...how long before they qualify to play for England?"

That as well

TheGreyGhost wrote:I'm seeing it under Athletics, so either you're telling a joke which I've failed to spot, they've fixed it, or you've got some odd browser that's having a rendering meltdown.

nope still seeing it under Motorsport... How very odd.

Decoy running is not illegal. Obstruction is. Trick though-always take the man with the ball.

The Aussies used to run two lines of attack and sometimes obstruction occurred. The All Blacks don't have the same attack line. See if you wanted a case of obstruction see the Hartley try against NZ last year.

Oops my bad. That was a case of not retiring instead wasn't it? Can't remember which law/s were broken.

disneychilly wrote:Decoy running is not illegal. Obstruction is. Trick though-always take the man with the ball.

The Aussies used to run two lines of attack and sometimes obstruction occurred. The All Blacks don't have the same attack line. See if you wanted a case of obstruction see the Hartley try against NZ last year.

The one in the AIs? Off-side certainly (Ashton in front of Flood when he kicked through), double movement debatable, but obstruction? can't remember any hint of that... you do mean this one right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpCd0rRNwNk
(try is about 2:40 in)

Sorry Mad my bad. I'm trying to remember where said try was from but can't at present sorry. Though an example of the reverse-where you can hold your position and not be obstructing-would be McAlister's sinbin in 07 where all he did was turn around