Rugby World Cup

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Ocelot Spleens Sep 2023 9:50am, 25 Sep 2023 37,971 posts	0 Ocelot Spleens It's the same bollocks as UKA saying 7,000,000 people run. NO THEY DON'T. The majority of adults do fuck all, they eat shit food, sit slumped on the sofa in front of the TV, the furthest they move is a walk to their car, or the fridge for a can of pop or beer. The health of the average UK adult is appalling.
Nellers Sep 2023 9:55am, 25 Sep 2023 41,292 posts	0 Nellers A very quick google brings up stats of about 200k English rugby players participating in matches or training at least twice per week. That feels more likley to me, although there will be a fair number of schoolkids who have a term of rugby at school, and a lot of people who do social rugby without training much so don't fall into that category. So probably about 1/10th of that participation figure if we're looking at active participants, at about 0.35% And to be fair that still gives a pool of English players about 4 times that of the Welsh equivalent.
paulcook Sep 2023 10:13am, 25 Sep 2023 3,256 posts	0 paulcook Yeah, these stats back that figure of 200000 up. I've come across this site before for other sports and wasn't certain exactly how they reached their figures but it certainly looks more accurate. statista.com I went to a rugby playing school (and while there's probably more people who played after school or university anyway), the only person I know who was still playing as an adult managed 30+ caps for England though did manage to miss any possible World Cup. I wonder if those figures before include children?!
njosmith Sep 2023 10:27am, 25 Sep 2023 937 posts	0 njosmith One of the problems with Australian rugby union is that since 2019 there has been no national competition. And the NRC pre-covid was not fit for purpose. It was played at weird time of the year and consisted of a Mish mash of Internationals/Super Rugby players and club players rather than an in-between level. I went to a couple of Brisbane City games and it was free entry and an extremely small crowd for the supposed level. There is a massive gap between regional club competitions and Super Rugby and the Australian Super Rugby clubs have fallen way behind the NZ equivalents. There were something like 50 odd games in a row where Aus team played NZ team without a single victory for an Aus team.
Fields Sep 2023 11:35am, 25 Sep 2023 9,960 posts	0 Fields Lol Thomas is the thickest pundit by far. A great player talks utter rubbish.
Cerrertonia Sep 2023 12:26pm, 25 Sep 2023 19,657 posts	0 Cerrertonia I agree, HappyG(rrr), except that I wonder what the comparable "rugby-playing population" is? I wouldn't be surprised if more Welsh kids are playing school and club rugby than in England. It's mainly posh schools in England that take Rugby even half seriously, unless they have a welsh PE teacher. In Wales I believe there's a very different ethos. Experience of my sons playing club rugby was that (in East Anglia at least) it was almost entirely lads who were too posh or too unathletic to play football. That's not the case in Wales and perhaps not all parts of England. Numbers ought to matter. Penrith - one suburb of Sydney - has more juniors playing rugby league than the whole of England. Unsurprising that we very rarely beat Australia. England and France ought to be much more dominant in Rugby Union than they actually are.
fetcheveryone Sep 2023 12:34pm, 25 Sep 2023 29,601 posts	0 fetcheveryone I was interested in the discussion about seeding and pool draw a couple of days ago. I went digging, and looked at the IRB rankings on the eve of each RWC. I was interested to look at the opponents each champion faced on their path to victory i.e. final, semi and quarter. 2003. England (1) bt Australia (4), France (5), Wales (10). Opponents Total 19 2007. RSA (4) bt England (7), Argentina (6), Fiji (13). Opponents Total 26 2011. NZ (1) bt France (4), Australia (2), Argentina (9). Opponents Total 15 2015. NZ (1) bt Australia (2), RSA (3), France (7). Opponents Total 12 2019. RSA (4) bt England (3), Wales (5), Japan (10). Opponents Total 18 Based on the numbers (which is what the discussion appeared to be suggesting for the most even tournament), South Africa got the luckiest route in 2007, whilst NZ had the toughest route in 2015. Perhaps I should extend that to show the teams they had to overcome in the group. Personally, I think a few uneven groups adds a good dose of spice to the knockout rounds, and gives a few other teams a chance to progress further than they otherwise might. If you want to do it purely by the rankings, then you don't need a world cup at all. PS yes the majority of commentators are biased. Wales are definitely not exceptional in that regard either But they won last night, and for that I am very pleased. Cymru am byth!
HappyG(rrr) Sep 2023 12:40pm, 25 Sep 2023 47,829 posts	0 HappyG(rrr) I'd say Wales looked like a WC winning team last night.
SPR Sep 2023 12:42pm, 25 Sep 2023 42,749 posts	0 SPR If you want to do it purely by the rankings, then you don't need a world cup at all. But it is based on rankings for tiers just securely out of date rankings. Also other world cups use the same system with more on date rankings so what we're asking for doesn't invalidate those world cups If we want a FA Cup style draw, that's an option but isn't really the point of the world cup and if we want it that way, then just do it that way instead of using info from almost 4 years ago.
SPR Sep 2023 12:42pm, 25 Sep 2023 42,750 posts	0 SPR *Severely