A Bit Of Shrinkage Might Be Good For The Game

OVER MY many years in this daft trade of sports-writing, I have realised, up in the rarefied air of international sports administration the motto is a nod to a little-remembered British television sit-com of the 1960s: 'Never mind the quality feel the width.'

Watching the first two games in round two of Rugby World Cup '23 – France v Uruguay, then Namibia v New Zealand, was very much a case of NMTQFTW. Nobody, except perhaps the most-deluded supporter of Uruguay or Namibia thought pre-game: “We could have a shock here” - well we did, if a somewhat undercooked shadow French side not securing a bonus point can be seen as a shock, get at least one surprise outcome.

For as long as any game's High Heid Yins persist in their belief that they need to turn their World Cups and World Championships into mini-Olympic Games, we are going to have to sit through too-many one-sided mismatches, lop-sided, over-long group stages and small build-ups, before we get to the real meat – knock-out games between the very best.

The Olympic Games is already approaching melt-down status. The sheer cost of staging this quadrennial sporting extravaganza is becoming unsustainable. The knock-on effects are starting to show, with the Australian state of Victoria, not exactly a poverty-stricken “third world” part of the globe, baulking at the cost of hosting the Commonwealth Games.

Football's FIFA World Cup, when next held in 2026 will feature 48 nations – jings, with that many it will almost be more-difficult for Scotland to mess-up as usual than to qualify. There simply are not 48 footballing nations good enough to strut their stuff on the global stage.

Similarly, there are not 20 rugby-playing nations good enough to go to our game's global show piece.

I grew up in the golden era of 16 team global tournaments. Shorter, sharper but still capable of being uplifting. As an impressionable youngsters, I got a bigger kick from watching Puskas in 1954, Pele in 1958 or Beckenbauer in 1966 than some of the iconic global stars of later tournaments, bloated from the original 16 teams to the current 32 teams.

Here's a suggestion for the power brokers of international sport:

If you truly want to show-case the best of your sport, go down the less is more route. Your big quadrennial one sport alternative to the Olympics features just 16 teams. But, you go down what in curling terms used to be called the High Road/Low Road route.

You start with 16 teams. You have an element of seeding, you can even start with four groups of four. If you go down the seeding route of straight knock-out games, it's 1 v16, 2 v 15, 3 v 14 and so on. If you go down the group route, the first and second in each group goes into the quarter-finals, then it's knock-out all the way to a final winner.

But, what you could also do is have a Low Road competition for the losers, who in turn keep playing off until, at the end of the competition, you know your 1 to 16 final order.

This way, every game will mean something. You would be less-likely to see one-sided demolition jobs, and every team would know where they stood in the global pecking order.

RIGHT – that's the basic thrust of today's sermon out of the way. Now, where does it lie in relation to the ongoing Rugby World Cup. Well, we still, as I write this waiting for “The Samoa/Fiji/Japan moment” - that's when one of the less-fancied Tier Two teams puts one over on one of the big boys.

Perhaps, had World Rugby not put Matthew Carley in-charge, we might have had that shock in Week One, when Wales stumbled past Fiji, but, we are still waiting.

The Round Two fixtures have shown, the gap between the top tier and the lesser nations is narrowing, but, a gap there still is. Chile and Portugal battled hard, as did Tonga, but, the results still went as expected.

OK, that wasn't perhaps the case with Fiji beating Australia; but, given how poor the Aussies have been in the build-up to the tournament, and the fact Fiji were royally screwed in losing to Wales, it wasn't really a surprise. A great way for the Fijians to get 69 years of hurt off their backs.

I reckon, now Australia will bounce back and beat Wales. Georgia could yet spoil this forecast, but, I reckon, in Australia and Fiji we saw the two teams that will qualify from this group.

Not merely because of my ABE leanings, I had hoped Japan would beat England, but, rather like us against South Africa, the Brave Blossoms didn't turn-up. The game was turgid viewing and Jamie Joseph might well go to his grave still cursing his side's failure to beat a distinctly-ordinary England team.

The much-maligned Steve Borthwick now has a major headache. His side has somehow staggered through two victories, without coming anywhere near English expectations, but George Ford has managed things very well, while Courtney Lawes has been an inspiring Captain, Does he stick, or does he twist, by bringing back The Man With No Arms?

They will surely beat Chile, even with OF in the team, but, depending on results, their final game, against Samoa might call for a bit more than they have shown thus far. It could get interesting.

Finally, in Round Two, the referees came good. Why, even Andrew Brace gave a good account of himself, who'd have thunked it.