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Introduce A Plate Section At The Rugby World Cup 1 views
15 September 2011 by The Swede Eaters
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Scotty Donaldson has enjoyed watching the minnows, but believes there must be more incentive for them to continue playing well at the Rugby World Cup.
The minnows are winning fans throughout New Zealand with some gutsy
performances in the opening matches of the Rugby World Cup 2011. These
teams are no longer the easybeats they once were with no scores over
fifty points posted so far in the tournament and there have been some
very close matches like Canada upsetting Tonga and Romania leading
Scotland until the final quarter. I think that the minnows flourish in
playing against better teams in a Rugby World Cup tournament and will
get better the more matches they play. I think that these semi
professional teams like Romania, Georgia, Namibia, USA, Canada, Russia
and Tonga should play each other in a format similar to the Sevens
World Series. It is tricky with four pools of five, but I think given
how much money these teams paid to travel to New Zealand, that it would
be great that when the finals are on, the minnows play in a Plate
Competition.
Five ways this would be good for the game
1) These players have been treated like rock stars when playing their
matches in smaller cities like Invercargill, Whangarei, New Plymouth
and Palmerston North and the finals are only played in the big cities.
This means that anywhere not hosting the actual finals will be free to
host meaningful plate competition matches, giving these players more
moments of glory.
2) The more rugby these teams play, the better they get. The problem
with plenty of these teams is that they don't play enough test matches
together to build experience and combinations, this would help.
3) The Sevens World Series is successful because it provides an
incentive for these smaller teams to keep trying to win rather than now
if they are out of contention early on, there isn't anything to play
for. The overall standard of Sevens has improved in the minnow nations
and I believe this has helped their XVs teams.
4) There are plenty of spare game times for these extra matches to be
played since there are only currently eight post pool play matches
spread over three weekends. This leaves plenty of time for television
coverage.
5) They have already spent the money to come all this way to New
Zealand and surely they need to make the most of this opportunity.
How it works?
The third and fourth placed teams in each pool will play each other in
a format similar to the existing Quarter Finals where 3rd from Pool A
will play 4th from Pool B. Then there will be semi finals and finals.
It could also be extended so that the teams that finish 5th in their
pool play straight bowl semi finals.
These matches could be played in smaller venues not hosting the actual
finals and they could even include double headers to get the crowds
involved.
What do you think of this idea? It works in the Sevens World Series
rugbyworldcuptips.com
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