The Rugby World Cup is overrated

Far from being a farce, it is without question the biggest arena in the world. Apart from technical skills, it goes much further than that and requires pure guts,strong-mindedness,self-control,objective reasoning and passion to win. If any of these ingredients are missing...ie overconfidence...underestimating your opposition...lack of strategy and game plan and lack of spirit and passion you can stumble on even the minnows because what they might lack in technical nature they might well have all the others. If SA wins again which I believe we can do...even with PDV then we will have a 60% winning strike rate (3/5) which will leave NZ with only one (actually a 3/4 win because we did not compete) out of 7 (11%). Having a lot of scalps in the Tri's and Internationals is all well and good but being in the world heavyweight ring and winning, there can be only one champion...gathering stats does not make you champion. Let me add too that apart from the big 5...you have the excitement of the minnow nations...some of which are improving and could well create an upset...one day it will be the big 6 or 7 or 8. As much as I love and respect the NZers they must grow up and stop whingeing and take it on the chin...cannot wait for September!

True heroes of the rugby world? Sorry mate - if performance per capita is what counts, Fiji or Samoa would be the true heros. I will draw attention to Fiji's appearance at the last RWC vs Irelands. If number of other sports you are good at is what counts, Australia would be the true champs (Cricket, AFL, Rugby League and Soccer) as well as winning Bill twice! If 'bringing people together' is what counts, the no. 1 spot would go to the rainbow nation. There was nothing herotic about what we saw in NZ earlier on this year from the 'true heroes'. Never nice to see a team representing their country just give up.

Pfft imagine if NZ had another million people... for starters we'd need another billion sheep to keep our sheep to human ration intact. But after that was sorted we'd put some pretty sweet teams together.

stop bagging the Irish team they are the true heroes of the rugby world, competing far above their weight division. With only 5 million people on the whole 'island of Ireland' (to quote one G. Adams), rugby has to compete with Gaelic Football, Hurling and Soccer. Those three are riven with Protestant/Catholic divisions Rugby, on the other hand, proves itself (again) to be a cut above and the Gentleman's Game.

I dont think there's too much focus on RWC Deans just says that to save his arse...you know he wished he'd won every game so far... The Tri-Nations IS becoming stale - but it will be great in 2012 when the ARGIES join. Im actually looking forward to them defeating us (Wallabies), NZ and SA at home...and I think they WILL do it!

The WC final should be the best of 3 games. Win the first 2 and it's all over.

Martin Johnson led England to their best 6N finish since 2003 during his first season in charge.

'I am always amused how many foreigners seem to know more about what Kiwi’s care about more than we do ourselves…'

Whether this is the best the Wallabies could be doing is debatable, but Robbie was in the media before the Christchurch Test saying that this year was all about steering the Wallabies towards the WC and that the losses would strengthen them (presumably after all the strenghtening they received last year), and we all know John O'Neill's modus operandi by now: acknowledge that it's unacceptable while maintaing that the coaching stuff have your vote of confidence and that everything's shaping up for a Wallaby victory at the Rugby World Cup.

I realise that, jameswm. My point was that performing as per expectation consistently is much easier when you're an individual athlete. If you want a athletics analogy, how about El Guerrouj? He finally won gold at Athens after failing at Atlanta and Sydney. Had he not, it would have been a career disappointment, but wouldn't have stopped him being considered a middle distance great.

Sly, the comparison isn't rugby with running. It's the once every 4 years comp definining the athlete or team, with the in-betweens meaning less. That's the way it is.

Actually, I'm surprised no one's corrected me on the fact that Brazil have only won it five times (58, 62, 70, 94 and 02) Italy are second (34, 38, 82 and 06)

Very definitely the hype is in NZ media. Read any NZ column there days and they are already talking up "best team ever". If I were Mr. O'Neil from the ARU I'd pay a former Wallaby Skipper to talk them up so they and the Kiwi media see stars and history repeats. Am confident though that Henry and Co are on to it this time.

I am not being pompous it happened that way, I cant repeat it again.

The fact remains that RWC is new compared to fifa WC. I think Brazil is statistical favorite as well as winning more WCs, what ever the ABs are much more dominant in Rugby and yet only won once. The anomilie cant be ignored. The Wallabies are not one RWC win better than the ABs, it does not make sense. Its like an Irish supporter on here who states that if you go by RWCs then Ireland does not rate and that's rubbish. As I wrote above the dust has not yet settled on how to access the RWC, Sure you Wallabies go for it that's all you've got!

OJ you're assuming that the sole purpose of every decision Australian rugby (though I suspect you mean Robbie Deans) has made has been with the WC in mind. I think our play at the moment is about as good as we can do, whether there's a WC next year or not. Can you point out how any selections or tactical decisions this year have been WC-based? I also don't recall hearing JON or RD saying they aren't worried about results this year because next year is all that matters. I didn't see that reaing between the lines either. They've been trying to win every game and blooding young players bit by bit is part of usual succession planning, RWC or not. Is the RWC more important than this year's TN? Sure. But that doesn't mean this year's TN isn't important.

zhenry, you might need to catch me up here...

Disagree with you completely BM and replied to similar above. As I scrolled down noticed your comment.

Not overly familiar with soccer stats but I think Brazil have also been best statistically most of the time, not sure about Italy being a close second. This is in stark contrast to RWC and ABs?

Don't agree that the team winning the RWC is always the best team in the tournament. That certainly was not the case in SA and you could argue about other years. Actually wrote these same comments on another article here. Certainly watching the 2007 RWC final was a turn off for me, and not because the ABs had been eliminated, but the style of play, I thought is was quite appalling. I'll stick my neck out here and also state similar to the boring play the McQueen Wallabies latterly produced, winning as it was. Soccer has had a WC that goes right back and the overall soccer representative game has adjusted accordingly, not so in Rugby. Test matches within hemispheres are played with the best available players (except 2007) and a comp like the Tri-Nations sorts out a winner with better integrity than a once off game, with all the slings and arrows that can occur. I don't think that conclusion takes rocket science to work out. Injuries are a problem for both formats. I think RWC winning does have a skill though but not in the same league as Tri Nations; for me it’s like one day or 20 over cricket even the Black Caps and the Wallabies can win more often. There is pressure in a one off (also occurs in tests) RWCs that ABs do not excel at, mind you there have been some weird occurrences during and before some of those loses. The ABs might not have been outright favorites but on most occasions they have been close. When you look at the over all stats that go right back to the early 1900s the ABs are clear winners, and that cannot be ignored. For me the RWC is still a marketing exercise and its place in the scheme of things has not yet settled.