seriously some people have way too much time on their hands with these in depth formats and venues

im sure the people that run the sport will do a great job at it

well you should only have a SL of 6 teams too then.

silly.

the union world cup only has 7/8 proper teams and it apparently is succesful.


you will see more skill in samoa vs tonga in the RLWC than nz vs australia in the RUWC.

for which game? you would have found that for their world cup qualifiers they actually had over 10 australians in their squad, allthough your right re: russia they do use domestic players, thats why they cant get within 40 points of any decent opposition

Mark Minnichello
Ashley Laffranchi
Mark Cantoni
Ryan McGoldrick
David Myles
Dave Marando
Tyrone Copppedge
Mark O'Halloran

No, the football world cup does not last 7 weeks. It lasts just over 4 weeks (11th June - 11th July). And unlike football, you can't consistently have mid-week games in rugby league.

Every other World Cup in recent times has lasted a similar length of time (about 5 weekends). It won't be any different this time, especially 2 weeks extra. It just isn't financially viable, let alone there aren't enough weeks in the season (if you think they'll change the NRL season or SL season to accommodate then you'll be disappointed).

5 weekends maximum. There isn't enough room for anything else.

Oh well, I only looked at the format (7 rounds) and presumed. I don't watch it anyway it bores me to death

After all, who knew RL had internationals.

The main thing I don't like about this 14 team idea is that it is going to leave is with groups of 3 and the unfair advantages/disadvantages the teams in them groups will face.

Perhaps one option is to have the teams in one group of 3 play the teams in the other group of 3 instead of their own?

e.g. (seedings in brackets)
Group A - England (1), Fiji (2), Lebanon (3)
Group B - Australia (1), Tonga (2), Ireland (3)
Group C - New Zeland (1), Wales (2), Scotland (3), Cook Islands (4)
Group D - Papua New Guinea (1), France (2), Samoa (3), USA (4)

So England won't play Fiji and Lebanon, they'd play Australia, Tonga and Ireland.
And Australia will play England, Fiji and Lebanon.

Group C and D as normal.

This allows us to seperate the big teams then, yet still have that all-important Aus vs England game to start the tournament.
No fangled Super Groups. And one hell of a lot easier to understand for the public.

3 group games, top two from each to quarters.

I think that's the best format possible if keeping it simple is the aim. And certainly the fairest with 14 teams.

why not seed it then draw it from a hat

That would also make it fairer. The teams I've put in are just examples, but the main emphasis was meant on the seeding process.

I don't think they'll draw teams out of a hat though. They'll want to make as attractive fixtures as possible IMO so will most likely group them in a certain way.

Because there was no fair way of getting striaght into quarters that I could think of.

I am all up for giving the better teams an easier run, but not at the expense of the lower teams, who could potentially pull a shocker and wanted to accomadate for that. Unless I suppose you draw randomly into 2 groups of 3 and 4 and the top two of either group goes straight through, there is a massive bias towards the top teams in the ones I have read. In mine I think if the best teams were all from the minor groups (unlikely I know) then the top four would end up coming from these groups, whereas in others only those from the top groups and a couple from the others get a shot.