Twelve games in and Rugby World Cup 2019 has taken Japan and the World by storm with some blistering and certainly bruising games of rugby on display and of course, it wouldn’t be rugby without it’s fair share of controversies, big hits and Clive Woodward talking relentlessly about England.

Early in the tournament many said it was the closest opening round of a World Cup; but is that true? It’s safe to say that after consulting the twittersphere, nobody seems to be too sure, so I thought I’d take a look.

Interested to know your perceptions of #RWC2019 Closest World Cup so far, in terms of the gap between so called 'tier one' and 'tier two'? — The Scribbler 🏉 (@RugbyScribbler) September 24, 2019

In the below chart you can see the average points difference for the first twelve games of the last three World Cups, along with a few indicators of the difference between the ‘tier one’ sides and so-called ‘tier-two’ sides (I’ll later explain why that’s problematic). For the purpose of this chart, Tier One denotes sides in the Six Nations or Rugby Championship at the time of writing.

Rugby World Cup 2019 Rugby World Cup 2015 Rugby World Cup 2011 Average Points Difference 22.25 22.75 16 Tier 2 Games vs Tier1 6 8 5 Tier 2 tries vs Tier 1 9/6 games 9/8 games 6/5 games Tier 1 + 50-point wins 0 3 0 Scalps Uruguay beat Fiji. (T2vT2) Japan beat South Africa. (T2 vT1) 0

Statistics taken from the first 12 games, once every team has played at least one match.

Winning Margins

With Rugby World Cup fielding a number of nations that do not yet have professional status, or to whom it is new, this means that we tend to see an array of results from small one-point margins to, at times, fifty-plus margins. This means that the average points difference between sides might look surprisingly high, but it’s an indication to how competitive games are as a general overview. In the opening matches of the 2019 and 2015 world cups, we have actually seen a widening in the score margins, suggesting that the World Cup could have become less competitive in recent years.

However, we have seen that despite the win margins increasing, teams are recording lower scores overall, with many scores in the 2011 World Cup around the 50 points mark, 3 fixtures in 2015 exceeding that level, yet none reaching 50 points in the 2019, with only 4/12 games breaching the 40 point mark thus far. This leads me to believe that the overall gap is getting smaller and more sides are pushing towards a genuinely competitive status.

We also have the matter of World Rankings- with the #1 spot changing hands multiple times in the weeks prior to the World Cup and a genuine belief amongst many fans, that the winner of this World Cup is far from a given. Even in the lower ranks we see sides like the USA, Georgia and Japan ranked above Italy. Rankings aren’t everything, but it’s interesting to consider. It certainly feels like the most open World Cup to date.

Shock Results

On the face of it, the changes in results are minor. Despite the shock defeat of South Africa by Japan in Brighton 2015, we haven’t seen any ‘tier-one’ scalps taken since then by ‘tier-two’ sides. However, within the second tier, we have seen changes and some results that either upset the apple-cart, or very nearly did.

Take Russia; with losses to Connacht and Jersey Reds before the Rugby World Cup, they pushed hosts Japan all the way and were a stern test for Samoa. Lest we forget, Russia qualified after the disqualification of Spain, Romania and Belgium, leaving little preparation time.

Uruguay, the perennial under-dogs who last won a World Cup game sixteen years ago, held out the flying Fijians for a historic win this week. Things are certainly changing, which brings me on to the next point.

The ‘Tiers’ are flawed

Fiji and Uruguay are in the same tier. Japan and Russia are in the same tier. Yet Uruguay winning is seen as a huge result (and it was) as would have been a result for Russia over Japan, but they’re all the same tier. Equally if Japan beat Scotland, it’s an upset, but not a huge one, despite being a tier-two side against a tier-one side. Argentina beat South Africa? A big upset, yet they’re in the same tier.

For that reason, the whole so-called ‘tier system’ is flawed and dated. No longer is it a closed competition- ‘tier-two’ can be split many times, as can ‘tier-one’. Uruguay beating Fiji is undoubtedly one of the biggest results in the history of the Rugby World Cup, but it’s tier-two vs tier-two. The Rugby landscape is changing and it is neither fair nor factually correct to divide into two simple tiers. Put simply, the language we are using is provocative, wrong and needs to change…

..Mr Speaker.

The Scribbler, 27th September, 2019

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