Letter of the week: World Cup schedule

A Planet Rugby reader has sent us an interesting letter, proposing three alternative formats for the Rugby World Cup.Agree?

Planet Rugby readers are never short of an opinion and our mail box is seldom empty.There has been a lot of talk over the last two weeks about how unfair the World Cup schedule has been on tier-two teams, but not a lot of people have offered an alternative.

Well, one Planet Rugby reader, Kai Muller from Norwich in England, has sent us three possible solutions. We're not sure if any of them are really fair or workable, but they certainly offer food for thought.

Feel free to add your suggestions in the space below, or send them to us here.

Which is the best format to use in the next rugby World Cup?
By Kai Muller

South Africa v Namibia, Australia v Russia, New Zealand v Japan, England v Romania: These were some of the fixtures in the 2011 World Cup. I feel that the world would rather be watching games in the World Cup, in which both teams have some chance of winning.

Under the current system, the nasty, humiliating mismatches, in which it is obvious long before the match begins that the lower ranked team will be humiliated, crushed, and dispirited, unfortunately, outnumber the evenly-matched, exciting games.

Many other systems would make for a better competition. I enclose 3 examples,
Formats A, B & C.

Format A:

5 groups of 4. Top 12 ranked countries play in groups A B & C, seeds 13-20 play in groups D & E.

2 each from groups A-C qualify to the quarter-finals + the winners of groups D and E qualify to the quarter-finals where they play each other.

Format B:

Round 1 = Teams seeded 1 vs 2; teams seeded 3v4; 5v6, 7v8, …

Round 2 = W1vW2 (=the highest seeded round 1 winners meet), W3vL1 (=winner of 5v6 vs loser of 1v2), W4vL2, W5vL3; W6 v L4 …

Round3 = Quarter Finals. The 8 participants of the quarter-finals are decided on the basis of a points system, whereby the top rung match in Rounds 1 & 2 is worth 300 points; rung 2 match 280; rung 3 match 260; …and these points are allocated to the 2 teams in the round 1 and round 2 matches in terms of 100% to winning team if margin of win 20 points or more; 90%-10% if the margin is 13 to 19 points; 80%-20% if the margin is 7-12; 70%-30% if margin is 1-6. A draw = 45% each.

Teams with the highest scores using this system go into the Quarter Finals 1v8; 2v7; 3v6; 4v5.

Round 4 = Semi Finals matches (W1v8 vs W 4v5 and W2v7 vs W3v6).

Format C:

Top 10 seeds play rounds 1 and 2 in Pool A; seeds 11-20 play Rounds 1-2 in Pool B.

Opponents allocated in an unseeded 10 ball drawing for each pool.

Round 3= ladder system A1vA2 (top rung), A3vA4 (rung2), A5vB1 (rung3), A6vB2 (rung4).

The Pool B teams who lost one or more of their Round 1&2 matches all start below A10 in the Round 3 ladder.

If for example 4 Pool B teams won their Round 1 & Round 2 matches, these, ranked by points difference start Round 3 in ladder rungs 3,4,5,&6, where they play against A5,A6,A7&A8.

Round 4 = Winner of rung 1 vs winner of rung 2; W3 vs L1; W4 vs L2 ; W5 vs L3; …. ….

Round 5 = Loser of Round 4's top rung match vs winner of round 4s 2nd rung match; L2 vs W3; L3 vs W4; L4 vs W5; …. …. … and W1 vs bottom3 unified in a handicap match, where bottom 3 unified have an extra man on

Round 6 = W1 (rd4) vs W1 (rd5) for 1st & 2nd place; Loser of rd 5's top rung match vs winner of rd5'a 2nd rung match for 3rd/4th place; L2 vs W3 for 5th/6th “