Loose Pass

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with unexpected criticisms, expected criticisms, soccer and global divides.

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with unexpected criticisms, expected criticisms, soccer and global divides. And maybe a prediction or two…

Despite the game being the fastest-growing sport in the country and the team giving a showing better than ever before, and especially despite at least one of the players going on the record as saying he would not have swapped the experience for anything, it seems USA critics are finding fault with the RWC format, even the concept.

More specifically, Victor Mather of the New York Times wrote of his boredom at it all, citing the lack of upsets, longevity of the schedule and one-sidedness of the pool matches as reasons to switch off.

Have a quick squizz here.

Feeling indignant yet?

The responses are obvious: comparing rugby to soccer generally is like comparing steak to garden vegetables, citing 'Old British Empire' dominance and ring-fencing is a bit rich from a country where the national champions of local sports are hailed as World Champions automatically, and a failure to acknowledge that rugby players need similar recovery time to NFL players when discussing the schedule is just plain invidious.

That probably scrapes the surface of your queued-up retorts. But to be a little more creative, we (writing as a closet NFL fans) thought of the following:

There is actually an NFL World Championship, played every four years, of which the most recent edition was won by the USA with a 50-7 thrashing of Canada in the final in Vienna. The USA's progress through the tournament was marked by some heavy wins: 61-0 over Australia, 41-7 over Germany… only Mexico ran the USA close. Canada's progress to the final was equally decisive, 45-10 over France, 36-14 over Austria…

The only countries ever in contention were the USA, Canada and Mexico, with Japan the ex-Americas element.

Can you see any parallels to the Rugby World Cup there? Yet organisers will persist, just as the NFL will persist with playing matches at Wembley and other places, to promote the popularity of the game, get more people involved from more places. In time, and given the enthusiasm of the lesser countries to both be there and play better, the gap will narrow, just as it is in rugby.

The bottom line is: if you ever aspire to be anything in any sport, you have to measure yourself against the best and milk the experience for all it is worth, take away the lessons and learn them. Nobody can deny that in rugby, this process is well down the line now.

This is what the World Cup is really about Mr. Mather. Not your entertainment. Think about it.

Yet there was one issue raised with which we do agree: that of scheduling. Poor Canada must have felt sick as a hoof rot-ridden moose as Tonga conquered France to claim third place in Pool A and thus the automatic qualifying spot for England 2015.

The plucky Canucks had their four fixtures stuffed into 17 days, while Tonga had the luxury of a week between each of their final two matches. Canada had only four days to prepare for their clash with France – having beaten Tonga – while the Islanders had double that.

Obviously there's no guarantee it would have panned out differently. But Canada had a severe disadvantage to start with, a disadvantage that seems to have outweighed the achievement of their victory against the Tongans in Whangarei.

Television demands dictate the schedules, but with each team facing four pool matches in the space of three weeks, someone is always going to be facing an uphill battle. That someone is always a lesser team already digging deep just to compete.

There's no easy way to solve this, but something needs to be done, some method installed whereby no team plays within five days of its last fixture. That would at least add more credibility to the benchmark the minnow teams have this quadrennial chance to set themselves.

At the upper level, professional players' descents into soccer-style antics continue unabated both on and off the field. The latest episode involving James Haskell speaks for itself, as does the Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu Twitter shenanigans.

Less mentioned was the milking of the Paul Williams flat hand from Heinrich Brussow – not the only one to do such this tournament either.

Check it out here.

Now, Williams' position was tenuous, but to call that a 'strike'… by far the best strikes in that clip are the series of hammer blows Brussow delivered to Williams' neck/head area (NB, NOT the arm with which Williams was clinging onto Brussow with, which would have been more or less acceptable).

Yet Brussow goes down like the proverbial sack. Really?

We found it more or less comparable to this clip in terms of duping the officials.

They who giveth, should also be honest enough to receive: one of rugby's golden rules.

Since then, it's been rumoured that the Samoans will play their next game in 'Justice for Willliams' armbands…

It's been spoken of in many an SH TV studio and chat forum this week that having a North v South World Cup as we do now is just not indicative of the true allocations of strength in global rugby. 'The south is best' runs the general mantra.

Huh?

The IRB rankings serve a purpose for the interim, but the World Cup is a tournament. It's all about who plays best at the time, not about who's been best over the past four years. Can anybody deny Ireland were not good value for their win over Australia? Or that Wales would have been good value for theirs over the Boks had James Hook or Rhys Priestland landed their kicks?

It's true we might like to have seen more north v south clashes in the crunch knockout rounds, but we've had a decent share already. We reckon the north v south final that is now guaranteed is a good thing. What could possibly be wrong with having the best of the Tri-Nations against the best of the Six Nations?

Our predictions for that final? New Zealand v Ireland, with the hosts to conquer the RWC jinx. Our ideal final? It would be New Zealand v France, but the French are so ridden with problems we can wait for that one. But what we would give for an SA v Wales rematch! What about you?

Loose pass compiled by Richard Anderson