How to rank this RWC?
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The great thing about 2011 was the opportunity to see some of the lesser teams. I saw both the USA and Russia twice, as well as Namibia, and even the England-France QF as a neutral. It's the overseas fans that create the atmosphere in the pool games, especially. Rotorua definitely stood out with the Fijians and Irish.
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@dogmeat said in How to rank this RWC?:
@MN5 said in How to rank this RWC?:
a terrific time to be living in Sydney
Unpossible
Sorry am I missing something ?
Sydney is terrific
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So I just started listening to the Rugby Daily podcast ranking the world cups. Worst and second worst were 1987 and 2011. I get 1987, it wasn't a big event or anywhere near fully formed. But the criticism of 2011 included gems like "it needs a country to get behind it" and "the weather was terrible". Is my memory completely failing me? I saw every match and can't remember any terrible weather. I was at the final in perfect weather and massive drama. Compared to say 2007, it was miles ahead. 2007 certainly didn't have one country behind it, the winners didn't play a hard match (will try not to mention why...). 2015 was great for us and I thought the rugby was pretty good, but the hosts going out in the pools surely didn't help.
Then we got Bryan Habana speaking for 10 minutes about 1995. Great for South Africa as a country, yes, but seriously dodgy in how they won it (both the semi and the final).
An interesting fact about world cups is there have often been 2 teams obviously destined to meet in the final in a heavyweight clash but it happens so rarely. 2023, 2015, 1995 being the exceptions. I guess you could argue 1991 given we were always going to meet Australia in the semi-final.
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One of the best World Cups I think but a little behind 1995 and 2011 in my mind.
Positives: Going into the tournament there were four or five realistically possible winners, holding the tournament in a single country is always best, Portugal defying expectations, great to see a range of playing styles, wonderful Quarter Finals, hopefully a classic final to come, France have been good hosts.
Neagatives: Pool play went on too long, Sides looking to slow the game down have largely got away with it, the hosts going out in the QFs has dampened the atmosphere a bit, Rugby Union no longer seems to captivate my neighbours and acquaintances.
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@Richie8-7 obviously trolling.
87 and 11 were two of the cups in contention for best ever IMO.
Before @Duluth started this thread was going to start a poll, and was seriously going to leave out 91, 99 and 07.
Those three were absolute rubbish for quality of rugby.
The rest all have a claim to being some sort of awesome.
The reason I didn't post a poll in the end was I couldn't work out how to do a preferential vote, as I reckon each of the other seven have a claim on being the best.
This version though? Down the list somewhat for me.
Maybe it was a timezone thing, but despite close scores in the meaningless matches I found it overall reasonably meh.
Any of 87, 95, 03, 11, 15 and 19 beats 23 for me.
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Until 2015 - which was great I don't think there had been a really good RWC hosted in Europe.
They were never 'big' events, spread across too many locations and didn't have a buzz.
I was living in London for 87 and it did all seem a bit hokey TBH
95 and 2011 were epic 2003 less so. Japan was quite good despite it being a 'small' event for the host country. Possibly because of a sympathetic time zone.
This one - @sparky pretty much nailed it for me.
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Quite a few of the hyped pool games failed to live up to expectations from a neutral point of view.
Scotland-Boks, Scotland-Ireland, England-Argentina, Wales-Australia come to mind. Italy weren't even semi competitive vs ABs or France
Of course this isn't unique to this World Cup and other teams performed above expectations going in (Portgual & Japan) but on paper I thought pool play would be even more competitive than it was.
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@KiwiMurph said in How to rank this RWC?:
Quite a few of the hyped pool games failed to live up to expectations from a neutral point of view.
Scotland-Boks, Scotland-Ireland, England-Argentina, Wales-Australia come to mind. Italy weren't even semi competitive vs ABs or France
Of course this isn't unique to this World Cup and other teams performed above expectations going in (Portgual & Japan) but on paper I thought pool play would be even more competitive than it was.
Failing to live up to expectations in a WC has been a Scots tradition for pretty much as long as I remember. A couple of blow outs but completely shat the bed when it counted.
