I agree. The first round was fine, but the 'super 8' bit is too long-winded. It should have been a 'second round' with 2 groups of 4 teams each ( winners of 1st & 4th groups & runners-up of 2nd & 3rd in one group and the other four in the second group). The top two teams from each 2nd round group go to the semi-finals with the winners of one playing the runners-up of the other in the usual way.

Or after the first round - it became a knock out?.

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Ern

Then all it would take is one defeat to knock you out?

That might be too chancey and abrupt with relatively small numbers of top teams, unlike soccer. One bad day could knock out a potential winner. The main teams should be given the best possibilty of facing each other without going OTT. So, if you start with 4 grops of 4 teams as they did this time, the top 2 from each group qualify for the second round where they are remixed on W1,R2,R3,W4 in Group-1 of the second round and R1,W2,W3,R4 making up the Group-2 . The winners & runners-up of each of these two groups play in the semis.

Which was basically what happened in 1992 in Australia which i regard as the best World Cup i have seen.

Except for that horrible pre-DL rain rule of the 1992 tournament.

So how do you decide who should make up that 8 with the 9 or 10 Test nations and the various associate members (minnows) who should be accomodated?

I guess you have to play a series of games to decide who?

If you have 16 teams you do it like this (ten test playing nations plus 6 minnows)

rounds
round one
Four groups of four nations. (as was done this time) top two qualify(as this time)
round two
knockout stages
1Winner of group a V second group B
2Winner group B V second group c
3Winner group C V second group D
4Winner group d v second group a

Quarter finals 5winner match 1 V winner match 2, 6Winner match 3 v winner match 4

finals
Winner match5 v winner match6

You play round one so that four matches take place per day. This takes 12 days.
then the other matches take place one per day. This adds 7 days and the whole thing's finished in 19 days. You could add a couple of rest days and make it three weeks. More do-able for the tourist (jenkins to boss 'Boss can I have six weeks holiday'.....boss to jenkins 'six weeks off jenkins ? What for? are you having a baby?')

there you go. If you get knocked out it's tough bananas.

.

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I have a dream.... (Martin Luther King)

If 16 teams start out just as they did this time, it is likely that even allowing for upsets, most, if not all, the qualifiers to the second round will be the 'major' nations. That being the case, the second round should NOT be a simple quarter-final type knockout. As I said before, the 8 second round qualifiers should be reshuffled so that they play other teams - those that they have not played before - within 2 groups of 4 teams each, following the same points pattern as the first round (2 for a win, 1 for tie or no result & 0 for a loss), but without the 'carry over'. Then the top two from each of the two second round groups go to the semi-final stage with the winners of the first group playing the runners-up of the second and vice versa.

With this format, the tournament will not be as long winded as it is now but at the same time, it will avoid sudden exit of a good team because of one bad day in the second round.

I also like the provision of the extra day should it become necessary, thus all but avoiding the unfair forced sharing of points.

I saw nothing wrong with the 1996 format. Two big pools, and then straight knock-outs from the quarter finals, the best team wins on endurance. I have no idea why this was scrapped and the whole "Super-6's or Super-8's" were introduced. Thats where the problem started for me, before the 1999 competition everything was running along very smoothly.

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- VVVRulz..