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Rugby World Cup 2015
International teams tiers
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<blockquote data-quote="RedruthRFC" data-source="post: 772201" data-attributes="member: 58362"><p>Apologies if I'm repeating points that other have already made, I'm not long back from a holiday and missed this thread the first time around.</p><p></p><p>This graphic wildly overstates the number of players in the English game. IIRC, at the time this was made, the RFU's IT systems were as poor as most other within the organisation and counted a lot of players who had long since retired as active players. I believe that this came to a head as they were receiving funding based on these numbers. Sport England had the temerity to ask them to prove that these numbers were correct, at which time the "mistake" came to light and a new system was put into place. World Rugby's website is rather confusing making a distinction between "registered players" and "total players". Apparently as of 2014, there were 340,347 registered players in England, compared to 148,483 in New Zealand, 342,316 in South Africa and 230,663 in Australia. This makes no distinction between youth and senior players which may be accounted for by the disparity between "registered players" and "total players" for some countries. New Zealand's "total players" number is the same as the "registered players" number, possibly a reflection of the union working closely with schools?</p><p></p><p>Maybe it's the same for all countries, but my perception in England is that sheer numbers don't lead to floods of superb players is because the vast majority of the playing numbers are recreational players with little or no desire to improve their playing standards. The Championship is the second tier of rugby in England, a few years ago, a Kiwi coach commented that home advantage would be the difference between his then team Cornish Pirates who were runners up that year beating their ITM Cup counterparts. Saying that, Mark Bright, who was damn good, but not a superstar for Tasman Makos is still regarded as one of the best players in The Championship at the age of 37. Anyway, I digress.....once you get below that level, the drop off in playing standard is significant, a promoted team from National One (3rd tier) will typically have to recruit heavily in order to stand any chance of survival. National 2 teams promoted to National 1 struggle almost as much to survive at the level above. All of this is a long winded way of saying that I'm not sure that the elite player base in England is significantly bigger than it is in New Zealand, South Africa or Australia.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="RedruthRFC, post: 772201, member: 58362"] Apologies if I'm repeating points that other have already made, I'm not long back from a holiday and missed this thread the first time around. This graphic wildly overstates the number of players in the English game. IIRC, at the time this was made, the RFU's IT systems were as poor as most other within the organisation and counted a lot of players who had long since retired as active players. I believe that this came to a head as they were receiving funding based on these numbers. Sport England had the temerity to ask them to prove that these numbers were correct, at which time the "mistake" came to light and a new system was put into place. World Rugby's website is rather confusing making a distinction between "registered players" and "total players". Apparently as of 2014, there were 340,347 registered players in England, compared to 148,483 in New Zealand, 342,316 in South Africa and 230,663 in Australia. This makes no distinction between youth and senior players which may be accounted for by the disparity between "registered players" and "total players" for some countries. New Zealand's "total players" number is the same as the "registered players" number, possibly a reflection of the union working closely with schools? Maybe it's the same for all countries, but my perception in England is that sheer numbers don't lead to floods of superb players is because the vast majority of the playing numbers are recreational players with little or no desire to improve their playing standards. The Championship is the second tier of rugby in England, a few years ago, a Kiwi coach commented that home advantage would be the difference between his then team Cornish Pirates who were runners up that year beating their ITM Cup counterparts. Saying that, Mark Bright, who was damn good, but not a superstar for Tasman Makos is still regarded as one of the best players in The Championship at the age of 37. Anyway, I digress.....once you get below that level, the drop off in playing standard is significant, a promoted team from National One (3rd tier) will typically have to recruit heavily in order to stand any chance of survival. National 2 teams promoted to National 1 struggle almost as much to survive at the level above. All of this is a long winded way of saying that I'm not sure that the elite player base in England is significantly bigger than it is in New Zealand, South Africa or Australia. [/QUOTE]
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