The shocking extent of how much the global game shrunk after the pandemic and Bill Beaumont's World Rugby leadership

These following figures are sourced from RugbyArchive.net and whilst preciseness of them might be slightly off here or there the broad overall pattern is clear: the global game has shrunk to a shocking degree over the past four year (2020-2023) cycle.

Of the 112 full member Unions listed in the World Rankings and looking at the number of World Ranking relevant test matches (so not counting friendlies vs non-test opponents) ......

• Only 25 (22%) of the 112 teams played more than 15 tests over the full 4 year cycle (the five non-RWC nations were Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, USA, & Canada) and only 34 (30%) played more than 10.

• 44 of the 112 teams (39%) played 2 or fewer tests over the entire four year cycle. 24 of those teams (21%) were totally inactive and did not play a single test.

• In this calendar year of 2023: 43 (38%) of 112 teams played 0 tests. 16 of the top 52 (or 50% of top 32 ranked teams not at RWC) played between 0-2 tests this year.

• Asia has 21 teams in the World Rankings and of them 19 played no more than 4 tests over the entire 4 year cycle. Only one (Japan) reached double figures. 6 of the top 13 ranked Asian teams remained entirely inactive over the four years.

South Korea are world ranked 30 but have
played just 4 tests in the last 4 years.

• North America has 11 teams in the World Rankings and only USA and Canada played more than 2 tests over the 4 years. The other 9 teams played a combined total of 6 tests between them.

Mexico rose from 75th in the World Rankings in 2013 to the
40s within 5 years but now have played just 2 test in 4 years

• South America has 9 teams in the World Rankings. 3 reached the RWC. Among the other 6, Brazil, Colombia, & Paraguay played just 14 tests between them in 2022 and 2023, whilst Peru, Venezuela, & Costa Rica all have been inactive since 2018.

Brazil played in front of a crowd of a historic 34,500 crowd in 2018 vs
Maori All Blacks but their rugby prospects collapsed after the pandemic

• Africa has 21 teams in the World Rankings. 13 of those played 0 tests in 2023. This includes Zimbabwe and Algeria who placed 3rd and 4th at last year's African RWC qualifiers, whilst rugby mad Madagascar played just two tests over four years and none since 2021. Rugby in North Africa and West Africa now appears all but dead.

Zimbabwe are world ranked 31 but in 2023 for the
first time since independence in the early 1980s did
not play a single test in a non-Covid calendar year

• Oceania has 6 smaller teams in the rankings outside the 5 who compete at RWCs and between them they played 6 tests over the entire 4 year cycle. The highest ranked Oceanian nation outside the RWC is the Cook Islands whose only game of the entire 4 year cycle was a RWC qualifier vs Tonga.

Poster for Tonga vs Cook Islands RWC 2023 qualifier
which was the Cooks only test over an entire four year cycle

• Of the 112 nations in the World Rankings as of this year 48 have been active at their most recent regional age grade competitions (an active junior program is basically a litmus test for whether a nation has any remotely serious hope of developing). In the period spanning 2014-2019 33 different Unions played their last age grade games and not rejoined competition since.

Bill Beaumont and Alan Gilpin's WR
leadership: "for the few, not the many"

Obviously this can't all be put down to World Rugby as the pandemic was a large factor here wiping out most of 2020 and in some cases 2021 and creating difficulties all round. However they should not get totally off the hook for the way the global sport has been allowed to deteriorate so badly.

The level of bullshit in World Rugby Chairman Bill Beaumont's media statements is frequently off the charts. In 2020 in announcing a Covid relief fund he stated:

"Global sport is facing a crisis never seen before and at this most challenging time we are taking unprecedented action as a sport united to support global rugby, its unions, competitions and players through the enormous challenge presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yet in reality if he was being more honest he would have said "we have taking unprecedented action united to support Tier 1 rugby, its unions, competitions and players".

The support was only for the few, not the many, as those outside the World Cup participants in particular got basically abandoned. 

Now you can make the case perhaps that restarting competitions for microstates like the Cook Islands was correctly not a priority (however harsh that may sound). However in other cases World Rugby has allowed what was promising progress in the countries with more significant populations like Brazil, Colombia, Mexico to get burnt to the ground. Or the leading non-RWC teams in Asia like South Korea or Africa like Zimbabwe still left in terrible states of inactivity and lack of competition. These are all sides we would hope to be challengers to qualify for a 24 team RWC but progress has been made virtually impossible.

Also some of this, notably the haemorrhaging of the sport's international youth competitions, with now far fewer nations competing at age grade level started even before the pandemic (no side is ever progressing without youth teams unless they have a massive pool of imports).

The current level of inactivity among sides ranked 24 or below and the dire state of rugby in the entire massive continents of Africa and Asia behind their top team is making a mockery of World Rugby leaders supposed care and stewardship of the "global game". It is not good enough, and the blazers must be called out on it for it to improve.