How can USA Rugby solve its ongoing talent drought crisis?

In recent years there has been an ongoing drought of homegrown American talent coming through and reaching the highest level of professional rugby.

33 homegrown American internationals (by my count) have played in rugby's highest level domestic professional leagues (Premiership, URC, Top 14, Super Rugby) and as you can see on this graph 17 of those were born in the 1980s (as overseas recruitment became bigger in France) but dropped down to 8 players born in the 1990s. None as yet born in 2000s have won a contract to play abroad at the elite level domestically. 

Of the four more recent ones born 1995-99. Titi Lamositele quit USA rugby in a major betrayal of his home country. Roman Salanoa is staying uncapped in the Irish system. Leaving David Ainuu and Ruben de Haas (who now plays Currie Cup for the Cheetahs) as the only two homegrown players committed to the Eagles who have experience at the elite level.

You may also note a theme among those players. Of the few top homegrown American players to have broken through overwhelmingly most have tended to be either from the Polynesian-American immigrant community who carried over a rugby tradition with them or someone like De Haas who comes from a rugby family from South Africa.

Polynesian-Americans are just 0.5% of the general USA population but increasingly the only demographic in America that can produce a top level player. Four of the top five homegrown Americans (Samu Manoa, Joe Taufete'e, Lamositele, Ainuu) of the past decade or so have been Polynesians. They also are about 28% of the homegrown American players in MLR.

Toulouse prop David Ainuu is currently the only homegrown
Eagles player who has become established at rugby's highest levels

The drought is also reflected in the make up of the current national team. For example in the game against Romania this year the Eagles had 9 of the starting XV and 13 of the matchday 23 raised overseas. Around 31% of the players in MLR eligible for USA were ones raised and mostly trained overseas and 37% of the USA eligible starts.

Homegrown American men's rugby 15s players of a top class level have become rare, but especially so of a non-Polynesian background, such as the likes Dan Lyle, Blaine Scully, Paul Emerick, Scott LaValla, Dave Hodges has stopped breaking through. Meanwhile, whilst Perry Baker and Carlin Isles have excelled brilliantly in 7s, USA Rugby has never in its history had an African-American make a significant and lengthy career in 15s, despite the exceptional athletic talent and dominance in the NFL or basketball of this demographic.

This talent drought ultimately is the chief factor behind USA's reduced competitiveness over the last five years. New homegrown talent simply just did not emerge in sufficient quantity or quality over the last cycle to keep up with rivals. In 2022 when USA faced Portugal in the final RWC qualifier it was obvious that the Lobos with Raffaele Storti, Rodrigo Marta, Jerónimo Portela, José Madeira from their improving junior setup supplemented by experienced French Pro D2 veterans were a team on the up, whereas the Eagles were on the way down.

Uruguay, Chile, then Portugal eliminated USA for the first ever
time from a 20 team RWC as the Eagles trended downwards over
the four year cycle with few new top level talents breaking through 

Now with 7 years to go until the USA hosts its home World Cup in 2031 this talent drought is starting to become a crisis ....

At present things do not look hopeful. USA cannot hope to lift their ranking significantly just on whatever eligible leftover scraps they can find discarded from "Tier 1" countries.

This might sound harsh to the individual players, and mean no disrespect to those trying their best, but the blunt truth is USA is not going to reach top 12 as one of the best "Tier 2" and will struggle to reach even top 16 basing the core segment of the squad around players who were only ever at the very edges of professional club squads in "Tier 1" countries.

Irishmen who didn't make one of the provinces like Paul Mullen, Paddy Ryan, Luke Carty, a Shute Shield prop like Jake Turnbull, or even a discarded Tier 1 international from Italy like Tommaso Boni, does not compare favourably to the ex-All Blacks and Super Rugby talent Samoa can draft in for World Cups. Nor does it compare favourably to Georgia whose world top 10 U20s are producing Top 14 and Pro D2 quality players every year.

Nor is it realistic for MLR to attract uncapped Super Rugby talent of the calibre that Scotland, Ireland, or even Japan can to qualify on 5 year residency (if they were to try this they'd have to start within a couple of years for it to be eligible by 2031).

There was a bit of hope in the U20s reaching the U20 Trophy final for the first time in 12 years. But after watching a final so one sided against Scotland where they barely entered the opponent 22, and the best team they beat at the tournament Uruguay ship 73 points to Japan, it sadly just looked like those seemingly good results may have been more the product of level of the event being dismally disappointing this year than anything to get excited about.

The one sidedness of the U20 Trophy final vs Scotland where the
USA lost 8 lineouts and barely entered the opponents 22, whilst the
best side they beat at the tournament shipped 73 points to Japan, quickly
extinguished much of the initial optimism over their pool stage results.

So can anything be done to end this homegrown talent drought?

Unfortunately there are no easy answers, it may well be just that USA Rugby is doomed to never being able to produce a side capable of seriously competing at the highest level.

Head coach Scott Lawrence talked of a "Moonshot 2031" project of reaching the RWC semi finals, which whilst low on actual ideas, and a target set perhaps delusionally high even for a best possible case scenario, it is correct in principle that for the Eagles to get a stronger more competitive team by 2031 it will take some unique, imaginative, and out of the box thinking towards how to identify talent and nurture late starters to becoming world class players.

The problem is of course the American Football (a distant cousin of rugby) fills a similar team contact sport niche and college football is going to take tens of thousands of the best athletes between the ages of 18-23. Nearly all the elite superstar athletes in rugby would be playing college football if they were American.

To state the obvious rugby cannot compete with American College football. It cannot ever hope for an huge elite athlete capable of NFL like junior club rugby player Haloti Ngata to have a future in the sport. For junior players who don't reach NFL, the best USA Rugby can hope for is to get them back around age 23-24.

Before wrecking NFL offenses, @Haloti_Ngata92 was a BEAST on the rugby pitch. 😤 pic.twitter.com/g8OPecN5Zh

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) May 29, 2019

This leads to the topic of the "crossover player", a phrase that has become so commonly referenced with discussions of USA rugby that "xo player" has become the shorthand for it. This idea is a lot easier said than done, but as so much of the best rugby suitable talent gets sucked up by big college sports, it is hard to come up with great alternatives.

It is very uncommon but there have been a handful of rare instances of late starters crossing over to rugby in their 20s and having decent professional level careers:

• Dan Lyle was a college footballer who took up rugby age 23 to stay fit, became a full international in about a year, and went on to become the leading USA player of his era, most notably starring for Bath for a number of years and was a key player for them in winning the European Cup in 1998.
• Luke Gross switched from basketball age 24, became a full international in about 3 years, played for a number of different professional clubs in Europe, and is still the most capped lock in USA rugby history.
• Kevin Tkachuk switched from wrestling and gridiron around age 20 and became a full international in about four years, eventually going on to captain Canada, and play over 150 professional games for Glasgow. 
• Jérôme Thion switched from basketball age 20 and was playing at the top level in France only in about a season, made his international debut in about 5 years, and went on to win 54 caps including two World Cups.
• Scott MacLeod started social rugby age 20 having previously been focused on golf and basketball and in a couple years became a professional and in 5 years made his international debut and stayed pro for 13 seasons at various clubs.
• Tom Court switched from shot put age 24 and was playing Super Rugby for the Reds within a couple of years and went on to a solid career for Ulster and Ireland that included World Cups and European Cup finals.
• Andrei Ursache was a lumberjack, who after being convinced to start playing age 22 by his younger brother Valentin who was already by then a fully capped Romanian international, went on to become a fully capped international himself and have a highly durable 10 season 218 match Pro D2 career. 
• Hayden Smith moved to the USA from Australia on a basketball scholarship and only took up rugby near the end of college age 23, unbelievably made the Eagles team within just 2 months (likely a record), and then got signed to play professionally with Saracens about a month later, then after playing the 2011 World Cup, went to American Football and after just 6 months made an active NFL roster playing 5 times for the New York Jets in November-December 2012, before returning to rugby a year later after getting released.
• Beka Gigashvili comes from a wrestling background and had never even watched a rugby match until he was aged 20, but won a lower league pro contract in France within 3 years, and within 3 more years was playing Top 14.
• Kirill Gotovtsev was a top wrestler only narrowly outside the Russian national squad, then switched to bobsleigh, and had not even watched a match of rugby aged 25 when he switched to the sport, he became a Russian international in 3 years, and now plays in the Premiership for Gloucester as possibly the oldest starter to rugby to make a career at the elite professional level.

Dan Lyle CNN interview in 1999 as one of the most successful ever

professional rugby players to have only started the sport in his 20s

To some extent the small number of examples likely just reflects the fact that there is a tiny number of athletes who have ever seriously even attempt to crossover and become professional men's rugby 15s players starting in their 20s as no organised equivalent of the NFL international player pathway exists in rugby. Most of the names mentioned above are just peculiar examples of players who stumbled into rugby by chance.

Intriguingly, whilst most athletes converting to 7s in their 20s like Perry Baker or Carlin Isles have been players known for out and out pace (neither of whom made serious efforts to try and make it in 15s), virtually all the 15s players who took up the sport in their 20s and reached a high professional level appear to be forwards especially in the tight five.

There are quite a few who switched as late teenagers, the finest example Chris Latham, who was a soccer player and did not play rugby until age 18 but went on to become at his peak a World XV level full back. One of USA's best players of the 2010s Blaine Scully switched around a similar sort of age from water polo. But after age 18 examples of crossovers become very rare and almost non-existent for backs. Soso Matiashvili converted from downhill skiing in his 20s to make Georgia's World Cup squad in 2019 but that is not really a top level player.

So it seems to suggest it is more plausible USA could build a competitive pack with crossover athletes (incidentally both the post-college crossovers to rugby in the Eagles team right now in prop Pono Davis and flanker Cory Daniel are forwards) but developing backs may be trickier.

Ex-wrestler Cory Daniel is the arguably the most successful
of the crossover athletes currently in MLR with him breaking
the league's tackle record and breaking into the Eagles setup

However to try and harness crossover athletes more effectively USA Rugby will need to scale up the recruitment of them (and not just from American Football, but basketball, wrestling, track and field, maybe even something like swimming), broadening out and professionalising their talent scouting team to cover as much of the country as possible to truly get as close to leaving no stone unturned as they can get, discover innovative training methods specifically geared towards later starters, and tactical ploys to best emphasise strengths and hide weaknesses, but also simply restructuring the rugby calendar.

USA always have in general had more later starters to rugby compared to most of other teams in the world. The challenge is to find ways of playing catch up with the global competition. To have the best chance of success of this, not just for rookie crossover athletes, but returnees to rugby who played football at college, or players who took up rugby only at college, the USA rugby ecosystem needs to organise a LOT more games to feed MLR.

You can't expect MLR to feature loads of inexperienced players all at once straight into their starting teams without it risking devaluing the credibility and standard of the competition for those Americans who aren't rookies and are at a more advanced stage of development.

A possible example of this is with the MLR's convert from the New England Patriots in the NFL Cassh Maluia, who despite hearing from teammates who have said confidently that he has potential to be "massive" in the sport, is at age 26 after 18 months in the sport making just two starts in a season for the Chicago Hounds.

Every player develops at their own individual speed, but there is not huge amount of time for these crossovers to learn the game, if they are to have Eagles careers work needs to be done to try and accelerate their trajectory (although it may actually be the case that emphasis on stamina in American Football is so low that the large conditioning adjustment required may make that transition somewhat more prolonged than from other sports).

Cassh Maluia formerly of New England Patriots in the NFL is said to
have big potential in rugby but so far has not made a big impact in MLR 

These players playing catch up in development need bigger schedules at an appropriate feeder development level to the relatively short MLR season. Something equivalent to what New Zealand's NPC is to a similar length Super Rugby season.

One idea would be something like a MLR trophy competition some time either in the Autumn window or as a much more extended pre-season competition very early in the year, to give more game time for the best American players and prospects outside the international squad.

This would both allow players to gain experience, and allow MLR coaches more of a window to fully assess and evaluate players so they can have more confidence in selecting those who show potential to be MLR starters rather than take the risk of throwing very raw inexperienced talent and unknown quantities right into an MLR starting lineup.

Unfortunately though, all this and probably any other proposed solution to the talent drought, would take quite a bit of money and far from guaranteed success. So it depends on how desperate World Rugby are to try and alleviate the USA talent drought as they would probably need to foot a lot of the bill. It is worth noting though there is reasonable criticism for every extra bit of effort WR put specifically into the USA, the more other "Tier 2" rivals could make the justifiable accusations of favouritism and what is supposed to be a neutral global governing body unfairly trying to pick and choose its preferred winners.

One thing would strongly caution USA Rugby not to do though is follow the typical rugby fan anti-foreigner narrative of scapegoating overseas recruitment for the American talent drought.

The high number of foreign players starting in MLR (about 70% of the starters were raised overseas outside of USA or Canada and about 54% of starters not eligible) are not to blame for USA's current struggle to produce top level homegrown talent they are starting because North America is a long way off producing top level homegrown talent to fill 12 teams.

In particular nearly all the fly halves in MLR being foreign raised is not to blame for North America struggling to produce a top level homegrown 10, this position mostly foreign raised because North America (and "Tier 2" nations in general) notoriously struggle to produce competent top level homegrown 10s.

It is important to get this the right way round, as if not, then it could lead to needlessly strict anti-foreigner policies being put in place in MLR that would devalue and degrade the high performance environment and competitive standards for the very best Americans to play in (and usually for the benefit only of players of irrelevance to international rugby).

Once you have enough game time for maybe the best 40-60 best eligible players likely to be relevant at one time to the national team after that the league's aspiration should be for it to be as high a level environment as possible to replicate test rugby, and in context of North American rugby that includes welcoming a sizeable contingent of foreign players (an alternative is culling teams to condense the talent but reducing the opportunities of players to make money and killing off local fanbases for teams should be frowned upon as both anti-player and anti-fan). The challenge is to develop more Americans for a higher standard competition not to reduce the standard of that competition.

Anyway whatever ideas USA Rugby comes up with, quite clearly the Eagles in their current state are going nowhere, and they need to try something drastic to end the homegrown talent drought crisis. To be ready to be competitive by 2031 some urgent drastic action and innovation is required and it needs to happen soon within the next couple of years.

Georgia's unique world great grappling genetics that built the unprecedented rapid rise of a rugby nation from obscurity

In the 21st century Georgia has an impressive Olympic record per capita and GDP. In the "weighted medals" (so 4 points for Gold, 2 for Silver, 1 for Bronze) rankings Georgia has been in the top 6 countries at every single Olympics since 2000.

Olympic and 3x World freestyle wrestling champion in the
125kg heavyweight category Geno Petriashvili has the look of
someone who could easily have been the next Gorgodze in rugby

Their 47 medals have come in sports that might not surprise anyone familiar with the male Georgian physique. Combat and strength sports judo, wrestling, weightlifting, and boxing have provided all but one of them. The one exception was won by Nino Salukvadze in shooting, their only ever female Olympic medal. If you could find a medal table just with medal on the men's side then Georgia would consistently rank even higher still.

Georgia (population 3.7m) Olympics medal history

It seems just as for people of West Africa descent for sprinting, East Africa for long distance running, the Caucasus Mountain area per capita is a genetic hotspot for producing some of the most talented and strongest grappling athletes in the world.

According to analysis by the FloWrestling site: "there is no higher concentration of freestyle wrestling talent than the Caucasus Mountain area". They even produced a heat map to illustrate this point. Georgia specifically since 2000 has 4th most medals at World and Olympic wrestling championships only ranking behind vastly bigger countries.

Heatmap of Olympic freestyle medal winning talent (note the big red patch in the Caucasus region)

Of course, there is a fair amount of grappling in rugby too, where these aptitudes are expressed in the form of prolific production of elite level props and hard tough tackling back rows (the quantity and quality they have of the latter often gets a bit overlooked next to their fame for props yet their depth for that style of player gets stronger every year) and this leads onto the main explanation of the unprecedentedly historic rise of Georgia in this sport too.

Remember rugby has an incredibly static hierarchy. The list of the teams at the World Cup has not much changed a great deal since the event started in 1987. Nor has the list of quarter final contenders. Progress is usually slow and for sides ranked below the 30 the idea of reaching a World Cup within a decade sounds quite far fetched.

Georgia is the only ever country in rugby history to have risen as fast from such depths obscurity of playing in a division with the likes of Latvia, Luxembourg, & Switzerland back in 1993 to qualifying for their debut World Cup in 2003 only 10 years later.

That generation of Georgians achieved that despite the country being in a badly impoverished state in the 1990s. As mentioned in a previous article in 2003: "coach Claude Saurel had to pay for their official team tracksuits, and bring his own camera to be able to do video analysis [...] flanker Gregoire Yachvili talked of a lack of basic equipment saying such as tackle bags, body armour and scrum machines". A common anecdote commentators used to say back then was that were "just eight rugby pitches in the entire country" and they "use old converted Soviet tractors" as scrummaging machines.

So they had a total lack of rugby facilities, a lack of money, a tiny player pool (a number of the team of that era were relative latecomers to the sport), no deep rugby culture passed down the generations, and no close historical or geographical links to any "Tier 1" rugby power to draw upon for heritage players to provide scholarships and top class training from school age.

In such circumstances the odds were stacked against them ever exiting total rugby obscurity. A lot was not in their favour except for of course their genetics predisposition for excelling in technical strength and combat type sports ....

Obviously nowadays to compete more seriously at World Cups they have needed to get more investment and facilities. The modern generation of players has come through a totally different system to their predecessors who played in the 1990s and early 2000s. Georgia is a prime example of how nature and nurture build on each other. The natural predisposition and talent was there first, then once discovered encourages nurture, and then better expression of that talent, and more nurture in a virtuous cycle. Over time the hope is a nation that will have both rugby talent and the widespread rugby knowledge and culture to succeed.

Beka Saginadze is the epitome of a breed of big shouldered back rows with
a big engine to carry and tackle hard all game that Georgia produces a lot of

In a very different way, but the closest parallel of a rugby nation to Georgia is actually Fiji, just whilst one produces a surfeit of professional level props and tough work rate back rows, the other produces game breaking winger/centres and offloading loose forwards.

They are both the only two "Tier 2" nations who in the professional era produce domestic talent in the quantity and with the point of difference needed to get close to reaching the world top 10 with 90%+ homegrown squads (Georgia is not quite there yet at senior level but have been world top 10 six tournaments in a row at U20 level) up against "Tier 1" nations with enormous financial and competitive advantage over them.

(In the format of 7s which narrows down to emphasise a lot of Fiji's natural strengths they have long been one of the best in the world. If hypothetically there was some forward instead of outside back themed spinoff rugby format like "scrum wars" or "tackle kings" you can be assured Georgia would likewise win medals at that).

Georgia's rise cannot be a model for others to follow though. For the less genetically predisposed it takes a lot more money and sheer size of player numbers. For example it took years of Six Nations money and support for Italy to finally become a strong side with a more homegrown team. Rugby has gained an extra competitive nation in Georgia more by luck than necessarily great support, but for other Rugby Europe countries to be as good it will likely need more pro-active expansion from "Tier 1" blazers like was the case for Italy.

Can Netherlands unlock their rugby potential?

Netherlands are generally pretty good all rounders at sport. According to an algorithm that is "is a measure of how likely a country's medal tally is if all people and countries had the same medal-winning capabilities" they were the fourth most successful nation at the Olympics (behind Australia, France, and Great Britain). They won 15 Gold medals (a Dutch record) in 7 different sports which varied from track & field athletics, 3x3 basketball, cycling, hockey, rowing, sailing, and swimming.

This success reminded of the great potential they have to be strong at rugby as the country and its people tick many boxes to make rapid progress possible.

Size: There rarely ever goes a mention of Dutch rugby without somebody commenting on their famous height with the average male over 6 foot.

Someone once mentioned maybe they could become exporters of locks to clubs in France like Georgia is for props. True to stereotype, they don't struggle to find 2m locks, among their homegrown pros currently abroad are Koen Bloemen (Aurillac, 2.03m), Skip Jongejan (Aurillac, 2.01m), Renger van Eerten (Brive, 2.03m), Fabian Holland (Highlanders/Otago, 2.04m), Stan van den Hoven (Miami/Manawatu, 2.03m). These are all just players who emerged from an improved Dutch age grade system to win pro contracts in last 6 years. Spain and Portugal barely have more than two homegrown 2m locks between them in their history.

2.04m tall Fabian Holland is tipped to be a potential All Blacks
lock in the future once he qualifies via residency in 2025 (his
brother Quinten, also a lock, has also now joined him in Otago) 

Athleticism: size is generally an asset in rugby but it would useless if not paired with athleticism and mobility round the field. You can see in Dutch athletes like Femke Bol height is combined with speed and endurance. The best known Dutch rugby player to date, Tim Visser, who was the URC top try scorer four seasons in a row between 2009 to 2013, and later played Tier 1 international level for Scotland was also fast at 1.95m tall.

World famous 400m hurdler Femke Bol (who incidentally is the same height &
weight as the greatest female rugby athlete of all time Maddison Levi) powered
Netherlands to mixed 4x400m relay Gold recently at the Olympics

In addition to the native Dutch, they also have some immigrant diversity in the population, with links to other athletic populations. The football team has over the years featured numerous famous players born or with parents from Suriname like Edgar Davids, Clarence Seedorf, Patrick Kluivert, Nigel de Jong etc. In athletics Churandy Martina from Curaçao reached five Olympic finals in 100 and 200m in the Usain Bolt era (he initially won 200m silver in 2008 but got disqualified for lane infringement). Although this demographic has yet to appear in Dutch rugby, if they could reach it, there is clear athletic potential.

Famous Dutch footballers born or parents were from Suriname include
Clarence Seedorf, Patrick Kluivert, and Edgar Davids. Could Dutch rugby
find any future star talent from this sporting demographic?

Developed world: To achieve great success across a range of sports at the Olympics, or in team sports that is a collection of players, it requires good competent non-corrupt developed world organisation, training, and funding. Netherlands is generally listed in the top 10 of world governance efficiency rankings.

They have shown this highly organised strategic development success in other team sports, most famously in football with the Ajax Academy, and in their success in hockey with male and female Olympic golds recently. But also to some very minor early stage extent in rugby in the speed of which Rugby Nederland was able to build an U20 program that used to be miles off, losing 42-5 to Portugal in 2017, to one that has now beaten them two years in a row and qualified for the World Rugby U20 Trophy this year. In a sport where hierarchies can be very static and development tends to happen only at a slow pace such improvement is notable.

The all star graduate XI of the famous Ajax football Academy

Geography: Some countries are so big (Russia, Brazil, North America) it can cause considerable logistic challenge and expense to national team sport training. Others may have difficulty with small playing populations spread over rural farming areas (Namibia). Or just relatively small populations to support many minor sports (Uruguay). Netherlands strikes a good balance in having a reasonable sized population (17.7 million) in not too large a country that is easy to travel around and train with teammates or play domestic opponents.

Some nations (especially in East Africa) also suffer from distance and isolation from any major Tier 1 rugby power with pro rugby. Netherlands though are located close to both France and the UK. This means it is far easier for them to make frequent in person connections and exchange of ideas with those with knowledge and experience in the professional game. And in particular the proximity to France means it is easier for young players to get scouted for Espoirs contracts to try and become top level professionals without having to move so far away from visiting family and other support back at home.

Netherlands dense 17.7m population and proximity to Tier 1
rugby powers especially France is a notable advantage

Open sporting niche: As in most of Europe, football is king in Netherlands and will always likely be so, but there is room in a sporting culture for multiple sports. Rugby occupies a particular niche of full contact team sport that appeals to those who maybe like the idea of combat battle sports like wrestling, but with also the teamwork and passing and kicking skill of basketball and football mixed in, and also has an international game that their national team can compete in. One of the main reasons that Europe has so much growth potential for rugby is that niche is quite open in several notable countries including the Netherlands.

All this outlines the Dutch potential in rugby should they be able to grow the sport in national popularity. But there is one strange thing about Dutch rugby. Their fanbase hasn't yet got much behind their improving national team.

It was a surprise to read that according to World Rugby the Netherlands was among their best markets for tickets at the recent World Cup in France. The reason it was a surprise is you would not have guessed there was much of an audience for rugby based on following their national team.

Despite being one of the most improved international teams of the past decade, the crowds for national team games are still pretty small, and compared to other REC nations like Georgia or Spain, their rugby community has a relatively quiet presence online as well. None of their social media accounts get that many followers or engagement.

Yet at the same time when the Cheetahs played a Challenge Cup match against Zebre in Amsterdam in January (hardly a clash between two big teams) they quickly sold 4,500 tickets to fill their small stadium (this presumably was a nice boost for the Cheetahs who played their neutral matches the previous season in Parma in front of one man and his dog).

Cheetahs were the biggest ticket selling rugby team wearing Orange in
Amsterdam this year inexplicably at expense of the Dutch national team

So what is going on? It appears from the outside, that there is some small fanbase for rugby in Netherlands, but they became so accustomed to their own national team being so obscure and lowly ranked, seeing their most famous player play for Scotland instead, that they associate the real sport of a serious level is only played by "Tier 1", and have not paid attention to or noticed the huge progress and emerging talent made in their own country.

This is why they are one of the teams for whom 24 team World Cup expansion could be so important. For the first time they have a realistic chance to qualify (their best hope is mostly likely in the Repechage after getting the harder pool in Rugby Europe qualifying). If they could manage to do so, this could be a huge opportunity to announce to the Dutch public and media, that Netherlands now has a team of its own to get behind and support.

What an amazing sight this would be if it was one day at the RWC!

We have seen how debut World Cup appearances achieved a legacy of significant progress down the line in Georgia and Portugal. So the hope is if they can break past that (now lower) barrier of World Cup qualification it will take interest and investment in Dutch rugby to the next level and further unlock some of the great potential they have.

How come World Rugby keep getting the RWC right?

World Rugby finally confirmed this month the Rugby World Cup will expand for the first time since 1999 and increase from 20 to 24 teams in a move that should be welcomed by all who care about growth of the sport.

Now once the tournament comes around you can inevitably expect to hear quite a few complaints from "Tier 1" fans at the presence of a few more less impressive teams and a format where the pool stage poses very little challenge to get through.

Even as a big supporter of expansion, you have to concede these complaints to some extent do have merit. The 24 team format is indeed far from perfectly ideal.

Hopefully there can still remain some excitement in pool stage. Even if there is little jeopardy for any of the top 10 or 12 in advancing, it ought to still be worth coming 1st in a pool rather than 2nd for a more favourable knockout pathway (if Wales for example as 2nd pool seed could upset Ireland to 1st it could get them say Samoa rather than France in the next round).

Meanwhile for sides ranked 13-19 the scramble for the final spots to the last 16 would reliably go to the final day with for them at least with every point being vital for points difference and no dead rubbers. It might not be meaningful for "Tier 1" fans, but for those teams supporters the challenge of getting that one extra match the format may be quite engaging (for instance the idea of Portugal beating Fiji for the prize of reaching the knockout stage, just sounds more of a positive sell than the same game with the prize of just not finishing last in their pool).

However there is a no getting around the fact a cross pool ranking can't possibly avoid being slightly unsatisfactory and unfair due to vagaries of the draw (facing Romania instead of Portugal on their respective 2023 form would be a big advantage for your points difference).

Portugal's win over Fiji in 2023 would probably see them advance to the last 16
knockout stage in a 24 team format rather than merely avoid last in their pool

Also true that in theory top seed (say NZ or SA) could draw the 12th seed (Japan) as next best in their pool, then draw 16th seed in the last 16, so reach the quarter final without any challenge. Not ideal, but should only apply to the very top, for others the format essentially switches what were 2nd place pool deciders in 2023 like SA vs Scotland, Argentina vs Japan, Fiji vs Australia into the last 16 knockout stage instead. So the trade off may be duller start to the tournament for those mostly likely to win it, slightly more exciting for those not.

But the main point to remind those complaining is whilst it is true the format is imperfect, the pros still clearly outweigh the cons next to the alternative status quo 20 team 5 team pool format, which has its own even bigger flaws.

From 1999 to 2019 the RWC involved short turnarounds, which for "Tier 2" sides (who tended to get the bulk of them) meant either fatiguing a full strength team to the detriment of performance, or sacrificing an unwinnable game vs "Tier 1" by fielding a reserve team and getting thrashed by an even larger margin than they would normally in order to rest players for the more winnable game (although this carried its own risk of a damaging morale).

In 2023 WR added a week to avoid short turnarounds (although inexplicably still gave Namibia short turnarounds which resulted in them opting to field a reserve team against France and playing their final match two days before New Zealand even played their third game). Yet this just caused different equally bad problems. A 5 week pool stage becomes far too long and tediously spaced out, with some teams resting two weeks between games, and the tournament loses momentum and festival feel of a steady flow of matches nearly every day throughout the week and becomes more like a regular international weekend schedule.

Some fans can enjoy the minnows, and some of the stories behind them, giving it their all against the top sides, even if it may be restricted to celebrating and cheering on "mini-wins" in moments or passages of games as opposed to actually winning (think Brian Lima's crunching hit on Derick Hougaard in 2003, or Takudzwa Ngwenya's classic try outpacing prime Bryan Habana in 2007, as the most memorable often replayed moments in what were otherwise resounding Springbok wins). 

Although there is no denying a lopsided mismatch is obviously a generally less intriguing game, and when the minnow, like for instance Romania last year or Canada this year vs Scotland, is really underperforming they can turn into quite grim watches for any fan. This is all the more reason to get the very worst performing teams out quicker in just 3 weeks though.

Takudzwa Ngwenya outpaces prime Bryan Habana for the most
memorable moment of an otherwise wide 64-19 Springbok win

So here is what should be said in response to those "Tier 1" fans who will really hate on the 24 team format and the presence of some weaker teams like the African and Asian qualifiers or Repechage winner.

"Okay, you are right the format is not perfect, but just think at least it now can be over and done in just 3 weeks rather than 5 before the big business stage of the tournament can begin. The more condensed pool stage, also means even if there is an unenjoyable mismatch, instead of it being one of your main rugby offerings for the weekend, it will be among 36 pool matches packed in and played nearly every day over those 3 weeks, so can easily be skipped if you choose, or at least easily moved on from as you won't have days to wait for next match".

Of course the "Tier 1" fan might respond that a 16 team format solves 5 team pool issue and with fewer mismatches. This is correct, but the harm to global development (especially with no big continental tournaments between World Cups like football), plus harm to World Rugby revenues from cutting back from a 52 to 32 match format is so significant (that could be maybe 500,000 ticket sales down the drain) the proposal should not be taken seriously.

Cutting the pool stage from 5 to 3 weeks really is a win-win both for "Tier 1" fans who dislike the weaker teams being at the event and also those fans who support and enjoy watching "Tier 2" teams play as well (fortunately latter category includes plenty with the "Tier 2" vs "Tier 2" games in 2023 getting average crowds of 37,454, whilst France vs Uruguay on a Thursday on TF1 had a peak of over 13m viewers more even than any Six Nations game and equal to France's opening Euro 2024 football match vs Austria).

France vs Uruguay at RWC 2023 drew over 13m viewers on a
Thursday evening, more even than any Six Nations game 

It should be more affordable for fans of "Tier 2" teams to travel for all their games. Also for players of "Tier 2" teams as well, it reduces the financial hit on market value to clubs and thus should give a bit of help around availability issues. And whilst the four bottom teams of the 20 team format now play a game less, this really is no loss, often that fourth game for the worst sides with fatigue ends up one too many anyway, and it gets more than offset by opportunity to promote growth in four extra countries who gain three games they never had.

There remain some major disagreements on other points in WR's announcement. For instance playing all qualifiers in 2024-2025, closer in time to the previous World Cup than the next one is too far out (there ought to be a different major mid-RWC cycle event like in football). There is some debate over whether gifting Hong Kong an Asia spot instead of making them qualify as one of the top 24 teams is the best idea (both sides of argument make reasonable points). Also WR has allowed the sport to wither post-pandemic below the top 30 in the rankings so the number of sides involved in qualifiers has nosedived.

All this needs to be addressed later, but considering how often they make terrible decisions around "Tier 2" rugby, it is a relief at least the most important thing in expansion is now done.

This leads to another question; how come World Rugby for the past 25 years keeps getting the Rugby World Cup event (mostly) right?

The expansion of the event is in total contrast to WR blazers attitude and proposals for international rugby in between World Cups which tends to be entirely "Tier 1" establishment focused and generally anti-expansionist (indeed they now risk undermining and watering down the prestige and status of their own biggest success story by essentially staging three World Cup finals in four years thanks to their Tier 1 owned "Nations Championship" plan).

It still actually remains a surprise how the RWC ever got expanded to 20 teams in the first place back in 1999. As it went totally against the anti-expansionist instincts of certain influential "Tier 1" Unions, as displayed by the RFU who spent the following decade pushing hard for it to go back to 16 (only France winning hosting rights stopped that in 2007).

Former RFU CEO Francis Baron spent years pushing for the RWC
to be reduced back down to 16 teams in 2007 in a move that would
have been more characteristic of anti-expansionist idea held by
many of the "Tier 1" blazers who control World Rugby 

Now WR despite initially being reported to only be considering expansion in 2031, which would have been a needless delay and forced us to suffer another 5 week pool stage, wisely brought it forward to 2027. This is a move that again bucks the trend of how "Tier 1" runs just about every other part of the international game in an anti-expansionist way.

The 20 team expansion has been vindicated by time with several newer "Tier 2" nations having either grown (Georgia, Portugal, Uruguay, Chile) or at least remained far better off than they would have been otherwise (USA) as a direct result.

More broadly, since expanding to 20 teams in 1999 the RWC as a commercial event has grown bigger just about every tournament (with the exception of the one hosted by smaller New Zealand in 2011). Last year it was the RWC which brought ITV their highest viewing figure of the year with a peak of 8.7m watching the England vs SA semi final. In France TF1 also got their highest viewing figure of the year with a peak of 18.4m watching the quarter final vs SA (the second most watched rugby match ever in France behind only the 2007 RWC semi final vs England). Irish TV also got their highest viewing figure (1.5m) of the year for their quarter final vs NZ. Whilst Japanese TV got 13.8m to watch them play Chile in the middle of the night in their timezone. Overall it was the most viewed rugby event in history with numbers that defy the more gloomy prognostications about the health of the sport and illustrate how the Six Nations anti-expansionist views wastes huge potential for growth of a major Euros event between World Cups.

RWC branding and aesthetics have consistently looked superb
in giving the entire event a special and important feel and vibe 

On the branding and aesthetics front the RWC certainly from 2007 onwards has really looked the part as well. Tidy logos, theme music, travelling fans mixing cultures, packed stadiums for neutral matches, embrace of a now near 40 year history, and an iconic magical looking trophy all combine to make the entire event look and feel special and important even to the less informed casual. Again, this is not something rugby otherwise reliably gets right, compare and contrast with the hyper generic brand and aesthetics of "The Rugby Championship", or the bizarre Anglophone centric "SVNS" rebrand of Rugby Sevens.

Unfortunately though the horrible new slime green coloured clip art looking logo (this is not just speaking from personal taste, you can see the reaction on forums like Reddit, the vast majority of fans consider that logo awful) is a rare aesthetic misstep for the RWC brand that has up until then been so strong. One can only hope that it is very short lived.

Who the heck approved this horrible new RWC logo?!

There is a lot in rugby between World Cups that is poorly run, with a "Tier 1" stranglehold on power offering a lack of vision and ambition, with too many too happy with a very static idea of the sport forever being dominated only by the same handful of nations, which hinders even more growth potential to make the RWC more exciting, competitive, and bigger still.

However it is undeniable that the RWC's growth over the last 25 years is the one thing in modern rugby that has unambiguously been a huge success story. Those who helped the sport get to the right decisions over this period to achieve that success deserve applause.

Some of the good calls on expansion may have been down to a string of luck arriving at the right moments. They were only saved by France winning hosting rights from a terrible decision to go back to 16 teams in 2007. Then narrowly avoided going back to 16 again for 2011 thanks to "Tier 2" performances in 2007 (like Georgia nearly beating Ireland) changing enough minds. It was also by chance Australia hosted a successful women's football World Cup in 2023 which apparently convinced not to delay expansion to 2031. Also, whilst never seen this backed up by insider reports, some have guessed it is no coincidence USA failing to qualify in 1995 and 2023 was followed by expansions to 20 and 24 at subsequent events, which if true Chile's and Portugal's qualification in 2022 was another dose of luck.

Do we have Chile to thank for expansion to 24 teams after they
shockingly came from 19-0 behind to stop USA reaching the RWC? 

Anyway, whatever or whoever deserves credit for the RWC's success, hopefully good luck and fortune continues to shine on this event (especially as it takes its biggest risk yet going to the USA in 2031) and the latest expansion will over time be as vindicated by future growth as the previous one was, and then also maybe one day some of the sport's other tournaments will learn some lessons from it.

7s coach Mike Friday admits top 15s talent can bring value to Olympics level 7s with 3 weeks conditioning

For about the last decade 7s people (coaches, specialists, other enthusiasts of the format) have had a strong scepticism over 15s players dropping into 7s as a narrative formed that the sport has in their view become far too specialised, and in particular has such gargantuan fitness demands relative to 15s, that it would require a lengthy many month transition impractical to nearly all top 15s professionals unless they effectively took a season off from their career.

However, as pointed out in a recent article on the post-Olympics state of 7s, some of the motivation behind this narrative was down to self-interest of the 7s people who feel insecure at their lower status next to 15s ....

In 2017 Science of Sport podcast host Ross Tucker (formerly of the South Africa 7s camp) accidentally let slip the real motivation to why there became such strong scepticism and even hostility to the idea of 15s stars going to 7s and doing well.

Tucker said: "when 7s was accepted into the Olympics, there was a fear (me and a few others) that what countries would do is to insert their 15s stars into their teams for the Games only, dominate, smash everyone, and [...] if that were to happen, then it would potentially irreparably damage 7s, because it would reveal the gulf between 7s and 15s".

The 7s specialists (who in Tier 1 nations at least are very often players those who failed to make it in 15s) over the years since 15s players stopped appearing at event had grown to really feel their generally lower status in the rugby world next to the bigger stars in 15s. So they really invested in a narrative emphasising how the demands of 7s are not merely tough coming from 15s (which sounds fair, as mentioned, not best arena to throw in old or injury ridden players) but almost otherworldly and that a seemingly simpler version of the sport had transformed into something so different it requires a long period of specialist focus.

This narrative was pushed in extremely hyped up terms partly out of 7s specialists fear of losing their spots at an Olympics to a 15s player of course, but also in order to boost the self-esteem of the sport, which they felt 15s players taking to with ease would make a mockery of.

In reality most of their fears were misplaced, as even in the days when many more 15s players switched over, there were always still specialists like Rush or Serevi widely acknowledged as the greatest in 7s. So the best 7s team is never going to correlate absolutely perfectly with best in 15s, and having 15s stars turn up for the Olympics, whilst unlucky for a few who will miss out, actually only increases the status and interest in 7s and prestige of winning Olympic Gold.

7s coach Mike Friday

Among those sceptical include the experienced 7s coach Mike Friday, so was curious listening to his interview with the Eagles Overseas Rugby podcast, where he says it is "a 6-9 month transition" for a 15s player.

As has been pointed out Fiji, who tend to ignore this 7s narrative for big events, drafted in three 15s players to their Olympics squad with what can't have been much more than 3 weeks preparation which contributed a strong boost to their squad on the way to reaching the final (which they hadn't reached all season on the circuit), is a bit awkward for the widely pushed idea of 15s players being quite so distant from 7s conditioning (as does their 2016 Gold medal winning team that did the similar with Nakarawa and Tuisova too). 

If going by what 7s people have long said then those players conditioning ought not to have been anywhere even near the required state to be fully competitive at the elite level. Yet they looked more than capable of adding value to the squad. Iosefo Masi played 79 of a possible 84 minutes and Selestino Ravutaumada beat the most defenders in the competition.

Friday was kind and friendly enough (big respect for that) to take time to reply on Twitter to queries on this and it proved an interesting discussion (he also had the similar discussion with Fijan Drua CEO Mark Evans who also pointed out that "maybe this line of “completely different conditioning” is not so accurate").

His view is that Fiji, and only Fiji, can select players without so much specialist conditioning as they play a "tempo" style (assuming this means somehow "slower"). Evans found this reasoning "dodgy", and indeed to be blunt it comes across as a highly unconvincing attempt to wave away the countervailing evidence to the widely pushed 7s specialist narrative.

Fiji 7s head coach Osea Kolinisau explicitly made
fitness his priority on taking the job but was still
happy to add three 15s players to his starting team

Certainly the Fijian camp themselves do not appear to view their style as tempo which is more accommodating of poorer fitness. On the contrary, Osea Kolinisau taking on the head coach role last March stated it is "a high tempo game that we are known for" and it "can only be achieved through fitness" and then went on to keep emphasising in further interviews "improving fitness levels" would be a priority.

It does not seem from those quotes like fitness was less of a priority for Fiji than other sides. Rather it sounds more like they were backing Josaia Raisuqe, Masi, and Ravutaumada to still be able to play 7s at that high tempo, and simply don't view 15s fitness as so far off that kind of talent can't come in and quickly add value (surely they would have even better still had they an entire season in 7s than only 3 weeks, but just as 15s camps know when selecting players on short preparation after tough slogs in Top 14 or Pro D2, not much can ever be perfectly ideal preparation wise for most Tier 2 nations).

This is nothing new, in 2018 successful former coach Gareth Baber was talking about how the side "will be playing with pace" to execute "the high tempo game we like", and also noted how the players coming from 15s (Nakarawa, Tuisova, Kunatani, Radradra), had "handled all the conditioning sessions we have put them through". In 2016 another former coach Ben Ryan talked about how Fiji "plays a very high-tempo game that requires enormous amounts of fitness", and in a more recent interview this year said "fitness" is key "to allow the Fijian team to do their thing".

This appeared to be illustrated in the quarter final against Ireland, which Fiji managed to win with just 28% possession, with the match finishing with them successfully making a three and half minute defensive stand into overtime. Incidentally the only two Fijians who played that entire game were Masi and Ravutaumada from 15s. It does not seem plausible to have much hope of winning a 7s game with that much defending at the elite level if those players had insufficient fitness. It is hard to see how a side can simply style out three and half minute defensive stands into stoppage time either.

Fiji beat Ireland in the Olympics 7s QF after
a 3 minute plus defensive stand in the last play

Friday then said "if these 2 playing for Ireland they not lasting anymore than 8/9 mins".

Again, it sounds highly dubious that players who lasted an intense full 17 minute plus match against Ireland where Fiji survived on 28% possession and made 5x number of tackles would not be capable of playing a full match if they were on the opposing team. But it is nonetheless a seeming acknowledgement from Friday, that unlike he and others have claimed, fit prime age 15s talent of this level probably doesn't need that 6-9 month transition.

In a sport where matches are 14 minutes and 5 of the starting 7 players are usually subbed, contributing for 8-9 minutes is basically similar to your average 7s player. So if they would have been capable of that on any team with about 3 weeks preparation since the end of the Super Rugby season. That is not at all bad.

How good would a talent like Immanuel Feyi-
Waboso probably be going from 15s to 7s?

When asked if he was Great Britain coach and two of the finest young athletic rugby talents in the country Immanuel Feyi-Waboso or Louis Rees-Zammit became available but only with around 3 weeks to prepare conditioning wise (like the Fijians roughly had) Friday reckoned they might have "7 minutes in them".  For that calibre of talent and at that age, this seems a conservative estimate, but still in a sport where over 70% of starters usually get subbed, a player who contributes strongly for 7 minutes is still well worth its place in the squad (it should be noted though that whilst the Fijian example questions the fitness narrative of 7s specialists, in terms of adaptation skillset wise Fijians are particularly unique, so probably advisable other nations do have potential 15s players hoping to be Olympians appear in a couple series events as trial runs in the run up beforehand to acclimatise to the format more, similar to what Great Britain did with 15s players in low key Rugby Europe events in 2016).

So overall Friday ended up almost acknowledging that plenty of top 15s players probably could in fact contribute and add value to Olympics 7s squads significantly quicker than the 6-9 month conditioning transition he was initially claiming.

As noted in a previous article on 7s after the Olympics, Dupont's presence "has brought more prestige to a 7s gold medal than there was before", and how big a deal 7s becomes "depends on to what extent 7s specialists want to gate keep against 15s stars (by demanding too onerous a commitment) entering as guest players ahead of the Olympics on quicker timeframes".

Could a such a huge 7s enthusiast like Friday (who is so enthusiastic about 7s he also reckons such a highly difficult format to follow could achieve the seemingly impossible and gain a year round fanbase) seemingly here moderating his position from a "6-9 month transition" be a sign that the 7s specialist narrative may be softening and LA 2028 on men's side could have a lot more star power (or even just more James Davies and Mark Bennett level 15s players like Great Britain silver medallist team had in 2016) involved?