the gap between the best teams and the others is widening

There was the 96 to 0 inflicted by the XV of France on Namibia, the 76 to 0 conceded by the Romanians against South Africa or the 73 to 0 of the New Zealanders against the Uruguayans… Even if the record absolute point difference in a Rugby World Cup has not been exceeded (145-17 inflicted on the Japanese by the Kiwis in 1995), defeats with substantial point differences occurred during the group stage of this 2023 edition.

Rugby is one of those sports where the differences are paid at a high price between what we could call “the world’s first division” (roughly the top 10 established by World Rugby after each matchwhich we will call group A) and the rest of the nations (group B).

For many observers, the group stage of the 2023 World Cup illustrates this gap between the top ten world nations and the others. And if you had the feeling that the major nations tend, this year, to crush the smaller ones more, the statistics prove you right.

Compared to world precedents organized for thirty-six years:

  • the points gap widens when a team from group A meets a representative from group B;
  • the gap narrows in matches where only the strongest countries compete;
  • the gap is widening between some teams in Group B, indicating that the best of them are progressing.

These three graphs represent the points differences between teams in the world top 10 and teams ranked higher. The linear regression lines indicate the thirty-six year trend for the period, between 1987 and 2023.

In the history of the Rugby World Cup pools, a team from Group B has only managed to beat a team from Group A on seven occasions:

  • the Fijians crushed the Argentinians in 1987 by 19 points;
  • Italy passed the same Argentinians by 6 points in 1995;
  • Fiji beat Wales in 2007 (+4 points);
  • the Tongans beat the French by 5 points in 2011;
  • Japan finished ahead of South Africa in 2015 (+2 points);
  • Uruguay beats Fiji by 3 points at the end of their group match in 2019;
  • the Portuguese won their match against the Fijians (24-23) during the last group meeting in 2023.

“Small” nations do not meet enough major nations

One of the explanations for this persistent gap, in ten editions of the World Cup, lies in the lack of high-level matches of small teams against major nations of the rugby world. This is what Ioseb Tkemaladze, the president of the Georgian Rugby Federation, deplores: “The only way we can continue to improve is to play top teams frequently. » Thus a team like Namibia has only met France twice in forty years, only during the World Cups.

If intermediate nations, such as Georgia or Fiji, have progressed in recent years, it is in particular because many of their players play in the championships of major nations; these two countries have not left the world top 10 since 2015.

Conversely, other European nations only meet within the framework of European international championship, which brings together the teams which do not participate in the Six Nations Tournament. A competition won continuously by Georgia since 2018.

Series “In graphics” des Décoders sheds light on the news in visual form. Find all the articles in our section.

source site-28