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What World Rugby make of the emerging nations at World Cup 2023
By Liam Heagney
Wednesday marked the 100 days to go milestone before the start of the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France and World Rugby CEO Alan Gilpin is excited that the minnow nations such as first-time participants Chile can make their mark at the tournament. There is often criticism regarding the overall level of competitiveness of the lower-ranked teams at the finals.
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However, recent editions have generated some eye-catching results. For instance, Japan ambushed South Africa in Brighton in 2015 while four years later in Kamaishi, Uruguay shocked Fiji.
Now, World Rugby are hopeful of witnessing further progress at France 2023 with Uruguay, Namibia, Tonga, Romania, Georgia, Portugal, Samoa and Chile the eight lowest-seeded teams in the 20-strong event.
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“It is challenging,” began Gilpin regarding preparing the emerging nations to be at their best in September and October, “but we are providing enormous support, funding, supporting more competitive fixtures, longer preparation periods, longer preparation camps for these kinds of emerging nations, investing in the high-performance strength and conditioning staff supports.
“There are 100 or so of the coaching and high-performance staff across those emerging nations that are effectively directly employed by World Rugby, so we absolutely trying to do everything we can to make all of those nations as competitive as they can be because we all know a competitive and compelling tournament on the field is what is going to drive fan interest and get people really excited.
“The challenge is the more and more we invest in making those emerging nations more competitive, we are trying to catch up with the ever-increasing investment that the so-called established nations are making, so it is a challenge.
“But we saw in 2019 reduced winning margins and we have seen it across the last few World Cups – and we are genuinely hopeful that we will see it again for 2023. We have got a new entrant in the tournament in Chile. We are excited to have three South American teams in a Rugby World Cup for the first time, so there are some great pointers to success.”
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Then there is the top end of the draw where never have there been so many contenders touted as potential Rugby World Cup winners. “As we have seen in the rankings, it has never been more competitive,” enthused Gilpin.
“On any given day there are six or seven teams there that could all beat each other. We have got more uncertainty around our world champions than ever before. That all leads to the excitement that we are seeing. We are genuinely anticipating the most competitive and compelling Rugby World Cup on the field to date.”
