The 10 Unions now have until May 8, 2009 to submit their detailed Tenders, a decision will be announced on July 28,2009

1. South Africa
2. England
3. Argentina

The IRB has not ranked any of them that high in the last three years, in fact South Africa haven’t even made number two in that time!

Currently all teams are ranked going into the next World Cup by their finishing position in the previous tournament, four years ago!

It is widely believedthat a fairer system should be used.

The obvious method is to use the IRB’s ranking system, the problem with that is that teams need to know well in advance who they will be playing and where, organisers need the same information so a cut off date would need to be established.

This could prove a headache, but would certainly stop top sides fielding second-string sides in the years before the World Cup.

Either way – it needs to change!

This was fine, until World Cup 2007, Wales and Ireland failed to get out of the group stages allowing supposedly lesser teams in the form of Fiji and Argentina into the quarter and semi finals!

Their success is proof that the 2011 World Cup should contain all 20 teams!

The denies a team who had a fantastic World Cup and became the only team outside of the Six and Tri – Nations to reach a World Cup semi-final, the chance to improve their game some more (look what it did for Italy!).

Fans around the world (myself included) believed that they should get a regular high-level competition ASAP after their fantastic performance at the World Cup, which tournament was anybody’s guess – but either would have done, but logistics take time….

As a consolation for not getting into either tournament quickly, the Pumas have been awarded more Test matches each year (nine instead of six), and will also participate in the Churchill Cup. Two of those new interenationals will appear during the Six Nations window, following an agreement by English and French clubs to release Pumas for their matches.

The main stumbling block Argentina have to face, is the IRB’s requirement for the Tri-Nations that most players have to be based in the country. With an amateur game still being the norm in Argentina, it’s lead to most of the top players working abroad – almost exclusively in Europe.

“The Argentinian Rugby Union (UAR) has made a commitment to have their players contracted to the union and for the majority of their players to be based in Argentina by 2012,” said the IRB.

We all expected it and now it’s happened a review of the teams lacklustre peformance in France. This years World Cup saw scrappy wins over Namibia and Georgia, a thorough beating from the French and the Irish boys on the plane home at the end of the knockout stages.

An IRFU statement released on Friday read:

“The IRFU Committee has set up a Review Group, chaired by the President Der Healy, to manage the process and to bring the findings to the IRFU Committee where they will be evaluated and decisions taken as to how to address any issues that arise.

“To ensure that the review is thorough and effective the IRFU has engaged an independent consultant, Brian Porteous of Genesis Consulting, to carry out a detailed fact finding exercise through confidential consultations with the team management, IRFU administration and others.

“He will be able to retain outside expertise to assist in specialist areas as he sees fit. He will report his findings to the Review Group and the IRFU Committee.

“Following discussion between IRUPA and IRFU, Genesis will also be conducting an independent and confidential survey of players’ views by means of questionnaire and interviews.

“As is normal practice, the IRFU Appointments Committee will meet the National Coach and receive his report and they will then subsequently present their report to the Review Group.

“This process will ensure that all relevant factual information can be gathered and that all personnel involved in the preparation for and participation in RWC 2007 are debriefed in a thorough and professional manner for an effective outcome.”

On the review, Philip Browne, Chief Executive of the IRFU commented:

“This will be a very thorough procedure, designed to professionally and methodically assess performance in all aspects of our preparation and participation in RWC 2007 and to identify lessons to be learnt for the future.”

It is anticipated that the review will only take a matter of months to complete.

Ex-international player for Ireland, Alain Rolland will be at the pinnacle of his Rugby career when referees the 2007 Rugby World Cup Final tomorrow!

The mortgage broker from Dublin is certainly looking forward to officiating this weekend’s showpiece final, a reward for his performances during the pool stages.

The Dublin native, whose father is French, will become the first Irish referee to take charge of the World Cup decider, following in the footsteps of officials from Australia, Wales, England and South Africa.

Best of luck Alain!

That’s the opinion of Peter Bills at the Belfast Telegraph!

Peter goes on to list his favourite experiences of the World Cup, including Georgia for their amazing minnows performance, the atmosphere for the Ireland games versus Georgia and Argentina, and O’Sullivan’s bravery for laying the defeat to France squarely on that of his players.

Well worth a read!

Eddie will be under massive pressure in the coming weeks to explain to the IRFU what happened during the disastrous run of results in France. Normally the fans celebrate, even under massive defeats (and we’ve all seen a few of those!!), but after the weekends performance some of the fans have turned on the coach and asked for his resignation.

There seems a world of difference between the RBS 6 Nations contenders and the team that went to France, yet they are the same squads – and O’Sullivan is set to stay for another four years, O’Sullivan believes the timing of the 6 Nations may be to blame for all of the 6 Nations squads underperforming at the World Cup.

“This team has played exceptionally well in the past and that’s the reason I’d say this isn’t irreversible,” he said.

“The World Cup has been a huge disappointment but we have to ask if this team can get back to where it was. In all confidence I say yes.”

“The window for the World Cup in September and that puts the northern hemisphere sides under severe pressure to get their A game together,” he said.

“If I could have changed things in the build-up, I would have played a lot more rugby in July and August.

“In retrospect, we might have learnt a lesson there. Maybe the Six Nations teams will say the next World Cup can’t be in the first month of the season.

“The southern hemisphere are now where we are in January. That’s not an excuse as we also feel we haven’t played to our potential.”

The exit has been made all the more difficult due to Irelands success in recent times…

“We were expecting a lot more from ourselves,” O’Sullivan said.

“The public were also expecting a lot more and that was because the expectation around this team was very high following an excellent 10 months.

“The team have created expectation and they must be given credit for that.

“It’s very easy to build a team up for the performances they’ve given, the commitment and the skills they’ve shown, and then when it goes wrong, use that as a bigger stick to beat them with.

“That’s the harsh part of this business but the lads accept and understand it.”

So where shold the inquest start? The Wallace vs O’Gara discussion? O’Sullivan clearly defends his position there despite O’Gara being off his game.

“If you are thinking about the selection from the off, Paddy would be our second choice fly-half and Ronan our first-choice fly-half and there has never been any secret about that,” he added.

“In terms of making substitutions during the game, that is something you have to make there and then on the run and if I thought Paddy was going to change the run of the game, I would have put him on.

“But I obviously have a lot of faith in Ronan. He has a lot of experience and these were huge pressure games. So we knew Paddy coming into the tournament didn’t have a lot of experience. So when you put a player like that into a game, you have to be sure that you put him in at the right time to have the right impact.”

Other players have offered their thoughts, Geordan Murphy said quite simply:

“We just weren’t good enough”.

“The simple fact is that we haven’t done well, we are going home and we have to go on from here,” he said.

“It does not matter what ideas we had about ourselves, or what sort of ideas anyone had about us before the tournament.”

Munster prop Marcus Horan said:

“We left ourselves with too much to do trying to get four tries against a team that has not conceded a try in the whole competition,” said Horan.

“There are a lot of players in the dressing room who are hugely disappointed with the way we performed. “

World Cup results count for double, gaining more points for a win and losing more for a defeat.

IRB WORLD RANKINGS (As of October 1):

(1) New Zealand 93.38 rating points
(2) Australia 87.73
(3) South Africa 86.44
(4) Argentina 85.78
(5) France 84.63
(6) England 80.10
(7) IRELAND 78.66
(8) Scotland 77.09
(9) Fiji 75.82
(10) Wales 74.08