World Rugby League

The proposed new annual championship in rugby union appears to shaft the small Pacific nations and eastern Europe. It is no surprise it includes Japan and the USA, they're put in for the money, even though their playing strength is not good enough.

The main problem with the format of 12 nations in two groups of six, is that there is no pathway for other countries to emerge. In other words there is no promotion/relegation. Not even relegation play-offs. To illustrate look at the current world rankings:

1.   New Zealand
2.   Ireland
3.   Wales
4.   England
5.   South Africa
6.   Australia
7.   Scotland
8.   France
9.   Fiji
10. Argentina
11. Japan
12. Georgia

But the new championship would play the existing Six Nations against the southern hemisphere Rugby Championship with Japan and USA added to the latter. That means Italy as part of the Six Nations get in permanently from their position of 15, over the top of Georgia (#12).

Meanwhile Fiji (#9) are topped by Japan (#11) and USA (#13). Basically, it's absurd and if implemented, rugby administrators will be made to look like laughing stocks.

Here's an answer: why not have a 10 team league made up of a 5 team northern hemisphere and 5 team southern hemisphere conferences, like this:

Northern

Ireland
Wales
England
Scotland
France

Southern

New Zealand
Australia
South Africa
Fiji
Argentina

Within each conference they play each other once (4 games each), then the top two in each conference play semi-finals against the top two from the other conference, followed by the final. For the finalists that's 6 games. If things go the way of rankings it should end like this:-

Ireland v Australia
Wales v New Zealand

Final: Ireland v New Zealand

What about the bottom 6 teams?  They cross over and play for relegation. If the competition went according to rankings it would mean the bottom team from one conference playing the 3rd place from the other conference, and so on, so (an example):

England v Argentina
Scotland v Fiji
France v South Africa

The two worst teams from each hemisphere (this is not entirely fair but keeps the league balanced) in terms of tries scored and points differential then play a relegation game against the top team from the lower tier in their hemisphere. According to rankings like this:

France play a relegation game against Japan or Georgia
Argentina play a relegation game against Tonga, Samoa or Uruguay.

The team playing off for relegation would have played 6 games, the others 5 in total since the competition season started.

Naturally the lower tier could also have its own format for deciding who challenges.