The lopsided 2023 Rugby World Cup quarter-final match ups have come into sharp focus and received widespread criticism.
Next weekend, two of the top four teams at the Rugby World Cup will be knocked out before the semi-finals.
The Springboks have been placed on a collision course with hosts France in the World Cup quarter-finals, with that clash scheduled for 9pm on Sunday, 15 October in Paris.
Ireland will face New Zealand at the Stade de France on Saturday in another blockbuster battle where one top side will be sent packing.
Meanwhile, Fiji are set to progress from Pool C, while Argentina, England and Wales have already booked their places in the playoffs.
It’s a shocking set of fixtures when considering how lopsided the matches look, and there has been a widespread backlash on X – formerly known as Twitter.
In what has turned out to be an error in judgement, the pools for the 2023 competition were announced on 14 December 2020, just under three years out from the start of the World Cup in France.
It has resulted in a lopsided draw, with the top five nations in the rankings in either Pool A or B. As a result, two of the current top four teams – France, New Zealand, Ireland and South Africa – will not make it into the semi-finals.
It’s an absolute travesty that two teams of such quality will crash out at the quarter-final stage simply because of the nature of the draw, while the likes of Wales and England could find an easy route to the final four.
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