Good points their fluffy. I personally am not after a pink ball however you race into an early lead in the polls -

Yes - good clean discussion is the way forward....after SA drew in Perth I thought they were finally rising above the politics and playing pure rugby again. I was a bit surprised of 57-0 result as Australia almost beat the AB's.. makes no sense.

Dragon, I'm keeping this clean and related to this topic. Does irelands win over the ABs mean nothing and do you think argentina can be that high with no viable 10?

Thank you to the mods/admin for cleaning this one up.

BM, Argentina has a knack for causing upsets so I can see why they'd be ranked higher, although I don't think it will happen in Japan.

I've got a feeling Ireland is going to surprise us all and give a good showing but the AB's will take it at the end of the day.

I think having a 9-10 pairing is critical and in my estimations the ABs have the best and one can easily argue that Ireland has the second best pairing. England could be very dangerous across the pitch and with finishers in Japan, I won't count them out of anything. But everyone is hoping to close the gap with the ABs and at the moment it seems the gap may be widening.

Today the Guardian posted their top 15 and here are there top 8
1. New Zealand
2. England
3. Ireland
4. South Africa
5. Australia
6. Scotland
7. Wales
8. France

So the guys at 1014 discussed the politics of SA rugby (I had no clue) but is the only issue the quota due to politics or are there additional concerns as well? My mind was blown that strict quotas would be used for a national team but it's also not my nation. Thanks for any education and I understand if it's a topic you want me to learn about from other sources.

The short version of the story is that the SA Government and SA Rugby enforces a quota system accross rugby in SA accross Provincial level (Such as the Currie Cup), Super Rugby and International level. The target is to have 50% representation of players of color, as they refer to it, accross all teams and especially the Springboks by 2019. Teams not adhering to the set targets at certain times get penalised and/or fined.

The Government went as far as to ban SA Rugby from making a bid for the 2023 World Cup and threatened to not allow the Springboks to play any local games unless the quotas were adhered to.

This was then rectified and SA Rugby has now submitted a bid for the 2023 World Cup.

Many people also feel that the current coach choice was highly influenced by skin color rather than actual ability and his record breaking poor performances has done nothing to ease that feeling.

So the reason for the long story is to highlight the seriousness of the quota system and the influence SA Government has in SA Rugby.

These are not my views, but the general feeling in the countries rugby circles. (My views would need to be censored dramstically)

Thanks coach, we have title IX here which requires that 50% of college athletic scholarships go to females. This resulted in many schools closing down rugby programs, wrestling programs, etc. The issue is that football(the american version that rarely puts foot to ball) has 50-100 scholarship athletes depending on the school. All the sports that females play have far fewer athletes. So the intent was good but the end result was not what they had wanted.

The intent behind the quota system was good 15 years ago after apartheid was scrapped.

The numbers that are being projected and forced 15 years later is however in my opinion not fair and forcing players to be picked by skin color rather than actually being deserving of a position, this also cast doubt on players who are deserving of their spot whether they belong or got picked based on skin color.

Also if you look at the rugby demographics it does not rectify the targets being set. Honestly I don't think politics and government should get involved in sport in any country in any manner. They do not mix well