Every time a promising Irish team crash out in a Rugby World Cup quarter-final, someone will inevitably make the claim that we are a small country who are punching about our weight in reaching the last eight of a global tournament. Well, it seems the numbers don't really support that theory.
If we leave out the overall population argument (which is a nonsense anyway, Ireland wouldn't stand a chance in any sport if it was purely down to the number of people in the country) and take a look at the actual amount of players - in particular senior male players - in each of the test playing nations, we can see that Ireland lie squarely in eighth position and seem by rights to be a quarter-final team. Yet if you look at the seven nations with more senior male players - France, England, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, USA and Japan - our position is in fact slightly misleading. Japan and the USA are still developing nations in a rugby sense and can be discounted as the majority of their players are playing at a low standard and are spread out amongst a much larger overall population. We also are within 2,000 senior male players of New Zealand and as these numbers fluctuate, we can be considered more or less on the same level in terms of playing pool resources. So in actual fact, our position is more accurately joint fifth - alongside a nation who has won the Rugby World Cup twice.
If you take the amount of people playing rugby as a proportion of the general population as well, we emerge as a very keen rugby playing nation. Take a look at the proportion of the general population of the most successful rugby nations who actually actively take part in playing rugby:
England – 4.9%
Ireland – 3.35%
New Zealand – 3.1%
Wales – 1.65%
South Africa – 1.25%
Scotland – 0.72%
France – 0.48%
Australia – 0.39%
Italy – 0.1%
What emerges is a trend which shows that rugby union is a game played by a very small proportion of the population in any country, but in England, Ireland and New Zealand is disproportionately popular. While there are so many other factors beyond just the raw amount of players that determine how senior national teams perform on the pitch, it is interesting to note that we have one of the strongest bases amongst all rugby playing nations. We have a small population but a huge rugby community.
H/T Reddits
Picture credit: Brendan Moran / SPORTSFILE
