RWC Draw
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@booboo It would be a disaster for Canadian rugby if they didn't qualify. The game here is actually very solid and building nicely despite being hamstrung by shortsighted, self-interested, piss poor administration.
Yeah. Although it would be nice for a new country to qualify I'd prefer it not to be at the expense of an established one that has a realistic chance of growing.
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There was an interesting article in the guardian about how German rugby was a billionaires toy
How juice drink billionaire bankrolled Germany’s Rugby World Cup charge
Hans-Peter Wild got his money from Capri Sun and spent €20m to get the country to within three games of the tournament but uncertainty now surrounds the team’s future
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@machpants Yup that's a good article that basically sums it all up, great to have a sugar daddy until he walks away
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He actually almost did earlier this year. They've had a lot of problems and the XVs players went on strike at some point. They had to call up most of their sevens players to be able to field a team in test matches.
Edit: ah, should have read the entire article first; it's in there.
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It's a bit shambolic over the first 5mins but people might find this mock rugby world cup we did a couple of weeks ago enjoyable
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Great opportunity for some countries to participate in the RWC, but we've only one tough opponent in our pool. Seems like a shit preparation for the finals. The game against Italy will still have value for our prep, but geezus, Canada is weak and Namibia has already been smashed by Russia and Spain in the past two weeks. Nothing more than opposed training runs with pathetic scorelines.
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So using the current WR rankings:
Pool A has Ireland (2), Scotland (7), Japan (11), Samoa (16), Russia (19)
Pool B has NZ (1), South Africa (5), Italy (14), Canada (21), Namibia (23)
Pool C has England (4), France (8), Argentina (9), Tonga (12), USA (13)
Pool D has Wales (3), Australia (6), Fiji (10), Georgia (15), Uruguay (18)There will likely be some changes in rankings by Sept next year.
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I think its been covered before, but we have by far the best draw. South Africa first up, then a couple of opposed training runs against Namibia and Canada, then finish with a slightly tougher game against Italy.
Top our pool and then two of our big rivals SA and Ire knock each other out in the QF. Also on that side of the draw go Australia and France. Our route to the final is a Scotland QF then probably the winner of Eng Wales. Ireland to win the world cup would have to beat Sa then Aus then us on consecutive weekends....
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I think its been covered before, but we have by far the best draw. South Africa first up, then a couple of opposed training runs against Namibia and Canada, then finish with a slightly tougher game against Italy.
Top our pool and then two of our big rivals SA and Ire knock each other out in the QF. Also on that side of the draw go Australia and France. Our route to the final is a Scotland QF then probably the winner of Eng Wales. Ireland to win the world cup would have to beat Sa then Aus then us on consecutive weekends....
If we beat South Africa.
The winner of our pool has a good draw.
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So using the current WR rankings:
Pool A has Ireland (2), Scotland (7), Japan (11), Samoa (16), Russia (19)
Pool B has NZ (1), South Africa (5), Italy (14), Canada (21), Namibia (23)
Pool C has England (4), France (8), Argentina (9), Tonga (12), USA (13)
Pool D has Wales (3), Australia (6), Fiji (10), Georgia (15), Uruguay (18)There will likely be some changes in rankings by Sept next year.
Based on rankings that's not a bad result looking at the top two seeds in each pool: still one in each from top four ranked, plus one in each from teams 5-8.
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Based on rankings that's not a bad result looking at the top two seeds in each pool: still one in each from top four ranked, plus one in each from teams 5-8.
That is due to the bands used for the draw in determining the pools (in May 2017), even if some of the rankings have changed, i.e., Aust and Wales have swapped bands but fortunately ended up in the same pool.
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Based on rankings that's not a bad result looking at the top two seeds in each pool: still one in each from top four ranked, plus one in each from teams 5-8.
That is due to the bands used for the draw in determining the pools (in May 2017), even if some of the rankings have changed, i.e., Aust and Wales have swapped bands but fortunately ended up in the same pool.
Yeah realise the bands. It was kind of my point.
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@booboo I think it has been good luck rather than good management. If SA moves up one place then our group would have 2 teams ranked 1-4 and another pool have 2 teams ranked 5-8. That could happen by Sep next year. WR still insists on allocating pools so far out from the start of the RWC. FIFA doesn't.
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So using the current WR rankings:
Pool A has Ireland (2), Scotland (7), Japan (11), Samoa (16), Russia (19)
Pool B has NZ (1), South Africa (5), Italy (14), Canada (21), Namibia (23)
Pool C has England (4), France (8), Argentina (9), Tonga (12), USA (13)
Pool D has Wales (3), Australia (6), Fiji (10), Georgia (15), Uruguay (18)There will likely be some changes in rankings by Sept next year.
Based on rankings that's not a bad result looking at the top two seeds in each pool: still one in each from top four ranked, plus one in each from teams 5-8.
totally meaningless, but....
Pool A total rank = 55 (ave 11)
Pool B total rank = 64 (ave 12.8)
Pool C total rank = 46 (ave 9.2)
Pool D total rank = 52 (ave 10.4)
