RWC draw falls into place

 

London – The International Rugby Board has confirmed that southern hemisphere sides have secured the top four positions in Monday’s pool draw for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

For the first time the IRB is using its own world rankings to seed leading nations for the World Cup, which will next take place in New Zealand.

The cut-off point for Monday’s draw was the ranking positions teams occupied on Sunday, which followed Saturday’s Tests between England and New Zealand and Wales and Australia.

Avoid South Africa

New Zealand’s 32-6 win over England at Twickenham, which sealed a grand slam of victories over the four home unions, cemented their grip on first place.

By contrast, England’s defeat ensured Argentina remained among the top four teams in the draw.

The Pumas, who finished third at the 2007 World Cup, will therefore avoid New Zealand, defending champions South Africa and Australia in the draw for the first round pool phase.

England’s defeat dropped them to sixth place while Six Nations champions Wales moved up into fifth following their 21-18 win over Australia at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium.

Had they beaten Australia by more than 15 points, Wales would have moved into fourth place at the expense of Argentina.

Draw in London

As was the case during last year’s World Cup in France, where South Africa beat England 15-6 in the final, there will be four pools of five teams in the 2011 tournament.

Wales, England, France and Ireland now face the prospect of being drawn alongside one of the leading quartet.

Scotland’s proud record of having got as far as the quarter-finals of every World Cup now looks in danger three years ahead of the next edition as they are in the third band of teams.

That means they will be drawn in a pool with both a leading southern hemisphere side and one of their major European rivals.

Teams in each band will be drawn randomly into one of the four pools. 

The final two positions in each pool will be allocated to the eight qualifying places still available for RWC 2011.

Bands for Monday’s 2011 World Cup draw:

Band 1: New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, Argentina;
Band 2: Wales, England, France, Ireland;
Band 3: Scotland, Fiji, Italy, Tonga.
Band 4: Americas 1, Europe 1, Europe 2, Oceania 1
Band 5: Africa 1, Americas 2, Asia 1, Play Off place.

Kiwi Coincidence?

So the IRB have decided to change the World Cup seedings for the next Rugby World Cup. Based on the current system, the seedings for 2011 would read: 1. South Africa 2. England 3. Argentina 4. France.

The All-Blacks would, at best, be a lowly fifth. Surely the IRB is taking this bold step with a view to representing the four-year cycle of international rugby more fairly, not just to step to appease New Zealand, which hosts RWC 2011. What do you reckon…

Question - who is sick and tired of Kiwi moaning? If New Zealand arrived in France as top seeds, rather than England, they would have drawn South Africa, Tonga, Samoa, and USA, rather than Scotland, Italy, Portugal and Romania. It certainly doesn’t take a rugby genius to work out who had the easier route to the knock-out phase…

It looks likely that the All-Blacks will be rewarded for being consistently the best team in world rugby –  and I’m sure their fans are already surfing naked in celebration. But form counts for diddly-squat in knock-out tournaments. It’s all about holding your nerve and showing that big match temperament when it really matters.

If the All-Blacks can’t realise that throwing wild miss-passes on your own five metre line in a World Cup quarter-final (see Dan Carter) represents a dangerous combination of arrogance and mind-boggling stupidity, then the seedings aren’t likely to help them get what they feel they so richly deserve.

Too many of their greats go missing in the big games and they always find some excuse – food poisoning in 1995, France’s dirty play in 1999, Anton Oliver being brutalised in 2003 and referee Wayne Barnes’ visual aberration in 2007.

With nothing to show since 1987 we continue to hear ludicrous statements like ‘we’re still the best team in the world’ within hours of an inglorious World Cup exit. Whatever happened to notion that if you’re going to win it, you must beat the best?