Group of death says coach Mike Ford

England defence coach Mike Ford says facing stern tests in the group stage of the Rugby World Cup could be the key to success in the tournament.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/14777141.stm

I for one would much rather be in that group than have to face South Africa Fiji and Samoa.

englands group is easily the softest in the RWC, by a country mile. Argentina r no good and scotland? please. whilst i think these 3 teams will give each other good matches thats only cos they are all shiite.

Would he like to swap with Wales? - They can play SA, Fiji and Samoa.

Or swap with France and play NZ and Tonga?

Or with Ireland and play Aus and Italy?

Cymroglan wrote:England defence coach Mike Ford says facing stern tests in the group stage of the Rugby World Cup could be the key to success in the tournament.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/14777141.stm

I for one would much rather be in that group than have to face South Africa Fiji and Samoa.

He is just talkin git up in case England get stuffed by Scot or Argentina...absolute rubbish, the only real group of death is Wales.

Cymroglan wrote:England defence coach Mike Ford says facing stern tests in the group stage of the Rugby World Cup could be the key to success in the tournament.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/14777141.stm

I for one would much rather be in that group than have to face South Africa Fiji and Samoa.

Well if you looked at the results between the three sides they are all very close and each team could beat each other, in Englands group one defeat could be bye bye knockout stages.

kingjonn7 wrote:by kingjohn7 on Sat Sep 03, 2011 11:42 pm

englands group is easily the softest in the RWC, by a country mile. Argentina r no good and scotland? please. whilst i think these 3 teams will give each other good matches thats only cos they are all shiite.

Well i'll bow to your obvious superior knowlege of the game, next time please engage brain before fingers when typing

wales606 wrote:by wales606 on Sun Sep 04, 2011 12:14 am

Would he like to swap with Wales? - They can play SA, Fiji and Samoa.

Or swap with France and play NZ and Tonga?

Or with Ireland and play Aus and Italy?

Well never having lost to Italy and just beaten Aus in their last two encounters, i think they woulb be happy to swap with Ireland.

Think the result would be the same with France, we would finish second behind NZ

As for Wales you only think its the group of death if you have no faith that your team can beat Fiji or Samoa??

to me Ireland are the most likely to be in a group of death from their own perspective, having Aus and only just beating Italy in their last encounter.

[quote="Knackeredknees"]

Cymroglan wrote:England defence coach Mike Ford says facing stern tests in the group stage of the Rugby World Cup could be the key to success in the tournament.

kingjonn7 wrote:by kingjohn7 on Sat Sep 03, 2011 11:42 pm

englands group is easily the softest in the RWC, by a country mile. Argentina r no good and scotland? please. whilst i think these 3 teams will give each other good matches thats only cos they are all shiite.

Well i'll bow to your obvious superior knowlege of the game, next time please engage brain before fingers when typing

im was sort of joking about england, argentina s star man is injured and they have had one match against wc opp to prepare, and scotland...r just pants.

[quote="Knackeredknees"]

Cymroglan wrote:

wales606 wrote:by wales606 on Sun Sep 04, 2011 12:14 am

Would he like to swap with Wales? - They can play SA, Fiji and Samoa.

Or swap with France and play NZ and Tonga?

Or with Ireland and play Aus and Italy?

Well never having lost to Italy and just beaten Aus in their last two encounters, i think they woulb be happy to swap with Ireland.

Think the result would be the same with France, we would finish second behind NZ

As for Wales you only think its the group of death if you have no faith that your team can beat Fiji or Samoa??

to me Ireland are the most likely to be in a group of death from their own perspective, having Aus and only just beating Italy in their last encounter.

I never said Wales had a group of death,

The fact is, England are more likely to finish top of the group they are in than in any of the other home nations groups.

It would be wise to treat EVERY team you meet as though they can beat you.Argentina may just be a surprise packet too,Scotland had a good warm up period.In a one off game on neutral soil maybe Scottish win.this is not Fortress Twickenham.

Both England and Wales have 2 other top 10 teams in their group, but yeah I'd still rather not have a big 3 team.

England's group is probably the easiest to come top in but one of the hardest to get through. I'd say Argentina and Scotland are better than Italy, Samoa and Fiji.

Funny how last time out no-one was saying England's was the group of death (South Africa and 2 PI sides). that was the Irish group with France and Argentina. That one was the easiest to come top but it was the fact that any of the three could easily go out that made it the group of death.

All groups are groups of death, you lose 2 games, chances are you are going home.

Going on the teams in each group:

France and New Zealand should be just fine.

There is competition for the two places between England, Scotland and Argentina.

Australia and Ireland should be fine.

There is competition for the two places between SA, Wales and Samoa with a possibility with Fiji.

The only teams that should be confident with their groups are France, NZ, Oz and Ireland.

Well biltongbek, I agree with your first line that every group is critical since two losses and one is finished. But the beauty of the RWC is that we can see the same teams and have different points of view.

I do agree the ABs and France should be fine, most likely as 1 and 2, but there is a chance it could be 2 and 1.

I think England is a head better than Scotland and Argentina who will fight it out for the runner-up.

Australia should be fine, and probably Ireland, too. But I do worry about Ireland after they barely beat Italy in the 6N, and have not looked particularly good in the warm-up matches. They have the talent to do much better than they have shown this year.

And your pool, to me, looks shakey. The Boks should do OK, but Wales need to get past Fiji and Samoa, which on paper they should do easily. But, the reality on the pitch has shown the Pac Isles teams to be trouble for Wales, and an upset could happen again.

I'd agree England's group looks like a contender for the least threatening. Missing out on one of the Tri Nations sides and having Scotland as the toughest opposition is something of a gift (no offence intended to the Scots), though understandably the coaches want their charges to be as wary as possible.

Group D looks like the frontrunner for "Group of Death" to me, though Group A also looks slightly mouth-watering.

Assuming that only sides in the top ten have a realistic chance of progressing, only two groups have three sides in the top 10 - groups B & D. Four ranking places cover the three sides in group B and seven cover the places cover the three sides in group D. Ford is therefore right that this should be the most difficult group to qualify from.
Does this mean that this group has the best sides in the competition? No, but at least it means there will be interest early on because the other groups look a bit too predictable, with only Ireland's recent form & Wales worry about facing PI sides raising any questions

Cymroglan wrote:England defence coach Mike Ford says facing stern tests in the group stage of the Rugby World Cup could be the key to success in the tournament.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/14777141.stm

I for one would much rather be in that group than have to face South Africa Fiji and Samoa.

So would I be if I were welsh!

With the way Samoa and Fiji tackle Wales are literally in the group of death...

Wales are going to get smashed, good job they've got Dr Roberts with them.

I can see Nugget or J.Thomas getting a phone call at somepoint.

kingjohn7 wrote:scotland...r just pants.

Well they've beaten Australia and Scotland more recently than Wales have.

donkeyprop wrote:Assuming that only sides in the top ten have a realistic chance of progressing, only two groups have three sides in the top 10 - groups B & D. Four ranking places cover the three sides in group B and seven cover the places cover the three sides in group D. Ford is therefore right that this should be the most difficult group to qualify from.
Does this mean that this group has the best sides in the competition? No, but at least it means there will be interest early on because the other groups look a bit too predictable, with only Ireland's recent form & Wales worry about facing PI sides raising any questions

Samoa are only ranked 1 below Argentina and, with their result against Australia and the extra time they've had together (they normally get barely any training time at all), I'd much rather have Scotland and Argentina than South Africa and Samoa.

The comment about there being a wider spread of ranking places in group d, meaning it will be easier to qualify, doesn't work. Are you suggesting that if South Africa were replaced by Italy (making it a 6 ranking spread rather than 7) the group would be harder for wales to qualify from?

Mike Ford is a tool. What ridiculous comments.

what was anyone expecting him to say "We have the easiest group so we should walk it!"

Common sense people!

nathan wrote:what was anyone expecting him to say "We have the easiest group so we should walk it!"

Common sense people!

Difficult group maybe ?

Tomathy,
Fair point about Samoa's recent form, but as I said at the start of my comment "ASSUMING rankings....".
Replacing SA with Italy would of course not make it harder for Wales to qualify, but it would make it harder to predict who the qualifiers would be. At the moment that group looks like SA and someone else (probably Wales). Replace SA with Italy and the certainty about who will qualify is reduced - it becomes any two from three. Perhaps easier for Wales, but harder to predict overall which of the three possibles would qualify.

With the improvements in Argentinian, Italian and the PI's rugby over the last decade it now means there are 12 teams who think they have a chance of making the knock out stages, there are no groups of death just groups which you can't relax in.

The 1999 world cup threw up very few surprises with most groups finishing with the results as per the rankings and things have been steadily evening themselves out since.

The Welsh group is the toughest with 4 competitive teams rather than 3 in others. England are the seeded team and only need to beat 1 rated team to qualify and Argentina aren't up to the standards are a few years ago. I would be very surprised if England don't go undefeated through the group stages.

Personally I think Wales group contains 4 very physical and strong teams, the Islanders are going to bloody hurt people.

England should stroll through their group to be honest. Scotland are poor and have been for years, while Argentina haven't had a menacing scrum since the 1995 World Cup, when was the last time you saw them devestate anyone decent in a scrum?
They got their reputation in that World cup, and lost it when Noriega went to Australia, and Federico Mendez retired. the only reason we talk about scrums is because they offer little else. They strangle teams to death and rely on penalties.

donkeyprop wrote:Tomathy,
Fair point about Samoa's recent form, but as I said at the start of my comment "ASSUMING rankings....".
Replacing SA with Italy would of course not make it harder for Wales to qualify, but it would make it harder to predict who the qualifiers would be. At the moment that group looks like SA and someone else (probably Wales). Replace SA with Italy and the certainty about who will qualify is reduced - it becomes any two from three. Perhaps easier for Wales, but harder to predict overall which of the three possibles would qualify.

I agree harder to predict, but Ford is saying that we are in the hardest group, which I do not think we are. Yes it may be the hardest to predict, but I would rather be in our group than South Africa's, and you did say that the rankings being similar made our group technically the hardest.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/14777141.stm

England has the easiest of all the Pools and already thinking up excuses.

Does Ford know what he's talking about.....

Old news:



https://www.606v2.com/t13084-group-of-death-says-coach-mike-ford



Done to death.

It is a tough group, both ARG & SCO will raise their games against England and the other two will look to play it hard.

New zealands group is the easy one, NZ v FRA is the only real game there Tonga are the poorest Pacific Islands team so won't offer much.

England have two tough games, so his not far of the mark, but Wales group is the real group of death.

He was misquoted. He actually said group of dearth.

But seriously, there are plenty of pool hazards in every group. The floater that is France in NZ´s group, the plastic bag that is Argentina that can choke the life out of your beloved. The posing pouch that is the Australia speedo could come up short against the Irish lad with the fight in him and the big Polynesian or lanky Melanesian kid could duck dive the poor scrawny Welsh kid.

There are big dangers out there in the pools for everyone. So slap on the cream that protects you from the harmful banter of the foreign thugs, take plenty of hydration in the form of beer and let´s just enjoy ourselves out there.

Well said!

It's a group of death if you're not very good or not a lot better than your opposition.
What sort of draw would you need before you don't call your group a group of death.
If you're Japan every group is a group of death.
If you're SA no group is a group of death cause even though you might lose to Wales or Scotland or whatever you're probably going to beat them.