RWC 15 - Pool A - Australia, England, Wales, Fiji, Uruguay

First topic message reminder :

    
The pool with the highest rankers and most arguments.

Teams

Australia (2) [9/1]
England (4) [5/1]
Wales (5) [25/1]
Fiji (9) [1500/1]
Uruguay (19) [10,000/1]

Fixtures

18 Sep England v Fiji
20 Sep Wales v Uruguay
23 Sep Australia v Fiji
26 Sep England v Wales
27 Sep Australia v Uruguay
1 Oct Wales v Fiji
3 Oct England v Australia
6 Oct Fiji v Uruguay
10 Oct Australia v Wales
10 Oct England v Uruguay


Wales suffering two key player losses - will they try even harder?    Will they now have to score more/some tries?
England are now the second coming or coming second - depending on your point of view.
Australia have a scrum - apparently - so all is well with the world.

This pool could see one loss each for the three top teams - or is that four?   Fiji, currently ranked ninth in the world, might determine who emerges from this pool, including themselves.

The Aussies are on the up.  So are England sitting as the highest ranked NH team for the start of the tournament.

Wales will beg to differ with Gatland leading the mind games into the first of the pool matches.

It's too close to call, so everybody else can have their say instead.

englandglory4ever wrote:

Fanster wrote:It's a sad day when the white middle class and over privaliged don't even recognise the structure suits them as opposed to smaller nations...

That sounds very corbynesque. Professional sport is not about ensuring everything is perfectly equal for every nation in the world. It's about working hard to get ahead, get an edge. The day rugby gets run by the commies is the day it dies.

Then obviously you need to work a lot harder

englandglory4ever wrote:

Fanster wrote:It's a sad day when the white middle class and over privaliged don't even recognise the structure suits them as opposed to smaller nations...

That sounds very corbynesque. Professional sport is not about ensuring everything is perfectly equal for every nation in the world. It's about working hard to get ahead, get an edge. The day rugby gets run by the commies is the day it dies.

Having thought about it (and drank while thinking about it), it would not be so bad for World Rugby to be ruled by a bunch of lefties. All of that nice tv and beer advertisment money made by the 6N and RC would be shared from Madagascar to Mongolia. Why not after all? We had a head start so the "others" should get some proper help to catch up. If the game bosses are serious about growing the sport then more emphasis should go to re-distributing the rewards in adifferent way.

Also I think it would be more than fair for tier1 countries to be the ones forced to play every 4 days while the tier 2 and below enjoy lomg week rests. All about level playing field isnt it

Well said!

Now we're getting somewhere.  Tier 1 do the four days and Tier two do the 7 or 8 days.  

Sponsors go ape-schidt!  
Threaten to pull the plug on the corpo-boxes and match adverts coz their market audience is being victimised by Fairness and might actually end up as spectators for the play-off stages as a result.  
The risk of Major Market populations drifting away from the WC because they no longer have a vested interest????

'No way' says the Banks and Electricity Companies and soft drinks people etc etc...

Nah the usual suspects would still go through allthough the road to the QFs would be less straightforward. A couple of upsets might happen but tier 1 have enough depth to manage 2 games in 5 days once. All in all the pool games entertainment value might just improve , all for the good of beer sellers. The rugby brand value clearly benefits more from a game like SA-Japan than Wales-Uruguay.

I'll go a set further and get World Rugby to hire a few top notch super coaches and physios to give free consulting and training to the "needy" during the 6 months preceding the world cup. We saw what a good preparation did to Japan albeit it didnt last.

So Fiji next to spoil a party?

whocares wrote:

englandglory4ever wrote:

Fanster wrote:It's a sad day when the white middle class and over privaliged don't even recognise the structure suits them as opposed to smaller nations...

That sounds very corbynesque. Professional sport is not about ensuring everything is perfectly equal for every nation in the world. It's about working hard to get ahead, get an edge. The day rugby gets run by the commies is the day it dies.

Having thought about it (and drank while thinking about it), it would not be so bad for World Rugby to be ruled by a bunch of lefties. All of that nice tv and beer advertisment money made by the 6N and RC would be shared from Madagascar to Mongolia. Why not after all? We had a head start so the "others" should get some proper help to catch up. If the game bosses are serious about growing the sport then more emphasis should go to re-distributing the rewards in adifferent way.

Also I think it would be more than fair for tier1 countries to be the ones forced to play every 4 days while the tier 2 and below enjoy lomg week rests. All about level playing field isnt it

Good luck with selling tickets for a Romanian v Uruguay final. Oh and keeping TV and sponsors happy. As I say. When the left move in the game is dead.

englandglory4ever wrote:

whocares wrote:

englandglory4ever wrote:

Fanster wrote:It's a sad day when the white middle class and over privaliged don't even recognise the structure suits them as opposed to smaller nations...

That sounds very corbynesque. Professional sport is not about ensuring everything is perfectly equal for every nation in the world. It's about working hard to get ahead, get an edge. The day rugby gets run by the commies is the day it dies.

Having thought about it (and drank while thinking about it), it would not be so bad for World Rugby to be ruled by a bunch of lefties. All of that nice tv and beer advertisment money made by the 6N and RC would be shared from Madagascar to Mongolia. Why not after all? We had a head start so the "others" should get some proper help to catch up. If the game bosses are serious about growing the sport then more emphasis should go to re-distributing the rewards in adifferent way.

Also I think it would be more than fair for tier1 countries to be the ones forced to play every 4 days while the tier 2 and below enjoy lomg week rests. All about level playing field isnt it

Good luck with selling tickets for a Romanian v Uruguay final. Oh and keeping TV and sponsors happy. As I say. When the left move in the game is dead.

The game has strengthened outside the six nations and the three dominant Southern Hemisphere teams over the last decade and it is a much stronger sport for it. The more World Rugby can do to help the lower ranked nations the better.

The idiocy of the narrow minded and lazy comments above that think the game should not focus on growth are baffling.

The way to kill anything is to ignore progression, expansion and investment in weak areas to make them strong. Lazy narrow minded self sufficient short term attitude is blind to progress.

Did I mention that Im Welsh qualified through a grandparent?