The Bigger Picture

Current IRB rankings

1.NZ
2.Aus
3.Fra
4.SA
______________
5.Wal
6.Eng

With seedings for the 2015RWC to be decided as at the standings at the end of this year (ridiculous in my view given that things move fast in rugby).

England's task is to scrape into the top 4 by then.

We have games against - Ireland (8th) at home (on St Patrick's Day!) and France (3rd) then SA (4th) x3 away in SA then NZ (1st), Aus (2nd) and Fiji.

My understanding is that you only tread water if you beat sides with lower rankings than yourself (?) I suppose you lose ground if you lose to them (?) and you do gain ground if you beat sides ranked above you as Wales have just done.

The following questions arise -

What hope do England realistically have of getting to 4th by the end of the year? I say very little.

If England don’t manage to get there and end up being in a pool with one of the top 4 sides in our home RWC should England supporters be disappointed?

Will the tournament itself be diminished?

OR (as I suspect)will the real loser out of that scenario be the top 4 seeded side that has England in it's pool?

I expect England to mount a very serious challenge for the RWC at our home tournament in 2015.

A home tournament isn't diminished because the home team has to play a top team or defending world champions in the pool rounds.

In 1995 at home SA had to play against the Wallabies the then world champions.

We weren't favourites but Kitch christie targeted that match as our one to win, the rest is history.

In 2007 we had to play england in the pools, the then defending world champions. the rest is history.

So hopefully we can end up in NZ's pool next world cup as it seems to be to our benefit.














OR not.

I would think it has to do with attitude.

There wont be a problem there Biltong! We'll be up for it!!

Then you have no worries mate.

The top 8 can all beat each other so the draw for that isnt the biggest factor in my opinion. Ok should Wales make the top 4 and get a favourable second tier nation they they would feel pretty confident.

The 3rd tier teams currently Scotland, Italy, Tonga and Samoa seem to have a bigger impact of making the knock out stages. Look at the England, Scotland and Argentina group last year, none of the big names but probably the closest run group out of the 4.

If the gap closes even further with Italy improving year on year and Scotland looking to have a lot of potential in their new players you could have your team hoping to draw a PI to stand the best chance of progressing. But then again if you really want to win you should be confident with any draw you get.

So the conclusion there is that ultimately England should focus on trying to win games while developing younger players, building up towards 2015 rather than opting for short termism selections to try to grab wins-at-all-costs. (i.e the approach of the last 8 years)

p.s forget about the seedings. treat them as an irrelevance and something for the media to talk about.

Excellent. Happy now.

Triangulation wrote:So the conclusion there is that ultimately England should focus on trying to win games while developing younger players, building up towards 2015 rather than opting for short termism selections to try to grab wins-at-all-costs. (i.e the approach of the last 8 years)

Depends where the focus lies. Often building towards a medium term goal can have the opposite effect. Win at all costs always, and let the cards fall where they may come world cup time.

You cannot foresee injuries or loss of form.

I would rather see SA win 75% of their matches in between world cups and then be third favourite at the world cup, than win 60% in between and be supposed favourites come the world cup.

As we saw with 2011, you can be as dominant and all over a team as a crocodile on a beaver, but if another crocodile(Lawrence) impacts the hunt, it is all over anyway.

Noooooooo Biltong

I was happy dont complicate it!!



Actually i think Australia have officially abandoned "building for world cups" as a policy after the last one. They avowedly now only every focus on the next match. Fair enough if your system is churing out young talent and you have had the foresight to integrate good young players into a winning team in ones and twos.

Not quite the same for us. We have due to our own fault in the past , overhauled things and now have to show a little patience.

The middle road.

also want to add.

We have two world cups, but I can't remember two years where we actually won 75% of our matches.

The more you win the better your chances are to win the RWC anyway.

I think the reason why teams aren't exposing enough young talent every year is because coaches have been duped into this "world cup success" and hence they lack the courage to expose enough players.

having SA in the group (and first up) worked in Wales favour last year. their performance in that game set the tone for their tournament and they were ready for the challenges samoa had to throw at them.

not sure you can say for definite whether having one of the top tri-nations is a good or bad thing.

England atm are in a position where a couple of losses (in the vein of this weekends) wont be used to beat the coach with. As long as the performances improve and they're still winning the games they are expected too, the fans/RFU will be happy.

Saying that, that will only roll on for so long, as we often hear (and Biltong has touched on it here), international rugby is a results business. Winning breeds winning and its a lot easier to introduce promising youngsters into a team enviroment of this ilk than a losing one with the media on the teams back...

Tri,

Its not so much how far above or below in rankings you are but the pints gap.

If you paly teams witha much higher rating you dont stand to lose much by loosing to them, but you can get a lot by winning. Teams playing those with much lower rankings dont stand to gain many points.

The most impronat games for England will infact be the last two AIs. If they can fluke a win in one of those theyll get a mighty points boost, although out of a world cup its unlikley to be enough to lift them into the top 4 unless theyve managed a couple of other wins along the way.

Fiji are so lowly ranked at the moment that england are unlikely to gain much by beating them.

Its looking very unlikley they will make the top 4. It would be a mriacle if they went to SA and won.

Scotland and Italy have a small danger of being pushed into the third tier thanks to Samoa and Tonga picking up decent double points wins at the world cup. Its certainly looking like Scotland are unlikley make the second pot.

"Its not so much how far above or below in rankings you are but the pints gap."

Comfort is that a Feeudian slip or are you 1 out yet again

I'm not sure if there is anything England can do to make the top tier, although there is something they can do to help the Welsh make it...

i think you can allocate that slip up to Pete

Ruby 3 - 1 Comfort

1 more Comfort and I'm reporting you to the MODS - Me sticking with you is like Gatland sticking with Powell - Now get a grip man, oh! and fetch the golf buggy from last night

3-1? where the heck did you get 1 from???

it was a morale victory Ruby!

Am I alone in getting fed yup with Englkand always choosing to tour SANZAR ccountries and having 3 AIS they are pretty much garaunteed to lose too?

Wouldnt it be nice for the players to be given a chance of winning games for once? How a bout a tour of Argentina, sure they welcome us with open arms ( so long as they didnt dock at the falkands on the way)
Or a nice summer touring the Pacific Islands, they could visit Haskell and chums in Japan.

I think the bigger impact on the seedings will be when the 3N teams anchored in the top 4 play the NH series later this year. If Ireland score 3 wins in NZ (ok unlikely) or more realistically, target the last test match then they can slingshot all the way into 2nd spot with just a single win. Which obviously will make everyone else's job much harder.

The last 2 world cups have seen the finalists come out of the same pool (SA and Eng in '07, NZ and France in 11), so having one strong pool opponent isn't the end of the world. Where you can run into trouble is if the 3rd seed in your pool is strong - and that really comes down to pot luck.

That said, if England, Wales or Ireland can knock France out of the top 4 we'd love to get them in our pool again; NZ knows how to beat France in finals, it's quarters and semis that are tricky

Had to have Cart Blanche at the breakdown though...

miteyironpaw wrote:I think the bigger impact on the seedings will be when the 3N teams anchored in the top 4 play the NH series later this year. If Ireland score 3 wins in NZ (ok unlikely) or more realistically, target the last test match then they can slingshot all the way into 2nd spot with just a single win. Which obviously will make everyone else's job much harder.

Not from a single win, unless they were already way higher rated than they are currently by beating France and England. Theres a maximum number of rating points you can gain in one game, even if they won by a 15 point margin. Thed still have to defend that place in the AIs, and would stand to lose points rapidly as the sides they were facing would be rated below them ....

You coupld colour me amazed if anyone other than France made the top 4. Wales are the only other tema with a chance, but again notoriosly bad summer tourists.

As kiwi said though it really all about not pulling a draw like Wales did in the last cup, with teams like Fiji and even potentialy Scotland lurking in pot 4 they are the ones that can stop you progressing., Finishing top of the group is nice, but not the most importnat thing.

I dont know if England could make the top 4 by the time the next rugby world cup comes around, but i would like to think that they would be there or there abouts if they keep the team they have now and build on this yeas 6ns. What worry me though is when this 6ns is over who the next full time England coach/es will be.

A team needs stability, it needs the right coach and back room staff, it needs to have deapth of players that are good enough to step in if one of the regulary squad memeber get injured.

At the moment though England just need to focus on this years 6ns, and then start to think towards 2015 rugby world cup.

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

miteyironpaw wrote:I think the bigger impact on the seedings will be when the 3N teams anchored in the top 4 play the NH series later this year. If Ireland score 3 wins in NZ (ok unlikely) or more realistically, target the last test match then they can slingshot all the way into 2nd spot with just a single win. Which obviously will make everyone else's job much harder.

Not from a single win, unless they were already way higher rated than they are currently by beating France and England. Theres a maximum number of rating points you can gain in one game, even if they won by a 15 point margin. Thed still have to defend that place in the AIs, and would stand to lose points rapidly as the sides they were facing would be rated below them ....

You coupld colour me amazed if anyone other than France made the top 4. Wales are the only other tema with a chance, but again notoriosly bad summer tourists.

As kiwi said though it really all about not pulling a draw like Wales did in the last cup, with teams like Fiji and even potentialy Scotland lurking in pot 4 they are the ones that can stop you progressing., Finishing top of the group is nice, but not the most importnat thing.

Best sides this year.... highest ranked sides this year.... are not necessarily going to be the top ranked sides by 2015. Now, you could argue that the top 2 or 3 sides probably will be...but the rest, it's in the air.

So why should there be so much concern about who is in your Pool? The Pool top dogs might be dreading meeting the Pool underdogs by the time 2015 comes around.

The key is to avoid Samoa - End of

What does it matter really?
Every pool will have a top 4 team and a next 4 team.
Say Ireland monster NZ, Wales monster Aus and Eng Monster SA for the rest of the year.
So Ireland 1, Wales 2, England 3, France 4 (or something like that) then you'll still have to play NZ or Aus etc in a pool or 1/2 or semi or whatever.
Just play and beat whoever is in front of you and then you deserve to be Champions.
Hoping to avoid a team is just bull***t in my opinion.
And really who gives a toss about the WC now. There's games to be won now. England should think about the 6Ns first.

nganboy wrote:Just play and beat whoever is in front of you and then you deserve to be Champions.

Hoping to avoid a team is just.........

Silly.
Hoping to avoid a team is just silly. Really is.

I can't agree more: Just play who is in front of you and go out and win. No whining.