2023 World Cup Draw

[Bada-Bing!]

Yeh If England do top D and win QF they would face the winners of the A v B (RU) QF in the semi. Likely NZ or France.

 

[ncurd]

Honeslty as a 'neurtal' I'm already salivating at those group A/B QF's could be two excellent games at a stage in the tournament where little exciting usually occurs unless someone feels like causing an upset.

 

[ncurd]

Wow. Pool B is a killer. A lot of permutations but Ireland with Scotland as tier 3 is a tough pool. Add to that those that get out of the pool face France and NZ in the QF and one of those probably in the SF with England in the final if we manage it that far (some big assumptions but that would probably be the most likely scenario... 3 years out...).

Honestly Scotland are utter shite (and don't have any signs on how they could improve) both Ireland and SA should push them over with relative ease. If they can't they are certainly not making making it out of the Quarter Final of doom.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

It's nice to know nearly 3 years out that we'll be in the bronze play off.

Who knows how Japan will look then, but if we continue with our current turgid game plan I could genuinely see them doing a Brighton 2015 style number on us.

 

[Oliver Madden]

General summary of the draw:
Pool A - NZ and France will easily qualify but NZ will have their work cut out to beat that French side in France.
Pool B - SA and Ireland to get through but a tough quarter-final awaits wherever they finish. Can't see Scotland qualifying unless they significantly improve.
Pool C - I think this is the most intriguing group. Wales and Australia are unknown quantities at the moment, Fiji are improving all the time and with another 3 years of top rugby under their belts I think they will be some side. Fiji could definitely qualify out of that group.
Pool D - A decent draw for England on paper but I think it is an awkward group. Japan and Argentina will both fancy their chances against us. We should top the pool but I wouldn't say it's a given.

Quarter-Final educated guesses:
France v Ireland
New Zealand v South Africa
England v Wales
Australia v Japan

 

[FrenchFan]

Easy draw for England not one team from the Top 7.

 

[sigesige00]

South Africa to lose against Scotland and Ireland, missing the QF's......

Which side will play in 2nd kits in RSA v Ireland?

 

[EdBirch]

Usually the designated Home side isn't it?

 

[Not Eddie Jones]

Easy draw for England not one team from the Top 7.

At the moment... but in 3 years time, who knows?

 

[Not Eddie Jones]

A good draw for us. Nice that Eddie gets to play Japan again after we missed out on the two-game tour to Japan this summer. I was really looking forward to that one. England are 2 from 2 all-time against Japan and 19 from 24 all-time against Argentina with 4 losses and 1 draw. However, we've won our last 10 straight against Argentina, stretching all the way back to 2009, so form looks good against both teams, but there's 3 years to go yet and anything could happen. Still, is it an omen that we could now end up playing Wales in the QF, France in the SF and Oz in the final, just like we did in 2003?

Perhaps not so big a surprise that Wales have got Oz and Fiji again given the limited number of teams being divided by a small number of pools, the odds aren't exactly astronomical against it happening, but disappointing for sure. Always nice to see some different matchups.

 

[EdBirch]

It's no different to NZ being with Italy and Namibia quite a few times

 

[ncurd]

the odds aren't exactly astronomical against it happening, but disappointing for sure. Always nice to see some different matchups.

1/16 chance of it happening, to happen twice is 1/256 the third is pretty huge at 1/4096.

(someone tell me if I have my Maths wrong but there a 1/4 chance you'll get a team, so in any year two team are 1/16, then its 16^3 for the three consecutive year).

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

1/16 chance of it happening, to happen twice is 1/256 the third is pretty huge at 1/4096.

(someone tell me if I have my Maths wrong but there a 1/4 chance you'll get a team, so in any year two team are 1/16, then its 16^3 for the three consecutive year).

I haven't checked it yet but I think it's one of those things where the probabilities are slightly deceptive. It may be the probability that a team faces 2 of the same teams in 3 tournaments is very low but the probability that at least 3 teams will be matched against each other more than once is counter-intuitively quite high (like the probability of 2 people sharing a birthday in a group requires a much smaller group than you'd expect).

 

[ncurd]

I haven't checked it yet but I think it's one of those things where the probabilities are slightly deceptive. It may be the probability that a team faces 2 of the same teams in 3 tournaments is very low but the probability that at least 3 teams will be matched against each other more than once is counter-intuitively quite high (like the probability of 2 people sharing a birthday in a group requires a much smaller group than you'd expect).

Isn't that because of the sample size though like if you take 120 people 1/3 of potential days are covered there 1/365 only works if you pick two random from that people in a group not if your trying to work out if any two people in that group. So you actually have 119 attempts at that 1/365 chance.

Where as in this your working a basic lottery system your in one band (doesn't matter), and your working out the chances one ball i pulled from one bag and another is pulled from another. That doesn't change, its the same chance as rolling 8 on 2 4 sided dice. There are 16 possible outcomes and this only works once. I'm 99% sure that's right, where I might be wrong is the chances of it happening more than once. But I can't find anything that suggests otherwise.

 

[BPM]

General summary of the draw:
Pool A - NZ and France will easily qualify but NZ will have their work cut out to beat that French side in France.
Pool B - SA and Ireland to get through but a tough quarter-final awaits wherever they finish. Can't see Scotland qualifying unless they significantly improve.
Pool C - I think this is the most intriguing group. Wales and Australia are unknown quantities at the moment, Fiji are improving all the time and with another 3 years of top rugby under their belts I think they will be some side. Fiji could definitely qualify out of that group.
Pool D - A decent draw for England on paper but I think it is an awkward group. Japan and Argentina will both fancy their chances against us. We should top the pool but I wouldn't say it's a given.

Quarter-Final educated guesses:
France v Ireland
New Zealand v South Africa
England v Wales
Australia v Japan

I think it's impossible to gauge what kind of a threat Argentina or Japan can pose this far out.

A lot of Japan's best players in recent times are the wrong side of 30 and several will be hard pressed to make it to 2023 (Horie, Nagare, Leitch etc.). I have no idea if the next generation of Japanese players is any good or not?

Really not sure on Argentina either. Beat the All Blacks one week and then get spanked the next. That has no bearing on how good or not they'll be in 2023.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Of course it will be exciting, there will be some good rugby, a smattering of drama and controversy, great crowds and the French will put on a fabulous show. You can take all that as read. But there is definitely a sense of same old same old at individual fixture and more general levels.

Apologies for the blindingly obvious.....

This will be the tenth iteration and the fourth time France have hosted either some games or the whole thing.

The 9 finals to date have been contested by only 5 countries and you'd be brave to put any money on that changing in the foreseeable. There's been the odd close shave, esp involving Wal but the established order has always found a way through.

Of the 36 teams to have contested semi finals 30 have been from the 5 RWC winning countries, all of whom have reached that stage at least 5 times. The others were Wal x 3, Arg x 2 and Sco.....and 2 of those predate the Boks joining the party in 95.

Looking back to the inaugural comp in 87 the 8 quarter finalists were all named in the higher tiers in today's draw - 3 in band 1 (almost certainly 4 had the Boks not been country non grata in 87) - 3 in band 2 and Sco and Fiji in band 3. Despite all the posturing since, it is to rugby's shame that this status quo persists and that not even one international team has done an Exeter and properly broken through to consistently challenge near the top.

We know all this. It's just a bit depressing spelling it out in this way.

 

[munstermuffin]

The group is actually quite good, we've been a bit of a bogey team for SA since 04 and beat them more often than we should and chances are so slim that we'll lose to Scotland in a game that matters, they've worse big game mentality than us.

NZ and France are as bad as it can be, easily the two teams that have been the most dominant over us in the history of the sport.

Sure the QF is our limit

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Of course it will be exciting, there will be some good rugby, a smattering of drama and controversy, great crowds and the French will put on a fabulous show. You can take all that as read. But there is definitely a sense of same old same old at individual fixture and more general levels.

Apologies for the blindingly obvious.....

This will be the tenth iteration and the fourth time France have hosted either some games or the whole thing.

The 9 finals to date have been contested by only 5 countries and you'd be brave to put any money on that changing in the foreseeable. There's been the odd close shave, esp involving Wal but the established order has always found a way through.

Of the 36 teams to have contested semi finals 30 have been from the 5 RWC winning countries, all of whom have reached that stage at least 5 times. The others were Wal x 3, Arg x 2 and Sco.....and 2 of those predate the Boks joining the party in 95.

Looking back to the inaugural comp in 87 the 8 quarter finalists were all named in the higher tiers in today's draw - 3 in band 1 (almost certainly 4 had the Boks not been country non grata in 87) - 3 in band 2 and Sco and Fiji in band 3. Despite all the posturing since, it is to rugby's shame that this status quo persists and that not even one international team has done an Exeter and properly broken through to consistently challenge near the top.

We know all this. It's just a bit depressing spelling it out in this way.

That's a fairly depressing outlook in my opinion. Rugby in Ireland, Wales and Argentina has grown massively in that time, they're yet to reach finals but two have been ranked 1st and Argentina were the second best team at a world cup but played the best in their semi final in 07.

In terms of hosting it doesn't look great but having gone from being in a position where only NZ, Oz, France, England or a mix of European countries could host you can add Japan, Ireland on our own and very likely USA and Argentina.

The number of champions is two less than soccer and the same as cricket in the same period. (and one less tournament than cricket I believe)

It's decent growth in a short timeframe for a sport that is only the most popular sport in a handful of countries at most. We'd all love a new super power but given the populations involved of the teams ranked about 5-12 it's unlikely. A lot of sports in Japan, Italy and the US are totally blocking rugby from establishing itself at the level required to be the best and Wales (2nd most popular), Ireland (4th), Scotland (2nd at best?) etc... are just too small to compete without it being the most popular sport by a long way. Argentina has their own troubles too as we've seen lately.

I don't see how the tournament isn't a success, its viewing figures, participants, stadium attendances etc... Has risen massively and it's definitely not a niche sport anymore.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

I didn't say the tournament wasn't a success, just usually pretty samey. The reason why Japan was so brilliant last year was precisely because the Japanese brought something new and vibrant to the party both on and off the pitch.

Unfortunately I guess the reality is that we can probably only ever expect the latter stages to be contested by the the teams with the best domestic infrastructure and yes, resources. In some sports, notably my other passions of athletics and cycling, you can get totally unexpected winners on the biggest stage but in terms of winning competitions rugby doesn't really lend itself to that.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Same with tennis. I mean with Nadal and Djokovic dominating the slams. Was great to see Thiem finally Nick one this year. First time a new male player has won one for 6 years. Samey does get dull. Women's game more interesting with different winners.