World Cup 2019 Pools

[Nubiwan]

Excuse my ignorance, but is there a method of seeding the teams for the World Cup Pools?

It rather dawned on me it might have been appropriate to put a southern RC team in each of the 4 groups, rather than NZ and SA in the same group. Did they simply want to guarantee the two teams meet? Glad at least they meet in the group opener as opposed to the last match, were nothing is likely to be on the line.

Still, Would not have hurt to split up all the Southern Hem 4 and top 4 from the 6N teams. Maybe that is what they did, and had a draw.

Group C would have the most room for any upset to decide the top 2 teams to advance. Samoa might do some damage in Pool A, but hard to see them advance. Pools B & D are rather straight forward, you'd have to say.

Pool A
Ireland
Scotland
Japan
Russia
Samoa

Pool B
New Zealand
South Africa
Italy
Namibia
Repechage winner

Pool C
England
France
Argentina
USA
Tonga

Pool D
Australia
Wales
Georgia
Fiji
Uruguay

 

[bushytop]

They seed the teams on World Rankings at (I think) two years out from the World Cup.

 

[bushytop]

Excuse my ignorance, but is there a method of seeding the teams for the World Cup Pools?

It rather dawned on me it might have been appropriate to put a southern RC team in each of the 4 groups, rather than NZ and SA in the same group. Did they simply want to guarantee the two teams meet? Glad at least they meet in the group opener as opposed to the last match, were nothing is likely to be on the line.

Still, Would not have hurt to split up all the Southern Hem 4 and top 4 from the 6N teams. Maybe that is what they did, and had a draw.

Group C would have the most room for any upset to decide the top 2 teams to advance. Samoa might do some damage in Pool A, but hard to see them advance. Pools B & D are rather straight forward, you'd have to say.

Pool A
Ireland
Scotland
Japan
Russia
Samoa

Pool B
New Zealand
South Africa
Italy
Namibia
Repechage winner

Pool C
England
France
Argentina
USA
Tonga

Pool D
Australia
Wales
Georgia
Fiji
Uruguay

Just looking at the pools again there are a couple of potentially great contests in that group stage. Apart from the obvious Tier 1 collisions, Japan vs Samoa, USA vs Tonga and Georgia vs Fiji stand out.

 

[Brigantine]

Samoa? You've got to be kidding. They're ranked 16th now, and they barely qualified. They're 14.18 RP below Scotland.
The current rankings would rather rate Fiji to beat Wales, Georgia to beat Australia, Italy to beat South Africa, or Tonga/USA to beat England.
(and then with home advantage, Japan to beat Ireland)

From my trusty spreadsheet model, the placings seen as tossups: (a pure tossup is 50%)

• Tonga vs USA (48%)
• France vs Argentina (38%) - QF spot
• Canada vs Namibia (35%)
• Samoa vs Russia (33%)
• Scotland vs Japan (31%) - QF spot
  
• Wales vs Australia (29%)
• Fiji vs Georgia (26%)

And then some games that don't quite count as tossups:

• Argentina vs Tonga (17%)
• Argentina vs USA (16%)
  
• New Zealand vs South Africa (14%)
• Australia vs Fiji (12%) - QF spot
  
• Georgia vs Uruguay (11%)
  
• France vs Tonga (10%)
  
• England vs France (10%)

(Japan vs Samoa is way down the list at 3%)

TBF, the WRR have their shortcomings. E.g. the USA just reached an all time high and I doubt many people actually think they're actually as good as the rankings say. But they're not *so* wrong that Samoa can be where they are ranked if they were actually in form.

 

[Kiwiwomble]

They seed the teams on World Rankings at (I think) two years out from the World Cup.

put simply this is my understanding, one of the interesting glitches in our sport RSA go through a down period mid world cup cycle and so get seeded with the AB's

 

[bushytop]

put simply this is my understanding, one of the interesting glitches in our sport RSA go through a down period mid world cup cycle and so get seeded with the AB's

It happens, Wales did the same around the autumn of 2013 and ended up in a group with a England and Oz.

 

[Brigantine]

If the seeding was done again today:

Band 1 (rank 1 - 4): Ireland, New Zealand, England, Wales(+)
Band 2 (rank 5 - 8): Scotland, South Africa, France, Australia(-)
Band 3 (rank 9-12): Japan, Tonga(+), Argentina, Fiji(+)
Band 4 (rk 13 - 16): Samoa(+), Italy(-), USA(+), Georgia(-)
Band 5 (all the rest): Russia(-), Repechage, Namibia(-), Uruguay

So Tonga would swap pools with Namibia (or maybe Canada). Everything else could have turned out the same.

 

[Kiwiwomble]

it will be interesting to see what they would be right before the next world cup, what movement the 6N causes etc

 

[TRF_heineken]

It is indeed very interesting to see how little the rankings have changed in 2 years since the draw. I think South Africa was ranked 8th at the time of the draw, and is now ranked 5th, so while we did jump 3 spots higher, it would have made no/little difference to the draw.

But I guess it shows just how competitive this World Cup will be. I think it will be the first one where there is no clear favourite. And with the All Blacks losing 2 games this year so far, it just shows that anyone can be beaten on any given day.

 

[bushytop]

It is indeed very interesting to see how little the rankings have changed in 2 years since the draw. I think South Africa was ranked 8th at the time of the draw, and is now ranked 5th, so while we did jump 3 spots higher, it would have made no/little difference to the draw.

But I guess it shows just how competitive this World Cup will be. I think it will be the first one where there is no clear favourite. And with the All Blacks losing 2 games this year so far, it just shows that anyone can be beaten on any given day.

Yeah I don't remember the All Blacks ever having such a 'blippy' season, the year before the World Cup, the bad thing for the rest of the world is that they will have absolutely no complacency when preparing as a result. Got a feeling it could be the best thing that could've happened to them.

Hopefully you're correct though.

 

[TRF_heineken]

Yeah I don't remember the All Blacks ever having such a 'blippy' season, the year before the World Cup, the bad thing for the rest of the world is that they will have absolutely no complacency when preparing as a result. Got a feeling it could be the best thing that could've happened to them.

Hopefully you're correct though.

Well, it was almost 4 losses for the AB's if we look at the SA vs. AB's game in Pretoria and the England game.

The thing is though, I think South Africa, England and Ireland have a plan in place on how to play against the AB's successfully with the players they have, while the AB's I feel have shown a lot more frailties in their armour than most expected. I think they are vulnerable with kicking at goal, or scoring points when defence are keeping them out (why else would Barrett start to practice drop goals 2 games in a row), and there seems be a problem in their centres, in that they don't know who to pick, and whatever combination they pick.

This EOYT has shown what the NH teams can do when their guys are on form and fit, while the SH teams have shown what could happen when their players are burnt out and fatigued/unfit.

 

[bushytop]

Well, it was almost 4 losses for the AB's if we look at the SA vs. AB's game in Pretoria and the England game...

Yeah I was counting those as blips even though they ended up as All Black wins, they were both definitely un-All Black-like performances.

As I said though, it could result in the All Blacks pushing themselves to new limits... I hope not though, international rugby is far mor exciting when everyone has a chance of beating everyone.

 

[Oliver Madden]

should be an interesting World Cup that is for sure. I think the obvious pools are B and D in terms of who will qualify. could the Boks beat the AB's in that 1st game and in doing so push NZ into a QF against probably Ireland?. I reckon Japan have a decent shout of going through too. they could beat Scotland on home soil. Pool C is an absolute beauty but i'd say England and France should just get through. Wales must also be confident of topping pool D ahead of the Wallabies.

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

New Zealand vs South Africa (14%)

14%? I tend to trust numbers blindly but intuitively that looks kinda low given the last two games.

 

[Brigantine]

It's based on NZ having 92.54 RP and South Africa 85.12. That 7.42 RP difference is maintained if NZ win 87% of the time and South Africa 13%.

But to sense-check that 14% figure, that's a 1 in 7 chance of South Africa winning. Per Wikipedia, South Africa won 1 of the last 7 matches vs NZ.
(and 1 of the 7 matches before that too, but that goes back to 2012)

If South Africa is improving and/or New Zealand losing their edge, there aren't many matches left, so we won't have much chance for the rankings to adjust before the RWC... so you could be right.

 

[Brigantine]

Updated based on this week's results, to show how much these rankings-based things change from week to week:


From my trusty spreadsheet model, the placings seen as tossups: (a pure tossup is 50%)

• France vs Argentina (48%) +10 - QF spot
• USA <--> Tonga (45%) -3
• Canada vs Namibia (35%)
  
• Samoa vs Russia (31%) -2
  
• Scotland vs Japan (29%) -2 - QF spot

And then some games that don't quite count as tossups:

• Wales vs Australia (21%) -8
• Fiji vs Georgia (20%) -6
• Australia vs Fiji (19%) +7 - QF spot
• Argentina vs USA (16%)
• France vs USA (15%) +6 - Potential QF spot
  
• Argentina vs Tonga (14%) -3
• France vs Tonga (13%) +3
• Georgia vs Uruguay (13%) +2
  
• New Zealand vs South Africa (11%) -3
• England vs France (3%) -7

Fiji's win vs France shook things up, and made Pool C even less predictable.

Chance to qualify from Pool C: England 99%, France 43%, Argentina 38%, USA 11%, Tonga 9%

 

[miccloarch]

I reckon Japan have a decent shout of going through too. they could beat Scotland on home soil.

I doubt it. Scotland have improved a lot. I think they're better than Australia at the moment (even though for some weird reason the Wallabies are ranked higher despite winning only 3 out of 10 games this year, one of which was against the mighty Italy lol).

I hope I'm wrong of course, there's nothing more boring than a World Cup without any upsets or dramatic last minute winning tries / drop goals.