The RWC pool draws - live

First topic message reminder :

THE POOL ALLOCATION DRAW WILL BE STREAMED LIVE ON RUGBYWORLDCUP.COM FROM 14:55 UK TIME ON 3 DECEMBER (15:55 CET, 16:55 (South Africa), 11:55 (Argentina), 01:55 4 December (NSW Australia), 03:55 4 December (New Zealand, Fiji), 04:55 4 December (Samoa)

Featuring Boris Johnson amongst the glitterati so it's anyone's guess what sort of a dick he'll make of himself.
(note to IRB: the RWC was granted to England, not London).
p.s. good call not inviting Cameron though.

I can't find any mention of the event on the ITV* schedules which as UK host broadcaster is disappointing up to the point when one realises that that font of rugby wisdom, Steve Rider will not be anchoring the event.

[ed: beg puddin.
Monday 3rd December
IRB Rugby World Cup 2015 – Pool Stage Draw
LIVE: 2.45pm-3.30pm – ITV4

wales606 wrote:

Golden wrote:Am i right in thinking that if Ireland come second to France they will most likely draw New Zealand in the Quarters?

Doesn't A play C and B play D?

In which case...it is the worst possible Welsh draw. We will have to beat England and Aus to avoid losing to NZ in the 1/4s, and at the moment we could barely beat Namibia.

Oh cheers i bloody hope so.

Thought it was A plays B and C play D

Lets just hope Fiji stay sh1te and dont do a samoa, who after a few fallow years really perked up for the last 18 months

Well, Ireland should be happy, Scotland have been given a real opportunity but boy oh boy is Pool A going to be doozy!

You've got love that Pool A. It's going to be exciting from the start if nothing else!

Golden wrote:

wales606 wrote:

Golden wrote:Am i right in thinking that if Ireland come second to France they will most likely draw New Zealand in the Quarters?

Doesn't A play C and B play D?

In which case...it is the worst possible Welsh draw. We will have to beat England and Aus to avoid losing to NZ in the 1/4s, and at the moment we could barely beat Namibia.

Oh cheers i bloody hope so.

Thought it was A plays B and C play D

actually that's a good question: who plays who in the QFs?

Morgannwg wrote:Say England beat Wales and lose to Aus, but Wales beat Aus then it comes down to points difference? I guess there's no room for rotation then. Unless one of Fiji or Uruguay decide to throw the towel in against Eng/Aus and go for it against Wales. Wouldn't surprise me.

It could come down to bonus points remember.

maestegmafia wrote:

bedfordwelsh wrote:

maestegmafia wrote:Could have been a lot worse for Wales...! Neither of the tier two and one teams in our group are as consistently as NZ or SA so that bodes well for our chances of qualifying.

Pretty happy with that

Maes,

Lets hope you are right but if the WC was now then we wouldn't qualify and a lot will have to happen for me to change my mind. With Howley and Co in charge for the 6 Nations we will be battling it out for the spoon.

That may be... We might suffer further injuries before and we might not see the lads who are currently out return. We may see the players that are still walking drop form further.

Then again to be honest, we have been close to the Aussies for the last 12 months and England we are pretty evens on results with...!

Maes,

We may have been close to the Aussies but will we ever learn how to close a game out, everytime its this will make us stronger and we will learn from this but we never seem to.

Until we do then we won't beat any of the big boys constantly.

From an Irish view..............I'll take that!

mystiroakey wrote:Well this place is gonna be busy with the welsh v english for the next 3 years at least!!

Looking forward to the 'My team for the 2015 WC pool stages' articles which should appear in....Ooooh, half hours time.

Pool A, whoever goes through will be up and running ready for the knockouts, no easy games there, perfectly happy with that.

Likewise NZ have been handed an easy pool, perfect for them to be undercooked for the quarters?!

Scotland must be pretty pleased, likewise Ireland, topping that pool is a very realistic aim for them.

Golden wrote:

wales606 wrote:

Golden wrote:Am i right in thinking that if Ireland come second to France they will most likely draw New Zealand in the Quarters?

Doesn't A play C and B play D?

In which case...it is the worst possible Welsh draw. We will have to beat England and Aus to avoid losing to NZ in the 1/4s, and at the moment we could barely beat Namibia.

Oh cheers i bloody hope so.

Thought it was A plays B and C play D

Nope, I was wrong

http://www.rwc2011.irb.com/home/standings/index.html

A plays B
C plays D

the quarter final rules arent in the official website yet, but in 2011 Pool A played Pool B etc

Well, Wales just have to beat England and Australia, then we get to play Scotland/Samoa in the 1/4s - hopefully Scotland tbh.

Tonga will be laughing. Only Argentina and an 'aging' NZ to overcome.

They'll be studying that English video closely.

thomh wrote:

Morgannwg wrote:Say England beat Wales and lose to Aus, but Wales beat Aus then it comes down to points difference? I guess there's no room for rotation then. Unless one of Fiji or Uruguay decide to throw the towel in against Eng/Aus and go for it against Wales. Wouldn't surprise me.

It could come down to bonus points remember.

Against the weakest two I think that's pretty much gauranteed, but can you see Wales, England or Australia scoring 4 tries against each other?

wales606 wrote:

Golden wrote:

wales606 wrote:

Golden wrote:Am i right in thinking that if Ireland come second to France they will most likely draw New Zealand in the Quarters?

Doesn't A play C and B play D?

In which case...it is the worst possible Welsh draw. We will have to beat England and Aus to avoid losing to NZ in the 1/4s, and at the moment we could barely beat Namibia.

Oh cheers i bloody hope so.

Thought it was A plays B and C play D

Nope, I was wrong

http://www.rwc2011.irb.com/home/standings/index.html

A plays B
C plays D

you can picture it can't you? Wales gloriously beat Australia following a last-minute Priestland drop goal, hammer England through a brilliant all-round performance, then lose to Samoa in the QFs

It is a long long time ahead. I wouldn't want to guess at next years 6N results let alone WC 2015.
The internet may just melt though when the England Wales game comes up!

Godwin's law could be rewritten as: "every thread remotely rugby/England/Wales related will eventually descend into bickering about the up-coming 2015 group match"...

Morgannwg wrote:

thomh wrote:

Morgannwg wrote:Say England beat Wales and lose to Aus, but Wales beat Aus then it comes down to points difference? I guess there's no room for rotation then. Unless one of Fiji or Uruguay decide to throw the towel in against Eng/Aus and go for it against Wales. Wouldn't surprise me.

It could come down to bonus points remember.

Against the weakest two I think that's pretty much gauranteed, but can you see Wales, England or Australia scoring 4 tries against each other?

Unlikely but I can see LOSING bonus points making the difference.

Blimey, Pool A is going to be highly contested!! Jeeeeeeeeeeez.

wales606 wrote:Well, Wales just have to beat England and Australia, then we get to play Scotland/Samoa in the 1/4s - hopefully Scotland tbh.

That's the long and short of it and following the mess we got ourselves in I'm pretty happy with the outcome. It could've been a lot worse for us...

I'm happy

Still don't know whether to be excited or depress at that draw?
On the plus side I hope we send Oz home early, but I can't help but think they're going to gang up on the Host nation.

Would've much preferred Pool A (instead of Australia) rather than Pool C from an AB perspective. My only consolation is that at least in Georgia, Argentina and even a much improved Tonga in the set piece, our pack gets a good work out. All depends on Ireland and whether they can pull off an upset like they did in 2011. Would much rather face Ireland in the quarters than France.

Looks like England, Wales and Australia battle it out for top spot which means SA could well get stuck with a very challenging quarter final game, which might work out well.

Going to be very interesting in those top two pools to see who comes out on top. Don't know how it works in the semis but looks like it'll be very competitive and difficult to pick. So some teams happy and others not but you never know what happens in the pools and from then on. At some stage you're going to have to face a team you don't want to so bring on the challenge. From a revenue point of view, England should no problem having their pool games sell out. That is a pool of death. One that should set up the event for fireworks early on.

Argentina will be happy not to face the ABs in the knockout rounds, Samoa will be looking out for a big upset and France look in a strong position. Bring it on!

what do the aussies think!!!!

Ah lord well just have to beat France then and save our first victory over the All Blacks til the final

Mad for Chelsea wrote:

wales606 wrote:

Golden wrote:

wales606 wrote:

Golden wrote:Am i right in thinking that if Ireland come second to France they will most likely draw New Zealand in the Quarters?

Doesn't A play C and B play D?

In which case...it is the worst possible Welsh draw. We will have to beat England and Aus to avoid losing to NZ in the 1/4s, and at the moment we could barely beat Namibia.

Oh cheers i bloody hope so.

Thought it was A plays B and C play D

Nope, I was wrong

http://www.rwc2011.irb.com/home/standings/index.html

A plays B
C plays D

you can picture it can't you? Wales gloriously beat Australia following a last-minute Priestland drop goal, hammer England through a brilliant all-round performance, then lose to Samoa in the QFs

We just need to treat the England and Aus games as the 1/4s and semi.

Wales vs Australia = Wales
Wales vs England = Wales
Wales vs Samoa/Scotland = Wales
Wales vs France/Ireland/Argentina = Wales
Wales vs New Zealand/South Africa/Australia/England

That's the path to Wales' glorious victory in 2015.

blimey peops are allready posting there paths off victory up. chill ya beanz!

Can't wait for Wales's DoR in 2015, SCW, thoughts closer to the time...

Biltong
RSA get an armchair into the QFs !

hang on food for thought here lads- we could have england/wales final!!!

COME ON THE ENGLAND V WALES FINAL 2015!!

Argie fan wrote:I just hope that Argentina will play in the New Zealand group, so we avoid them in the quarterfinals.

Cheers!!!

Quite gratifying for Scotland fans to note that even if we'd won our final autumn international, we'd have ended up in the same pool anyway.

No doubts about the group of death - good luck Wales - Aussies, England, Fiji.

Christ that pool A is a barsteward! .....

You would think that both Samoa and Italy would be fairly happy with the draw too (not that there are any of their fans on here!), they both have a good chance for the quarters I think especially given Samoa will actually be able to train together as a team beforehand.

Italy too, they play France/Ireland every year, so they know what they have to do.

The Aussies will no doubt be secretly happy with that. They would prefer to have someone like England in their pool and they hold a spell over Wales at the moment. They'll look back to their 2011 RWC where they got carried away with the hype of them as 3N champs and took Ireland lightly. That set them up with a date against SA and they were lucky to escape with a victory. They'll much prefer to be masters of their own fate and will be thorough in their preparation. Like England, these guys are no mugs when it comes to performing at World Cups. England will know they have to raise the stakes right from the beginning instead of their feeble efforts in pool play last time. They have genuine opposition and seem to be able to rise well to the big occasion.

Forget the Novovirus. I'll be sh**ing all week and during the match if we face France in the quarters!

mystiroakey wrote:hang on food for thought here lads- we could have england/wales final!!!

The odds of that must be astronomical now.

Australia would have to be knocked out in the pools
England/Wales would then have to face SA and then NZ
Meanwhile the other gets Samoa/Scotland and Ireland/France to deal with

Scotland are jammy as anything to get that group, although they'll need to make sure they get TBPs out of the USA and Japan (not likely).

Ya but wales606 we are both kinda at home..if you get sa- we can take out NZ..

Does this change the use of the Millenium Stadium during the group games at all?

oh sorry you mean one team would have to take out sa then NZ!!

errr... thats a tough one!

Mad for Chelsea wrote:Godwin's law could be rewritten as: "every thread remotely rugby/England/Wales related will eventually descend into bickering about the up-coming 2015 group match"...

bigtrev england clearly get the home game

mystiroakey wrote:Ya but wales606 we are both kinda at home..if you get sa- we can take out NZ..

One would have to take out both NZ and SA and the other would get a relative cruise against Samoa/Scotland and France/Ireland.

You can take NZ and SA, we will get rid of the other Celts

Adds a new edge to the Lions tour doesnt it

BigTrevsbigmac wrote:Does this change the use of the Millenium Stadium during the group games at all?

I gues we might have our games against the 4th n 5th seeds there but can't see us playing Australia there now.

TJ wrote:

Mad for Chelsea wrote:Godwin's law could be rewritten as: "every thread remotely rugby/England/Wales related will eventually descend into bickering about the up-coming 2015 group match"...

And lets not forget the moral implications of scoring trys....

It's certainly the hardest group England have ever had in a world cup.