Sunday, May 20, 2007

A World Cup Prediction

Alright...so if games go to form, here's a possible World Cup Scenario:

Pool A
South Africa
England

Pool B
Australia
Wales

Pool C
NZ
Scotland

Pool D
France
Ireland

Quarterfinals

QF 1: Australia v England - the 2 underperformers in World Rugby last year - toss a coin
QF 2: NZ v Ireland - have never beaten us
QF 3: South Africa v Wales - should go the Japie's way
QF 4: France v Scotland - on form the French should win

Assuming all the home unions get dealt to as you'd expect and have their normal quarter final exit...

Semi finals

SF 1: Australia v NZ
SF 2: South Africa v France

Final

NZ v either South Africa or France...

So the Tri Nations is perhaps more important than one might think this year - NZ's likely semi final and final opposition could be Aussie and SA! NZ has never lost a final to Aussie...but we have lost 2 semi finals to Aussie in 1991 and 2003. We have also lost a final to South Africa. Lets hope its the French in the final: we have beat them in a final and I think there's still a need to decisively purge the nation of the 1999 semi final loss to the eye gouging, crotch obssessed Frogs.

Just one man's opinion.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

not to pick holes in your theory BUT...

how can NZ possibly play Australia in the Final??

BJ said...

Hi Anonymous (if that's your real name)

Please pick away...but I think I agree with you?!

"NZ's likely semi final and final opposition could be Aussie and SA!"

I know its a clumsy sentence but I was meaning Aussie would be the semi and SA would be the final.

Interestingly we play all three of the likely other 3 semi finalists: France, Aussie, SA - although the French are sending a C team apparently.

C-Man said...

dude, what about the US?

i know i know - wishful thinking on my part.

BJ said...

The USA is in Pool A - here is the pool with IRB world rankings alongside:

England - 7th
South Africa - 5th
Samoa - 12th
USA - 13th
Tonga - 16th

So the USA might beat Tonga (although don't count on it) but this is what happens when a "World Series" actually includes people from other countries... ;)