Jim from Oz
Juniors
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Ok so now we have all 16 teams sorted, when will they be announcing the draw from the 4 x 4 pots?
D
Only problem I have with the pots is a possible worst-case scenario Pool of Australia, Lebanon, Jamaica, Greece.
Hoping its not set-up in a way to try and get the England-NZ semi like it always is.
Any preferred draws? England v Fiji to me looks like the best possible tournament opener. Lebanon will be weaker than their 2017 squad and away from Australia, hoping Ireland or France can get drawn with them for a better chance at a QF spot.
Shrug. Such is the cost of a fair random draw. The sport needs to take a step away from contriving things to avoid floggings. There are very few teams outside the top 4 that could give Australia a serious challenge anyway.
At least the battle for 2nd place will be something. And it would mean the other 3 pools are proportionally of high quality.
Will it might seem tedious, it's the best and fairest way.
The format should always be such that if they win their matches, the finals is seed 1 vs seed 2, ie the 2 highest ranked teams. So you format for a 1v4 and 2v3 semi final (if results fall as ranked).
A format where the 2 highest ranked teams win all their games but can't actually meet in the final would be a bad format.
The best way to avoid this predictability is to have genuine competition between your top 6-8 teams. A loss by any of the top 4 teams is usually enough to throw it off.
Ideal for me...
England, PNG, France, Ireland (good matchups, rivalries)
Australia, Fiji, Italy, Scotland (strong pool most likely to stand up against Aus)
Tonga, Samoa, Jamaica, Cook Islands (polynesian rivalries feat. Jamaica)
New Zealand, Lebanon, Wales, Greece (uhh.. leftovers?)
To me trying to rig the finals to get the England v NZ semi is the same as rigging the pools. And we don't really know who exactly is the 2nd best team and its possible for all 4 top seeds to go through to the semis without losing. To me any semi-final combination of Australia, NZ, England and Tonga would be the same as any other
I'd like to see:
A - England, Fiji, Scotland, Greece (Big opener + England is the best bet to draw a crowd v Greece)
B - Australia, Papua New Guinea, Wales, Italy (interesting and rarely done match-ups, big opportunity for Wales to impress)
C - New Zealand, Lebanon, France, Ireland (best opportunity for France and Ireland to make the finals)
D - Tonga, Samoa, Jamaica, Cook Islands (same as you)
Well well @Springs09 you might get your wish after all, in a round-about way.
The latest rankings have been released today with...
1 New Zealand!!
2 Australia
3 England
4 Tonga
Debating the merits of them is for another thread, but if the draw is done next week, and finals format seeded based on these rankings in the usual way, then the most likely semi-finals are
NZ v Tonga
Australia v England
What
What
Australia just smashed New Zea oh whatever that's par for the course with rugby league I suppose.
If you don’t play games how do you get points?
This the underlying flaw in the system
Most countries play RLWC, qualifiers and Emerging Nations WC
This should be the prime source of rankings in the last 4 years
Some adjustments when you have cross region internationals
After this it's all in region. So if Europe want to play lots of games it should only be shuffling rankings within Europe
Someone needs to publish the mathematics
Playing a team above you and losing should not drop you down the rankings
Just like playing easy teams below you shouldn't move you up the rankings
Then how much you lose or win by needs to be considered e.g. a 10 point differential factor needs to be applied
E.g. if Serbia is better than X Y Z nations and Serbia got a beat by 80 then ALL those nations drop down 8 levels
accumulate ranking points.