Maximus Decimus

Tbf had England won, I think there'd have been accusations of favouritism labelled at England, especially with the penalty.

As England tire, it could get messy if we come out the same. There were signs at the end there that they were having a lot of success.

Yes and no. Good publicity but far too many injuries to give the Aussies a shot next week. Would be an easy Aussie win.

That's a big if. I agree if we can it could help the final, but we've been really poor IMO and second best everywhere.

We'll suddenly discover 17 heritage England players who qualify because they've spent around a month here. They were last spotted in Leeds last night....

Hard to tell because of the pricing issues. The crowd seems flat, England seem flat in a way I don't think they would be next week if we get there.

I've never played pro-RL before, but I wonder what effect a disappointing crowd and atmosphere has on a player when they're anticipating it being different.

We're flat as a pancake.

Not liking the vibes here. It's feeling very Bolton 2000...

Right, I'm calling a truce. I'll let it go, I promise .

I'm calling it now, we're going to lose. It would be the most British RL thing ever to get eliminated by the same team we previously beat 60-6.

Feel sorry for the people singing the anthem, it's a matter of time before someone sings 'God save the Queen' out of nerves and becomes an Internet meme.

Blimming heck it looked terrible when they were in the tunnel, but people were clearly in the concourse, seems suddenly a lot better now.

England were underdogs against Samoa! In hindsight, we clearly shouldn't have been, but we were.

They decided to handpick it regardless of who topped their group.

But it isn't that England will, unless you also fix the opponents for England's group.

I generally don't respond to those that acknowledge it is a fudge because that is essentially my argument and i have no reason to. There are plenty of others arguing that this system is not a fudge at all and simply a result of ranking, and others saying it's a non-issue which I don't agree with either.

We couldn't. In the football WC, there is not a single team England can only play in the final. This is very much the normal, default system. You can make it pretty unlikely, but Samoa being in our group made that especially difficult.

It's a discussion forum, and I tend to talk about things that interest me. I'm not actually that bothered at all, although it will add extra annoyance if we lose today. What actually interests me and keeps me talking about it, is that people cannot see that this is unusual and almost certainly a fudge. This in itself isn't me saying they are bad or wrong for doing so, after all I've argued that it needs to fudged more and differently, but I'm not going to back down when people try to make out like it is totally normal and logical system.

If we take the argument that the group order was based on rankings (which I don't think has been proven btw) then the idea is that, barring upsets, we were to be set up for a hypothetical semi-final with Tonga. If this was to be achieved through the normal system, the quarter finals would've had to have been organised completely differently, and had we lost to Samoa in the opening game would've faced a quarter-final against either NZ or Australia. I think it's reasonable to suspect that this was a factor in their decision to do the groups as they did, especially with the Emirates booked for the semi-final.

It's also entirely a perfectly natural reaction for some to pretend like everything is perfect. If we lose today (a real possibility) will no part of you fell aggrieved that we've had a decent tournament but only had two on-paper competitive games against the same team?

There is no disrespect at all in acknowledging that Australia and NZ are and have always been our most dangerous opponents regardless of any temporary form blips.

Do normal tournaments not have rankings? There is a false dichotomy being presented that it is either this system or a different convoluted system. As I've pointed out, it is literally only at the semi-final stage where a difference is noticeable. Rankings mean that if all teams win as they are supposed to, the top ranked team plays the 4th, the 2nd plays the 3rd etc. This is all well and good. The problem is that by finishing 2nd in the group, as is always the case in similar tournaments, Samoa should've been put in the other side of the draw meaning they couldn't have played England again until the final. This is where there is no logical reason as to why they weren't other than some form of a fudge, because after all had England lost that first game we'd have been put in that side of the draw with Aus and NZ.

It's an obvious fudge, a small one but an obvious one. For all the arguments made about mixing the format up and rankings etc, literally the only difference if they'd have done it the normal way is the semi-finals would be: Eng vs Aus/NZ Aus/NZ vs Samoa There is literally no rationale to properly explain why we're playing Samoa again other than it being seen as a boost to England.

When this was first brought up, one of the things I mentioned was that I'd have felt very hard done by if England won the first game, had a decent WC and then lost to Samoa in the rematch. No wonder I'm feeling uneasy...