World Cup Draw - very strange

[Spidey]

2 minutes ago, Griff said:

It's not about avoiding them, Dave.

It;s about a structure that makes it impossible for England to play either Australia or New Zealand before the final.

Which is perfectly fine as it aligns to the international rankings

[Dave T]

5 minutes ago, Griff said:

It's not about avoiding them, Dave.

It's about a structure that makes it impossible for England to play either Australia or New Zealand before the final.

But why is that a problem? They've gone with a two sides of the draw approach. That's the organisers choice. 

England and Oz were the last two finalists. It isn't that bizarre that they wouldn't meet until the final. NZ couldn't even get to the semis last time, and Tonga failed this time. 

[Maximus Decimus]

On 07/11/2022 at 06:48, gingerjon said:

Yes. You should learn your lesson.

(It is obviously a fix. I mean *obviously*. But it's been known for ages and nobody is really pretending it isn't a fix.)

I'm astonished! When this was done to death before the tournament, this certainly wasn't the consensus .

[gingerjon]

7 minutes ago, Maximus Decimus said:

I'm astonished! When this was done to death before the tournament, this certainly wasn't the consensus .

I can't remember if I cared TBH.

I don't now so I hope I didn't then.

It's infinitely better than super groups.

[Griff]

16 minutes ago, Dave T said:

But why is that a problem? They've gone with a two sides of the draw approach. That's the organisers choice. 

England and Oz were the last two finalists. It isn't that bizarre that they wouldn't meet until the final. NZ couldn't even get to the semis last time, and Tonga failed this time. 

It's not a problem.

But it is cynical.

[Dave T]

Tonga couldn't play the Aussies or Kiwis. Was that staged to favour them and get a new team in a final, seeing as Tonga have beaten GN, Oz and NZ in recent years? 

It just is what it is, all draws are staged to an extent. If it went to seeding, England would have played against the 2nd ranked team, Tonga. A team who we narrowly beat in the last semi finals in a classic, and GB lost to last time. Instead we play Samoa who NRL experts think are better than us. 

I think some people need to move on from this attitude that the World Cup is a Tri Nations with a load of other teams playing the support cast. 

[Griff]

2 hours ago, Dave T said:

Tonga couldn't play the Aussies or Kiwis. Was that staged to favour them and get a new team in a final, seeing as Tonga have beaten GN, Oz and NZ in recent years? 

You could be right there.

[Maximus Decimus]

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...

[Maximus Decimus]

On 10/11/2022 at 18:43, Griff said:

That "quirk" meant that Australia and England were both likely to qualify from the group and, from that point, avoid each other until the final. Not that it always worked out that way.  Sometimes they avoided each other completely.

From a commercial point of view, I applaud it.   From a fairness point of view, I raise an eyebrow.

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.

[Spidey]

2 hours ago, Maximus Decimus said:

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.

It’s not a fudge. It follows international rankings. Reason Aussies are in this position they haven’t  played enough and when they did they got beat by Tonga

[The One]

I’d agree it’s a fudge because I do think the only reason they’ve done it like this is so England don’t play Aus/Nz before the final. I don’t have a problem with it though.

[Griff]

1 hour ago, Spidey said:

It’s not a fudge. It follows international rankings. Reason Aussies are in this position they haven’t  played enough and when they did they got beat by Tonga

Rubbish. Nothing to do with rankings and everything to do with engineering a commercially successful competition.

There's no reason why there has to be two completely separate halves of the draw to follow your precious international rankings.

[Griff]

34 minutes ago, The One said:

I’d agree it’s a fudge because I do think the only reason they’ve done it like this is so England don’t play Aus/Nz before the final. I don’t have a problem with it though.

Neither do I. But let's be honest about it and stop pretending that we haven't done something just a little bit sly.

[Spidey]

9 hours ago, Griff said:

Rubbish. Nothing to do with rankings and everything to do with engineering a commercially successful competition.

There's no reason why there has to be two completely separate halves of the draw to follow your precious international rankings.

Rank 1 v 4 in one semi, should have been rank 2v3 in the other (If Tonga had won) That looks like any seeded comp

[Tommygilf]

9 hours ago, Griff said:

Rubbish. Nothing to do with rankings and everything to do with engineering a commercially successful competition.

There's no reason why there has to be two completely separate halves of the draw to follow your precious international rankings.

For every single previous world cup, the commercially successful option has seen England play Australia in the opener (and the Kiwis on the other side of the draw).

This is far less contrived than that.

[Tommygilf]

Not sure if its been mentioned on this thread before, but I'm sure folk are aware of how France and Brazil were "never" going to be on the same side of the draw in '98. 

[Dave T]

They could easily have gone with a 'traditional' draw which could have seen England still on course to meet Tonga. The difference would have been that Tonga would have met Fiji or Lebanon instead of Samoa. So England would still play either Tonga, Fiji or Lebanon in that perfectly credible draw. 

England have a perceived favourable draw, but nobody complained the other way round when we met the Kiwis in 3 semis on the bounce as the Aussies met Fiji. 

England can't win, we are playing teams that many pundits say are better than us, but when we beat them we get accused of rigging it. 

[Black Country Wire]

16 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Not sure if its been mentioned on this thread before, but I'm sure folk are aware of how France and Brazil were "never" going to be on the same side of the draw in '98. 

They would had either finished 2nd in their first round group.

Not that that was likely. Brazil are contractually entitled to an easy draw and the hosts normally get one as well.

[Dave T]

15 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Not sure if its been mentioned on this thread before, but I'm sure folk are aware of how France and Brazil were "never" going to be on the same side of the draw in '98. 

That isn't 100% true. It was only the case if they both won their group, and then they were structured to be kept apart. Had one of them dropped to 2nd it wouldn't have kept them apart. 

But it is an example of tournament structures being organised to suit objectives. 

Like I say, the biggest benefit for. Me on this is that we are getting more variety at semi final stage. 

[Black Country Wire]

23 minutes ago, Spidey said:

Rank 1 v 4 in one semi, should have been rank 2v3 in the other (If Tonga had won) That looks like any seeded comp

That in and of itself isn't the issue. The issue is that if one of the seeds finished 2nd they would ordinarily move to the opposite half of the draw than if they come 1st.

[Spidey]

4 minutes ago, Black Country Wire said:

That in and of itself isn't the issue. The issue is that if one of the seeds finished 2nd they would ordinarily move to the opposite half of the draw than if they come 1st.

Every RL World Cup has been different, so usually doesn’t come into it. This is probably the least contrived. There were qualifiers, and draws for the groups 

[gingerjon]

25 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Not sure if its been mentioned on this thread before, but I'm sure folk are aware of how France and Brazil were "never" going to be on the same side of the draw in '98. 

FIFA draw is often rigged - not necessarily in a corrupt way - so that there's a spread of not only seeds across the groups but also, usually, a global spread per group as well.

[Dave T]

1 minute ago, gingerjon said:

FIFA draw is often rigged - not necessarily in a corrupt way - so that there's a spread of not only seeds across the groups but also, usually, a global spread per group as well.

Yes, we did that this time too. 

I do understand some of the criticisms and I think it should be changed next time, but tbh, a traditional draw could have seen the Aussies meet the Kiwis and England meet the other team. 

I think there would have been fair anger had England finished 2nd in the group and then got Samoa in the semi final instead of the Aussies or Kiwis who have 100% records. 

However, again, I do think people are being disrespectful to the likes of Tonga, Samo and Fiji and demonstrating that they think they are 2nd rate teams playing in an extended trinations. 

[gingerjon]

8 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Yes, we did that this time too. 

I do understand some of the criticisms and I think it should be changed next time, but tbh, a traditional draw could have seen the Aussies meet the Kiwis and England meet the other team. 

I think there would have been fair anger had England finished 2nd in the group and then got Samoa in the semi final instead of the Aussies or Kiwis who have 100% records. 

However, again, I do think people are being disrespectful to the likes of Tonga, Samo and Fiji and demonstrating that they think they are 2nd rate teams playing in an extended trinations. 

UEFA have never drawn Gibraltar and Spain in the same senior group, you know.

Just think how ferociously hot those balls must be.

[Maximus Decimus]

14 hours ago, Spidey said:

It’s not a fudge. It follows international rankings. Reason Aussies are in this position they haven’t  played enough and when they did they got beat by Tonga

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.