Discussion
BlackWidow13 said:
El stovey said:
Unlucky for Scotland, was always going to be the toughest group to progress from.
Do you mean easiest? B: NZ, SA
C: Eng, Fra, Arg
D: Wales, Aus.
Which of those groups would have given Scotland a easier run at the second qualifying spot?
El stovey said:
BlackWidow13 said:
El stovey said:
Unlucky for Scotland, was always going to be the toughest group to progress from.
Do you mean easiest? B: NZ, SA
C: Eng, Fra, Arg
D: Wales, Aus.
Which of those groups would have given Scotland a easier run at the second qualifying spot?
The idea that Scotland would have had a better chance of beating SA, Fra or Aus than they had of beating Japan is very odd. SA and Aus were ranked above Scotland, and Fra were ranked one spot below Sco (vs 3 spots below for Japan). By any objective assessment Sco had the easiest group to have a run at finishing in P2.
BlackWidow13 said:
El stovey said:
BlackWidow13 said:
El stovey said:
Unlucky for Scotland, was always going to be the toughest group to progress from.
Do you mean easiest? B: NZ, SA
C: Eng, Fra, Arg
D: Wales, Aus.
Which of those groups would have given Scotland a easier run at the second qualifying spot?
The idea that Scotland would have had a better chance of beating SA, Fra or Aus than they had of beating Japan is very odd. SA and Aus were ranked above Scotland, and Fra were ranked one spot below Sco (vs 3 spots below for Japan). By any objective assessment Sco had the easiest group to have a run at finishing in P2.
They could only have been drawn with:
1 of New Zealand, England, Ireland or Australia (Band 1); and
1 of Argentina, Japan, Georgia or Italy (Band 3)
Out of the latter group, Japan have both upwards momentum since RWC 2015 and home advantage. Whereas Italy are a known quantity, Georgia were comfortably deal with in warm ups and Scotland have won their last 5 matches against Argentina who have been out of form for a while now.
Stella Tortoise said:
irocfan said:
full time professionals vs semi-pro would have a fair bit to do with it....
b
ks, you people keep blurting about how lucky the Welsh team have been yet they keep winning.You are full of s
t.Not a bad result.
Wales is certainly lucky, but only in the sense they have some incredible talent and are very good at rugby, currently second only to the All Blacks and (albeit briefly) recently ranked above them.
Australia can beat any team on their day, but couldn't beat Wales a couple of weeks ago.
It has nothing to do with luck, it is all about who is the better team on the day. If France turn up next weekend they may be the better team, but if Wales win it is not luck, it is them being the better team.
Anyway, well done (again) to Japan!
BlackWidow13 said:
You’re using hindsight. Pre RWC (9th Sept) Japan were ranked 10th. With the exception of Argentina, all of the teams listed above, plus Scotland, were ranked above Japan.
The idea that Scotland would have had a better chance of beating SA, Fra or Aus than they had of beating Japan is very odd. SA and Aus were ranked above Scotland, and Fra were ranked one spot below Sco (vs 3 spots below for Japan). By any objective assessment Sco had the easiest group to have a run at finishing in P2.
It’s not odd. You seem to be confused about how the draw worked.The idea that Scotland would have had a better chance of beating SA, Fra or Aus than they had of beating Japan is very odd. SA and Aus were ranked above Scotland, and Fra were ranked one spot below Sco (vs 3 spots below for Japan). By any objective assessment Sco had the easiest group to have a run at finishing in P2.
Scotland were band two. They could only be drawn with band 1 and 3 teams. Japan were the hardest band 3 team by far and thus group A was the hardest for Scotland a band 2 team to qualify from.
Gassing Station | Sports | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff