The 4 year wait is almost up, and we're 2 weeks away from the start of the 2023 Rugby (Union) World Cup in France. France kick it all off on Friday 8th September against the All Blacks. World Rugby made a big cockup in making the draw for the groups 3 years ahead of the tournament, with the current top 5 ranked teams in the world all ending up in one half of the draw (Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, France and Scotland). They've admitted the mistake by saying they'll make the draw for the next tournament in 2027 closer to the tournament itself, but it's too late for this one and only 2 of the top 5 will make the semi-finals from that side of the draw. Even worse (from a Scotland perspective!) is we're in a group with Ireland (#1 currently) and South Africa (#3 and defending champions) and have a massive task to even get out of the group (top 2 qualify for the quarter-finals). Scotland on the other side of the draw would have been a good bet to make the semi finals. England, Wales, Australia and Argentina all should have much easier tasks on the other side of the draw, but 3 of them have not being playing great recently (Argentina maybe the exception) and there could be a shock or two advancing from the groups. England lost to Fiji yesterday in a warm-up game in England, the first time they've ever lost to them, and have been playing pretty badly recently (think it's 6 of last 7 games they've lost). If I had to pick a winner at stage, I'd say it would be South Africa, or maybe France as the hosts. You can never write NZ off, and Ireland have been the best team in the world for last couple of years but I don't trust them in the big tournament as they don't have a great WC record.
Such a great event and such a screw up making the draw 3 years out? Who does that? They should have had the draw 3-4 months (not years) ahead of time. 6 months at the most. Smh.
The first round of fixtures were completed last weekend, with a couple from the second round having taken place on Thurs/Fri this week too. One team sits out each round of fixtures, as there are 5 teams in each pool/group. Pool A France 27-13 New Zealand Italy 52-3 Namibia (2nd round of fixtures) France 27-12 Uruguay New Zealand 71-3 Namibia Pool B Ireland 82-8 Romania South Africa 18-3 Scotland Pool C Australia 35-15 Georgia Wales 32-26 Fiji Pool D England 27-10 Argentina Japan 42-12 Chile
There's been no big shock result in the games so far (and to be fair there often aren't many, if any, in the group stages). England might actually be the biggest shock, as Argentina were the favourites and England were reduced to 14 men after just 2 minutes when one of their players was sent off. Argentina were then hot favourites to win, but they played dreadfully, never taking advantage of the extra player. It was an awful game to watch, far too much kicking by both teams and no tries scored by England, with only 1 try scored by Argentina, and that was only a consolation score in the last few minutes. Game of the tournament so far was probably Wales-Fiji. Wales, although not expected to be very good in this WC, were leading 32-14 but a late Fiji charge brought them to within 6 points, and indeed they had a walk-in try opportunity with the last play of the game but one of their star players, Semi Radradra, dropped the ball when he only had to catch and run with it a few yards. Australia-Fiji looks like the most interesting game this weekend, in the pool/group that looks the hardest to call for who will finish 1st/2nd.
Second round of fixtures now complete. It's clear that Romania and Namibia are the whipping boys of this WC. Uruguay and Portugal have looked decent and Chile played some good rugby but, I say this every WC, I wish World Rugby would find a way for the so-called lesser teams to play more regularly against the top nations. Playing top level rugby only once every 4 years isn't helping the smaller teams to close the gap on the sport's best. The only way they will improve and make the WC better is by getting them experience playing the best teams, even if it's only 1 or 2 games a year. Unfortunately, most of the top teams only want to play each other as that's where the money is. There's an annual World League expected to start from 2026, but even that is ring-fenced to 12 teams in the top league with no promotion/relegation for the first 4 years, so although a couple of teams (likely Japan & Fiji) will play the top teams more often, it's still the usual suspects playing each other. I suppose it's a start and smaller teams could get a chance from 2030...maybe. Pool A France 27-17 Uruguay New Zealand 71-3 Namibia Pool B Ireland 59-16 Tonga South Africa 76-0 Romania Pool C Wales 28-8 Portugal Australia 15-22 Fiji (it was the game of the round as expected) Pool D Samoa 43-10 Chile England 34-12 Japan
Ireland-South Africa is the clear game of the round this weekend, top 2 ranked teams in the world going at it. From a Scotland perspective, we probably need a SA win and then hope we can shock Ireland in our last pool game, only way we've got a chance of getting to the quarter-finals after losing our first game to SA.
Ireland beat South Africa 13-8 in the group game between the #1 and #2 ranked teams in the world. They could well end up playing again in the final. I never watched it, but it was said to be a brutal, physical game, which was to be expected from those 2 teams. The vagaries of the group schedule means both those 2 teams have now played 3 games, whereas Scotland in the same group haven't yet played their 2nd game (they play Tonga today)...but already it's highly unlikely that Scotland can finish ahead of the two teams. Scotland have to score a mountain of points against Tonga and Romania and then hope they can beat Ireland. Even then they might go out depending on bonus points (teams get 4 points for a win, with an extra bonus point if they score 4 tries, so a maximum of 5 points for a win). If teams are level on points at the end of the group, it goes to score differential. Ireland currently have 14 points and a +122 differential, SA have 10 points and +86 differential (with a game against Tonga to come to boost that)...Scotland have 0 points and a -15 differential from their one game so far.
The third round of fixtures are now done, and it's getting to the deep end of the group games. Wales are the first team to qualify for the quarter finals after demolishing Australia, and a few other teams are almost there too. Pool A Italy 38-17 Uruguay France 96-0 Namibia France and New Zealand are still the odds on favourites to qualify from this group, barring a major shock from Italy to beat New Zealand Pool B South Africa 8-13 Ireland Scotland 45-17 Tonga Ireland and South Africa should be the qualifiers as expected, although Scotland still have a slight chance if they can produce a shock and beat Ireland in the last group game (would have to beat them by >7 points too or score 4 tries if winning by <7, and that's a tall order against the #1 ranked team) Pool C Georgia 18-18 Portugal Wales 40-6 Australia Wales have qualified, and Fiji look the likeliest to join them from this group with games against the "minnows" Georgia and Portugal to come for them Pool D Argentina 19-10 Samoa England 71-0 Chile England pretty much guaranteed to qualify, but still between Argentina, Japan and Georgia for the other spot (Argentina probably the favourites)
We're getting to the sharp end of the group stages, with only 1 round of games left and the likely quarter final line-up starting to take shape. Pool A Uruguay 36-26 Namibia New Zealand 96-17 Italy (this was a dominant display by the All Blacks, in a game some thought would be a lot closer...reminded me of the Dolphins-Broncos!) Team-Played-Points France 3 - 13 New Zealand 3 - 10 Italy 3 - 10 Uruguay 3 - 5 Namibia 4 - 0 Remaining games: New Zealand v Uruguay France v Italy (almost guaranteed to decide who qualifies along with NZ barring a major shock in their game, but should be France) Pool B Scotland 84-0 Romania South Africa 49-18 Tonga Team-Played-Points South Africa 4 - 15 Ireland 3 - 14 Scotland 3 - 10 Tonga 3 - 0 Romania 3 - 0 Remaining games: Tonga v Romania Scotland v Ireland (there's a few complicated scenarios for who of the top 3 will qualify, but most likely is that Scotland need to win by >7 points, or it will be Ireland and South Africa) Pool C Fiji 17-12 Georgia Australia 34-14 Portugal Team-Played-Points Wales (Q) 3 - 14 Australia 4 - 11 Fiji 3 - 10 Georgia 3 - 3 Portugal 3 - 2 Remaining games: Wales v Georgia Fiji v Portugal (Fiji will qualify alongside Wales is they avoid defeat, or get at least 1 bonus point) Pool D Argentina 59-5 Chile Japan 28-22 Samoa Team-Played-Points England (Q) 3 - 14 Argentina 3 - 9 Japan 3 - 9 Samoa 3 - 6 Chile 3 - 0 Remaining games: England v Samoa Argentina v Japan (straight shootout, winner qualifies alongside England)
We've finally reached the quarter final stage this coming weekend, and just about all the 8 remaining teams are not unexpected, although maybe a slight surprise one of them is Fiji, even though Australia were their main challenge for a last 8 spot but they've been pretty abject this tournament. Sat 14 Oct QF1: Wales v Argentina - Argentina have been disappointing this WC, and Wales took advantage of a fairly weak group. Pre-tournament I'd have picked Argentina to win this, but after the group games I think it's Edge: Wales QF2: Ireland v New Zealand - Ireland are unbeaten now in something like 19 games, and are deserving world #1 side, but they have had a habit of falling over in World Cups, and nobody would ever completely write off the All Blacks, however Edge: Ireland Sun 15 Oct QF3: England v Fiji - Neither side has completely impressed, England almost lost to Samoa and Fiji did lose to Portugal (their first ever WC win!) but still qualified by getting a losing bonus point from that game. Fiji beat England last time they played, but I think big tournament experience tells and Edge: England QF4: France v South Africa - Along with Ire-NZ, the pick of the QF's with all 4 teams the most favoured to win it all. Home field advantage for France, but SA are the champions and have a brutal, physical side. Can't pick an Edge to either team in this one at all. The 8 quarter finalists along with the 4 3rd place teams from the groups (Italy, Scotland, Australia, Japan) have all now qualified for the 2027 tournament in Australia. With the number of teams being expanded to 24, that leaves another 12 spots up for grabs in qualifying over the next 2-3 years. The 2031 tournament is due to be played in the USA. There will be some logistics to work out for that, as the WC usually takes place in Sept/Oct, and with NFL stadiums likely to be used, they'll have to come up with a solution for how to manage that during an NFL season (I think it might be moved to earlier in year). Plenty of time to think up a way around it though.
First 2 quarter finals completed, and the Ireland-NZ one in particular was a fantastic game, would have been worthy of being the final. Wales 17-29 Argentina - Argentina finally showed up at the tournament just in time. Wales, who had flattered to deceive in winning their group, came unstuck against the first good team they played. Ireland 24-28 New Zealand - Tremendous game that was all it was predicted to be. New Zealand reminded everyone what kind of team they could be, and Ireland had a chance as time was expiring to nick it at the death but fell short. New Zealand-Argentina is now the first semi-final. I can't see anything but a comfortable All Blacks win and them reaching the final. Of course, so far I've got both quarter finals wrong in who I thought would win
Tremendous stuff. I'll be rooting for England in the semis vs RSA but they are the defending champs and are just so well balanced. Knocking out France at home was no small feat. New Zealand vs RSA would be an amazing final.
Yeah, on paper it looks like a foregone conclusion that New Zealand will beat Argentina and SA will beat England, both have looked far superior to the other 2 teams to date. But as is relevant to all sports, the games aren't played on paper! Still, if teams play to form, the semi's might be one-sided affairs.
At least I was better at predicting the other 2 quarter finals, England had too much for Fiji but they had to hang on for their 30-24 win. And France-SA was just about literally too close to call with SA squeaking it 29-28 in what was another tremendous game like Ireland-NZ.
I really don't watch rugby very much, but in terms of world cups... and the quarters... how does this 2023 version stack up historically? Those were all great matches.
I can't recall them that well, but pretty sure there's usually a few lopsided wins in the quarters. So this tournament must be up there with 4 games that all came down to tight finishes. Even the Wales-Arg game, which had the biggest margin of victory of 12 points, came down to the last minutes with Wales with the ball before Argentina got an intercept try to increase it from a 5 point margin. Even though there's been a lot of grumbling about the draw, it helped the quarters in that 4 of the fancied teams had to play each other and the 4 that weren't rated so highly played each other too. So no number 1 ranked team playing a much lower ranked team.
So, it's a New Zealand v South Africa final. One semi-final which went as expected as the All Blacks easily beat Argentina 44-6, the other was a hell of a lot closer with SA winning by 1 point 16-15 after taking the lead for the first time against England with a penalty only 4 minutes from time. It wasn't a classic game by any means, lot of kicking and only 1 try, but England gave SA a lot closer of a game than anyone expected them to. Whoever wins the final next week will be the first country to win the Rugby World Cup for the 4th time.
As expected, the next World Cup will be increased to 24 teams, 6 groups of 4 teams, with top 2 and 4 best 3rd place teams advancing to a last 16. It will reduce the length of the tournament from 7 weeks to 6, as there will only be 3 group games for each team rather than 4 (and 1 team currently sitting out each round due to the odd number of teams per group) https://www.rugbyworldcup.com/2023/news/885620/rugby-world-cup-2027-expanded-to-24-teams
Bit of a controversy in the last week with an English player saying a South African called him a "white ****" during their semi final last week. The South Africans say he was speaking Afrikaans and it was "wit kent" which means white side as in an instruction to go/cover a side. World Rugby said it couldn't be proven from the game's audio tape, so no action was taken, and the black South African player is free to play in the final. No idea if it was said or not, but there are going to be words in different languages said on the field that may sound like a curse word in a different language...so I'd lean towards that being the case. It even makes sense to use a non-English language that few other teams will understand to make calls in a game so the other team don't know what you're doing. South Africa are also known to use Afrikaans before during games as few other players understand it, even the black players on their team use it although it's a historic white South African language.
South Africa repeat as World champions, becoming the first team to win 4 World Cups, as they beat New Zealand 12-11 in the final. New Zealand had a player sent off after 27 mins, so had to play over 50 mins with 14 players, but were actually the only team to score points after that as it was 12-3 at the time. I didn't watch the whole game, only the last 10 mins, but from the score it doesn't seem like a classic, even though it was no doubt nail-biting.
