Are Ireland really in danger of dropping into the third pot in the RWC2015 draw? Only way to know is by crunching the numbers…
The IRB rankings are to rugby fans what taxes are to people…a necessary evil that involves complicated maths.
In my humble opinion, it’s all too easy to mock the system. You’ll always find ways of proving your nation should be higher up the list. Strangely enough, however, people who say the system is ridiculous tend to base it on the fact that they were somehow hard done by them once, rather than offering an overall solution to the problem the rankings tries to fix, ie putting order to the chaos that is the test rugby calendar.
There seems to be three options open to us… (1) keep changing the ranking method every time we see an injustice (2) forget ranking altogether and base World Cup seeding purely on finishing positions at the previous tournament (which would need playoffs for positions much like the annual Under 20s tournament) or (3) everyone shut up and accept the current format.
Option 1 is ridiculous, Option 2 is do-able but unfair in a way because of the 4-year gap between tournaments and Option 3 means we have to break out the slide rules. So we’re caught between a rock & two hard places. Well, faced with this, 3 works for me.
And anyway, it’s the system that is going to determine the RWC2015 draw whatever happens, so as Irish rugby fans we may as well get on and see just how much in danger we are of slipping into the dreaded 3rd pot which could pit us against both New Zealand and France in our next World Cup pool.
The draw for the RWC2015 pools will be made in London on December 3. Ireland needs to be in the top 8 by then. We are currently 7th. So our question is…what has to happen for us to drop down two places in four weeks?
First of all, we need to forget about the squad, who’s in it, who’s injured, who’s the coach, or what has happened in the past to the Ireland team. For now, it’s all about the numbers.
I’m not going to waste paragraphs in this article explaining how the rankings work. It is explained here. All I will say is that whenever you play a test match, you can never gain or lose more than three ranking points. How much you stand to lose is dependant on who you are playing.
Ireland are due to face South Africa and Argentina. The Fiji game has a “A” grade and thus won’t count. By my rough calculations, in the absolute worst case scenario, 15+ point defeats for Ireland in both tests could drop our ranking points total to around 76.5pts. Since one of those defeats would have been to Argentina, they would more than likely jump ahead of us. Now…where does that leave Scotland, currently on just under 78???
The Scots face New Zealand, South Africa and Tonga. Roughly speaking, if they beat either NZ or SA, we’re struggling, but even if they lose both by 15+, any kind of victory over the Tongans should be enough to leave them with more than 76.5.
So, to put it in its simplest terms, we need at least one win in November to be safe.
OK, NOW we can start worrying about injuries and such again!!! JLP
