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RWC 2023 Predictions

die_mole said:
Isn't this World Cup very commuter friendly? Almost every game is on a weekend. Japan was more tourist-centric as it was an onslaught of games.
If you planned for this I'd imagine you could make it to all your team's games pretty easily if you are Europe based.
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Yep I am getting Eurostar each Saturday and treating the mrs to a Paris weekend for the 1/4 (she's not happy I'm on the **** for a month). IF WE GET THERE.

Eurostar prices are disgusting I might add.
 
OnePostWonder said:
Ireland to beat Boks in group stage.
Ireland to beat Boks in WC Final.
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if it's one all in the groups and final at the world cup they need a dance off or something. Four years on here of "we beat you in the first round" "we are the real world champions" would be forum hell.

Maybe Rassie and Johnny Sexton can do videos slagging off the officials and we can all vote on the funniest. Winner gets the Webb Ellis trophy.
 
Saintjay said:
if it's one all in the groups and final at the world cup they need a dance off or something. Four years on here of "we beat you in the first round" "we are the real world champions" would be forum hell.

Maybe Rassie and Johnny Sexton can do videos slagging off the officials and we can all vote on the funniest. Winner gets the Webb Ellis trophy.
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Johnny - "Respectfully sir, you're a ******* disgrace"

Rassie - "I'm going to unleash my twitter mob to threaten violence against your family, what happens from there has nothing to do with me"
 
My bold prediction (or maybe not so bold) is that France will win the tournament.
 
I think Georgia is at the point Japan was in 2015; maybe not quite ready to get out of their pool, but can certainly cause a huge upset. The funding and improved structure their program has had in the last five years is finally paying dividends

 
Grizwald said:
Surprised to see so many people fancying Australia to do well given their current situation. They've lost 5 on the bounce and have an inexperienced 10 who isn't a top line goal kicker with no back up if he goes down injured.

As an English fan I've felt it's been fated to have a Aus vs England QF since Eddie was sacked but now there's a good chance neither will get out of their group.

Overall I think France and South Africa have the depth and quality to win it but I've had this feeling Scotland to beat the beat the Boks. When on song the Boks are neigh on unplayable but unless Pollard comes back in the the lack of a top line goal kicker could hurt them in tight games. At the weekend France racked up a score without having a huge amount of possession or territory.

Irelands depth is better than it has been in recent tournaments, but don't seem too fancied which is odd as they've beaten all comers the last couple of years, this year they've only really been challenged by France which was comfortable but at home. Given the draw they could quite easily go out at the usual QF stage.

Scotland I think will beat one of Ireland/SA more so the latter but not consistent enough, they don't seem to have an 80 minute performance in them, tending to put in a good 40 mins which won't be good enough to go all the way.

New Zealand 🇳🇿 a lot of folk seem to be writing them off now after the hiding they took from the Boks. Listened to a few Kiwi pundits and they reckon their a bit predicable.

There's no one in theor group that over power Wales like the Boks did in the warm up. I really hope Fiji get out of their group but don't expect anyone will steam roller Wales from that group.
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Its not so much that I fancy australia to do well, more that they are up against an even worse team in wales, and have. abetter set piece by a distance.
 
Ferrari333SP said:
I think Georgia is at the point Japan was in 2015; maybe not quite ready to get out of their pool, but can certainly cause a huge upset. The funding and improved structure their program has had in the last five years is finally paying dividends

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The saddest thing to me is we are currently in a position where, with no credit to world rugby, we have so many new nations imrpoving all over the world and no way for them to progress past a ceiling. Japan is a perfect example, got better and better, then because of ring fencing had no where else to go and are now falling of at a hell of a rate, despite having a good domestic competition and money.

Rugby should be in a boom period, but I fear it will be wasted by a ring fencing governing body who arent particularly interested in expanding the game, instead keeping the tier 1 happy. (I say this as a fan of a tier 1 nation)
 
France to go in favourites and get absolutely belted by the All Blacks in the first game.

Maybe its just conditioning from my youth but I just can't understand a RWC where the All Blacks arent favourites.
 
Booboobang said:
The saddest thing to me is we are currently in a position where, with no credit to world rugby, we have so many new nations improving all over the world and no way for them to progress past a ceiling.
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It's amazing how little credit World Rugby gets for all the funding, administrative help, coaching assistance, player availability, and setting up of competitive(ish) rugby it's put in place for the 2nd tier nations over the last 20+ years.
But it gets no credit, presumably because there's still a gap (in both quality and opportunity) between the tiers.

Who does get the credit for all these miraculously improving nations?
 
Quel Carreleur said:
It's amazing how little credit World Rugby gets for all the funding, administrative help, coaching assistance, player availability, and setting up of competitive(ish) rugby it's put in place for the 2nd tier nations over the last 20+ years.
But it gets no credit, presumably because there's still a gap (in both quality and opportunity) between the tiers.

Who does get the credit for all these miraculously improving nations?
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Rugby Europe, rugby sudametica, super rugby Pacifica. The countries that have relied on the world rugby development platform have gone backwards but those that have decided to take part in strong regional associations have made great progress.

The world rugby coaching carousel has always been a joke. Fiji has improved since getting rid of cotter. USA looks better since moving on from gold. Essentially WR just pays for some tier 1 failure to take a tier 2 nation and for them to upset they don't have the same resources and players as a tier 1.
 
die_mole said:
Rugby Europe, rugby sudametica, super rugby Pacifica. The countries that have relied on the world rugby development platform have gone backwards but those that have decided to take part in strong regional associations have made great progress.

The world rugby coaching carousel has always been a joke. Fiji has improved since getting rid of cotter. USA looks better since moving on from gold. Essentially WR just pays for some tier 1 failure to take a tier 2 nation and for them to upset they don't have the same resources and players as a tier 1.
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2 of those are regional associations of World Rugby, and for the third you probably should have used Oceana Rugby; but going with that... I'm sure Super rugby decided to expand towards the Pacific Islands entirely of their own will, and 100% independent of a couple of decades of lobbying and politicking from WR.

Yes, reasonable-but-not-great coaches are so much worse than no coaches. and the improvements that happened immediately IRB appointed them are again, entirely coincidental in the arrival of reasonable coaches.
btw, I'm pretty sure that neither Cotter not Gold were appointed by WR. You need to look lower down the pyramid &/ further back in time to when the unions couldn't afford a professional coach of their own.
 
Quel Carreleur said:
It's amazing how little credit World Rugby gets for all the funding, administrative help, coaching assistance, player availability, and setting up of competitive(ish) rugby it's put in place for the 2nd tier nations over the last 20+ years.
But it gets no credit, presumably because there's still a gap (in both quality and opportunity) between the tiers.

Who does get the credit for all these miraculously improving nations?
Click to expand...
It gets no credit because it is actively closing the gap in opportunity. Ring fencing opportunities to play at a higher level wich ultimitely kills interest in the game,

Germany a perfect recent example of this. Growing as sport not on the back of WR funding or assistance or resources, no, on the back of a very rich man who loves the sport of rugby Hans-Peter Wild. Introduced academies, put efforts into exampding the player base throgh the Wild Rugby Academy foundation. It was working. However, german rugby is now in free fall again he terminated his collaboration due to organisational structures being insufficiently professional and having to real venue to expand to expand the sucess tey might have.

Who gets credit? Well lets look at a few examples.
Chile, the break out case for rugby developement in south america almost entierly a result of Jean Pierre Juanchich leading the games development not because of world rugby investment, Chilean rugby participation increased by 400%, and whereas it was previously confined to the cities of Santiago and Valparaíso, it began to spread throughout the country, that was his baby.

Georgia, the breakout case for development in europe, huge player base due to lelo, unfunded for decades and still developed a player base as part of the USSR, turned down for IRB membership when their game needed help, In fact even post IRB membership in 1997, the national team had only two practice balls, and then we come to the real reason for their success and where their resoruces come from. Not WR, Bidzina Ivanishvili, former prime minister who personally funded the sport as a billionaire and led programmes to increase its player base.

We can go over other examples if you like, but most of these nations thrived in spite of world rugby or at the very least not because of it. They generally started being sucessful on the back of very rich or pwoerful people who love the game or expanding player bases, portugal another example of this, player base didnt expand on the back of WR initiates, it expanded because they actually got watch their team play in a world cup, player base boomed and taken up by schools, imagine if teams werent ring fenced and got to see stuff like that more often and had a more pertient way of seeing their team improve.

If you dont think WR is holding the game back I dont know what to tell you. Implementing policies that ring fence rugby is literaly the opposite of growing the game, dont let token jestures to ensure the PI vote for the reelection fo the continuity candidate fool you.
 
With France down Willemse now too I'm going to change my prediction to an Ireland v SA final and SA ending our win streak there and then.
 

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