World Cup 2013 groups drawn

[Saints1]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_league/9244890.stm

Group A: England, Australia, Fiji, Ireland (three go through to quarter-finals).

Group B: New Zealand, France, Papua New Guinea, Samoa (three go through to quarter-finals).

Group C: Scotland, Tonga, European qualifier (winners through to quarter-finals).

Group D: Wales, Cook Islands, Atlantic qualifier (winners through to quarter-finals). In Groups C and D, teams play the other nations in their group and also one team from the opposite group as follows: Scotland v Atlantic qualifier, Tonga v Cook Islands, Wales v European qualifier.

Great, just what we need, another thumping from Australia. Be a challenging group for us that you'd think, but three years is a long, long time away.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Groud D is an interesting one!
Wales vs Cook Islands,
If Wales can keep improving I'd back them, especially as it'll be a "home" game (depending where they play it)

How are Samoa at league? I've never really heard much about them,
France aren't the best, by a long shot, but are slowly improving, much like Wales


As you said though, 3 years is ages away, so form now =/= form in the World Cup

 

[Conal]

is there any irish in irelands team or they plastic paddys??

 

[TRF_Olyy]

From what I remember it's fairly Irish, with a fair few English/English-with-Irish-ancestory thrown in

Certainly doesn't have the SH presence some smaller Rugby League nations have

 

[nickdnz]

Groud D is an interesting one!
Wales vs Cook Islands,
If Wales can keep improving I'd back them, especially as it'll be a "home" game (depending where they play it)

How are Samoa at league? I've never really heard much about them,
France aren't the best, by a long shot, but are slowly improving, much like Wales


As you said though, 3 years is ages away, so form now =/= form in the World Cup

Umm, they're pretty good. Maybe slightly worse than Wales. In perspective -

 

[Saints1]

Islander teams are always competitive even if they are totally out of their depth. The sport is still growing.

 

[Teh Mite]

I still don't understand why the RL world cups can't have a straight forward group/k-o tournament instead of making it overtly complex with "group A" does this and "Group B" does that. The whole "Winner of Group A goes straight to the final" put me off the last tournament completely and miss most of the rugby.

It's an even worse system then the LV= Cup!

 

[Faatau82]

Samoa RL has had some good players in the past.. who moved into 15's and back again, like Fa'asavalu, Perelini etc.. but i don't really know of much RL played in Samoa in the time i was there. Normally just Union really.

I think a good few samoans play in the SuperLeague, but again they'd be lucky if they even had a few meets a year to even know each other as a national squad.

 

[Faatau82]

It would be easier to have two groups of 7, with the group winners playing in the final. So all teams get 6 games and the winner would play 7.

 

[Saints1]

I still don't understand why the RL world cups can't have a straight forward group/k-o tournament instead of making it overtly complex with "group A" does this and "Group B" does that. The whole "Winner of Group A goes straight to the final" put me off the last tournament completely and miss most of the rugby.

It's an even worse system then the LV= Cup!

The sport is simply too small to sustain a straight knockout a la RUWC.

I'd like that format but we need to have something like this. Realistically, three of the four semi finalists are going to be Aus, NZ and England. The rest will all be competitive but are going to struggle, realistically speaking, for a good while. We need to give everyone the best possible chance of going through to the knockouts.