How RWC cooked up pig’s ear of a draw
Towards the end of the World Cup draw, a celebrated chef stepped forward to fish the last two balls out of the pot reserved for the four top seeded nations. One bore Wales’ name, the other England’s. Guy Savoy rose to the occasion at the old Paris stock exchange without a flaming saucepan in sight. His job done, the Michelin-starred restaurateur left the stage vowing that France 2023 will be “the greatest World Cup of the world”.
He would have been blissfully unaware that the organisers had already made a pig’s ear of the draw by allowing it to be staged on December 14, 2020, almost three years before the event. Had it been held at the conclusion of this year’s Six Nations, the outcome would have looked very different.
The four top seeded countries would have been determined by World Rugby’s latest rankings, not on how they finished at the last World Cup, in the autumn of 2019: South Africa (1st), England (2nd), New Zealand (3rd), Wales (4th).
Had current form been the criteria, neither England nor Wales would have been in the pot reserved for the top four. France and Ireland would have replaced them, the former as Grand Slammers, the latter on the strength of a season crowned by yet another victory over the All Blacks.
Why the organisers opted to ignore the result of a single Test match during the 30 months since Japan 2019 is difficult to under- stand. Had they chosen differently, Ireland could not have been drawn in the same pool as the Springboks and two of the current top three (France-New Zealand) could not have ended up swimming in the same pool.
It would also have spared them the embarrassment of allowing Wales to stand on equal footing with the Springboks and All Blacks despite tumbling five places down the rankings since their heroic semi-final against the eventual winners.
Instead of being reclassified in Band 3 and running the risk of being drawn alongside France and New Zealand in Pool A, Wales were given the red carpet treatment as if their post-Yokohama slump had not happened. Even the most diehard Welsh supporter finds that hard to justify.
So the draw went ahead two years
and nine months before the opening match. The draw for the football World Cup took place last April, six months before its opening match in Qatar this autumn.
Ironically, the rugby draw had been scheduled to take place even earlier. The six-month delay made no difference because by then the decision had been made to base the seedings on the previous tournament.
According to a leading administrator, “France, as the host nation, put forward a very strong argument for an early draw so as to give the maximum amount of time to sell tickets”.
Japan’s position was the other crucial factor mitigating against a delay. The World Cup committee, eager to recognise their hosting of an exceptional event, were keen to ensure their presence in the second band of seeds, as justified by their top eight ranking as of November 2019. One year later they had dropped to 10th, victims as much of Covid-19 as anything else. The pandemic has limited them to six matches in the last two-and-a-half years, fewer than any other top ten nation.
RWC has contrived to undermine the whole purpose of the seeding system, to avoid the best clashing at an unnecessarily early stage. The current top four plough headlong into each other: South Africa (1) v Ireland (4), France (2) v New Zealand (3).
If they hadn’t been in such an unseemly rush to make the draw, that would never have come to pass. THE MAN TRULY IN THE KNOW