It's just a calculation on the points level. Fiji were within 7 of France, Australia were more than 7 away from us.
Ahh that makes more sense.
Well he needs to stop putting him as a bench option, if one of our wingers got injured we'd be fairly fucked.
I'd agree as a general point, having an out and out 12 on the bench has always seemed a bit restrictive to me, but it's something Farrell has always been prone to, yesterday it made a bit more sense because Hansen could cover wing and Crowley could cover 15.
it has to do with the difference in points, not the difference in position numbers.
Have they changed it so it's seeded?
Remember the last World cup? Us and South Africa in the same pool, Wales and Australia in the same group.
It was seeded then as well but its 6 groups this time now 4. Which will changes things a bit
How was it seeded last time when the top four teams were in two pools? Then 4 through 8 in the other pools.
Timing was an issue last time. The seeding was decided much earlier based on where Ireland was ranked at the beginning of 2020. World Rugby used January 2020 rankings due to the Covid disruptions to international match schedules. Top seeds were South Africa, New Zealand, England and Wales (!) and 2nd seeds were Ireland, Australia, France and Japan. Third seeds were Scotland, Fiji, Argintina and Italy. We subsequently went on an unbeaten run to rise to no.1 ranking while Wales went backwards so we got a terrible pool and Wales and England got a handy ones.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/articles/c0rpl9v1ly5o
Fixtures for next year.
Ireland have to travel to Australia, to Japan, then back to New Zealand, in successive weekends. That’s not ideal, to put it mildly
Just a normal week in Irish sports!
46 points v Australia! Hat-tricks!!
I started last week a bit downbeat about the rugby and completely indifferent about the soccer.
Winning the world cups is definitely on the cards now!!
This nations championship thing completely passed me by I must confess.
Do the 6Ns matches count as well towards the competition or is it completely separate?
Edit - never mind it seems it isn't considered which I thought was the original plan.
Im talking to myself now but it looks like all 6 NH teams play the 6 SH teams and are then ranked 1st to 6th in each hemisphere based on those results. Each country then plays the equivalent ranked team in the other hemisphere in the play offs at Twickenham at the end of November.
It's not actually a bad format, but as per above the travel for the NH teams is problematic
According to the indo Ireland will play Australia and Japan in Australia, before travelling to new Zealand.
Ah that's better I guess. Sort of screws Japan over but that's their problem.
some good
It's a load of ****.
get off that fence, young man…
I hate it so much. Only way it could be worse was if the games were played in a Gulf State. Which is probably coming too. Completely freezes out all of the teams on the rise, like Uruguay, Chile, Spain, Portugal, Belgium etc. Continues to give Japan and Fiji the shaft. Massive amounts of air travel, **** your climate concerns.
It is absolutely coming. They will have these "Grand Finals" in some gulf state before the decade is out.
SA suspensions look a little up in the air.
https://www.rte.ie/sport/rugby/2025/1117/1544410-springboks-hit-at-out-unfair-treatment-over-red-card/
The team v France.
Damian Willemse; Cheslin Kolbe, Jesse Kriel, Damian de Allende, Kurt-Lee Arendse; Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Cobus Reinach; Boan Venter?, Malcolm Marx, Thomas du Toit; Eben Etzebeth, Lood de Jager; Siya Kolisi, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Jasper Wiese.
Replacements: Johan Grobbelaar; Gerhard Steenekamp, Wilco Louw, RG Snyman, Ruan Nortje, Andre Esterhuizen, Grant Williams, Manie Libbok.
I presume SA will revert to type with 6 forwards on the bench.
Is Pollard going to start v Ireland?
Expected, but still a pain in the tits. At least Ringrose is back.
What do we expect to happen moving forward? Does Mack Hansen move full time to 15? O'Brien looked well up to it at 14.
Was it the same injury for McCloskey or is he potentially made of glass? Maybe Osbourne gets his shot there now.
Feck .. would like to see Stu again (with more offloads)
McCloskey another one of those guys who if he didn't have bad luck he'd have no luck at all.
Feels like there was a real opportunity for him here to make that 12 shirt his own right now, but the constant niggly injuries always set him back.
This happened back in 2022 too (against the Boks) - he was playing really well and had to come off with injury after 26 mins. Was playing well against the All Blacks a few weeks ago and had to go with the game in the balance, and now same here, and misses a game next week where he'd have been a big factor for us.
Mack to stay at fullback, and McCloskey's groin injury recurred. Ringrose is back so Henshaw will move back to 12, or they might start Aki at 12. Osborne is out with injury.
Mack was class the other night, but moving him full-time to 15 is premature - he has a long way to go to usurp Keenan, when Hugo's fit.
That’s a killer for McCloskey but looked bad coming off, so would expect:
Hansen
Lowe Henshaw Ringrose TOB
JGP Crowley
Porter Sheehan Furlong
Ryan Beirne
Baird Doris VDF
Maybe Aki for Henshaw and maybe Prendergast for Crowley, but I’d go with the above.
I don't know how you could possibly put Aki ahead of Henshaw after their respective performances on Saturday. And I was pretty down on Henshaw beforehand, but to be fair he did pretty well. Aki was not good.
I think Farrell ultimately wants to start Prendergast as he fits what he is trying to do better. However not sure Saturday was enough for that (particularly as Crowley did quite well when he came on).
Henshaw played 13 not 12 against Australia, completely different. And Henshaw hasn't been good at 12 for quite a while.
