Rugby Union Autumn Nations Cup

[Nearly Sane]

And after the 6 Nations just finishing, we now have the Autumn Nations Cup starting next Friday.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn_Nations_Cup

[Nearly Sane]

France vs Fiji off due to number of Fijians testing positive for Covid

[Nearly Sane]

All of Fiji's matches in the group now off


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/55018181

[jeremyp]

All of Fiji's matches in the group now off


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/55018181

They must be absolutely gutted.

[ProfessorDavey]

Yesterday's match was unexpectedly exciting, largely due to Farrell deciding to take to the filed without his kicking boots on

However the Autumn series again demonstrates how predictable rugby is (and I showed some research data on this some while ago).

So in the 6 nations, the final order of teams was:
England
France
Ireland
Scotland
Wales
Italy

Change the structure of the tournament a bit for the Autumn tournament and the top 6 were, err:
England
France
Ireland
Scotland
Wales
Italy

Hmm - something needs to be done to throw a bit more unpredictability into rugby.

[Nearly Sane]

To be fair, the missed Fiji matches removed much of the attempt to add some unpredicatability.

[ProfessorDavey]

Why on earth are they making the draw for the pool stages for the next rugby world cup already - the tournament doesn't kick off until Sept 2023, nearly three years from now.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/55301480

The draw is based on rankings - in other words raking right now, three years ahead of time. Surely there will be all sorts of changes in the rankings between now and then, so it is bonkers to select the groups now rather than, say, in Spring 2023 six months ahead of time.

And looking at the details it is even more bonkers - because of covid they've used the rankings from Jan 2020, so about 45 months before the tournament!

[Nearly Sane]

Agreed, madness.


The difference between Jan 2020 and now is particularly significant for the Welsh team

https://www.world.rugby/tournaments/rankings/mru

[ProfessorDavey]

Agreed, madness.


The difference between Jan 2020 and now is particularly significant for the Welsh team

https://www.world.rugby/tournaments/rankings/mru

Yes that's true, but the main issue is deciding the groups on ranking 3 years ahead of time. What can (and has) happened is that changing in ranking over those years mean that at the time of the tournament you may get a group with three higher ranked side than the top ranked in a different group.

And of course teams build towards the only big tournament in town - the once in 4 years world cup, so teams three years ahead of that tournament may be deliberately going through rebuilding, not worrying too much about ranking or interim tournament results as they build to be at peak performance for the world cup.

[jeremyp]

Yesterday's match was unexpectedly exciting, largely due to Farrell deciding to take to the filed without his kicking boots on

However the Autumn series again demonstrates how predictable rugby is (and I showed some research data on this some while ago).

So in the 6 nations, the final order of teams was:
England
France
Ireland
Scotland
Wales
Italy

Change the structure of the tournament a bit for the Autumn tournament and the top 6 were, err:
England
France
Ireland
Scotland
Wales
Italy

Hmm - something needs to be done to throw a bit more unpredictability into rugby.

So in two tournaments run back to back on a league system i.e. no knockout matches (except the final of the Autumn Nations)  with more or less the same teams you are surprised  that the order was the same. I'm not.

[jeremyp]

Why on earth are they making the draw for the pool stages for the next rugby world cup already - the tournament doesn't kick off until Sept 2023, nearly three years from now.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/55301480

The draw is based on rankings - in other words raking right now, three years ahead of time. Surely there will be all sorts of changes in the rankings between now and then, so it is bonkers to select the groups now rather than, say, in Spring 2023 six months ahead of time.

And looking at the details it is even more bonkers - because of covid they've used the rankings from Jan 2020, so about 45 months before the tournament!

This is deja vu. I'm pretty sure you made almost exactly the same post in 2016 with respect to the 2020 tournament. I greed with you then and I agree with you now. It i bonkers

[jeremyp]

Agreed, madness.


The difference between Jan 2020 and now is particularly significant for the Welsh team

https://www.world.rugby/tournaments/rankings/mru

Lucky for them. If they did it on today's rankings, Wales would be outside of the top eight and likely to draw a group with two other top sides in it.

[ProfessorDavey]

So in two tournaments run back to back on a league system i.e. no knockout matches (except the final of the Autumn Nations)  with more or less the same teams you are surprised  that the order was the same. I'm not.

What it demonstrates is sadly how predictable international rugby has become - effectively your can predict the outcome of a match with much greater likelihood of success than in many other sports. And I showed some research proving this some while ago. The predictability, unfortunately, makes the sport pretty uninteresting at the moment. A degree of uncertainty make for a more exciting and interesting sport. Sure you don't want the random outcome generator in individual matches that the Championship in football so often is, with any team able to beat anyone else. But where in international rugby would you get the equivalent of this weekend's Premier League results, with Tottenham and Liverpool unable to beat much lower ranked opposition and Chelsea and Arsenal losing to similar opposition.

Rugby really could do with a shake up to make it a bit less predictable.

[ProfessorDavey]

This is deja vu. I'm pretty sure you made almost exactly the same post in 2016 with respect to the 2020 tournament. I greed with you then and I agree with you now. It i bonkers

But what is most bonkers is that they know it is non-sense, but didn't do anything about it. From the article:

In future, the Rugby World Cup board has recommended the draw takes less than a year before the event to ensure the pools better reflect performance at the time..

So by, in future, they mean for the 2027 tournament - surely if they know the current approach is bonkers then now would be the perfect time to change it for the 2023 tournament, as they cannot adopt their normal approach anyhow due to covid.

[Nearly Sane]

The draw



https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/55301480

[Nearly Sane]

Meanwhile in the Champions Cup


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/55336916

[jeremyp]

The draw



https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/55301480

On another forum, it was pointed out that, with today's rankings, the same draw would have resulted in pools that look like this:


Pool 1 2,7,12 England, Scotland, Italy
Pool 2 1,5, 9 SA, Ireland, Wales
Pool 3 4,6,11 France, Australia, Fiji
Pool 4 3,8,10 NZ, Argentina, Japan


Scotland would be more or less guaranteed to qualify for the knockout stages and Wales would be more or less guaranteed not to qualify, although they may recover by 2023 and Ireland may be worse.

[ProfessorDavey]

On another forum, it was pointed out that, with today's rankings, the same draw would have resulted in pools that look like this:


Pool 1 2,7,12 England, Scotland, Italy
Pool 2 1,5, 9 SA, Ireland, Wales
Pool 3 4,6,11 France, Australia, Fiji
Pool 4 3,8,10 NZ, Argentina, Japan


Scotland would be more or less guaranteed to qualify for the knockout stages and Wales would be more or less guaranteed not to qualify, although they may recover by 2023 and Ireland may be worse.

Still complete non-sense as the groups should reflect the rankings in the immediate run up to the tournament - noting that there needs to be a little time for final preparation.

The draw should be based on the rankings in late March 2023, directly following the 6-nations that year. 6 months is plenty of time to make the final preparations for the tournament.

[Nearly Sane]

And another Champions Cup match off


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/55367563

[ProfessorDavey]

And another Champions Cup match off


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/55367563

There seem to be far more rugby games being called off due to covid than football matches - not sure there have been any premier league matches called off.

Now I know the sports are different but there is plenty of man handling and close contact in football too, so I wonder why this is. Somehow it seems to be more than just bad luck.

[Nearly Sane]

There seem to be far more rugby games being called off due to covid than football matches - not sure there have been any premier league matches called off.

Now I know the sports are different but there is plenty of man handling and close contact in football too, so I wonder why this is. Somehow it seems to be more than just bad luck.

Yes, and from relatively fewer matches as the Champions Cup has been substantially reduced and only started last week

[ProfessorDavey]

Yes, and from relatively fewer matches as the Champions Cup has been substantially reduced and only started last week

I don't know whether top level football has just been lucky or whether they have simply put in place better safety measures, and maybe they can afford to when other less rich sports can't.

[Nearly Sane]

Three of the matches forfeited 28-0

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/55371384

[ProfessorDavey]

Three of the matches forfeited 28-0

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/55371384

OK - I'm really struggling to understand this.

So Glasgow had 20 players self isolating (and there is no suggestion that this is due to negligence etc) so presumably couldn't put out a team, yet they are deemed to have lost 28-0. This is completely nuts.

[Nearly Sane]

French possibly pulling out of the European Cups


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/55587044