Rugby- Autumn tests

Good win by England. The mystery bug that struck New Zealand earlier in the week. McCaw might have denied it would have an effect, but the All Blacks looked exhausted. The ref was also poor....nothing new from these Northern h refs, but well done England. And that halt's the All Blacks undefeated run of 20 games.

Rugby World Cup 2015 takes a massive step forward later today in central London with the Pool Allocation Draw and you can follow it all live on rugbyworldcup.com.
Coverage begins at 2pm UK time with our live blog bringing you the latest as rugby stars and dignitaries gather ahead of the draw

Provisional latest IRB World Rankings

(Official rankings will be published at 12:00 UK time on Monday 3 December, on irb.com)

1 NEW ZEALAND - 90.08
2 SOUTH AFRICA - 86.94
3 AUSTRALIA - 86.87
4 FRANCE - 85.07
5 ENGLAND - 83.90
6 IRELAND - 80.22
7 SAMOA - 78.71
8 ARGENTINA - 78.71
9 WALES - 78.39
10 ITALY - 76.24
11 TONGA - 76.10
12 SCOTLAND - 75.83

Wales recent losses have cost them dearly as no one wants the 9 spot which means you fall into tier 3 and could be in the same group as New Zealand and England.

The confirmed pools for the Nelson Mandela Bay Sevens are:

Pool A: Samoa, France, South Africa, Australia
Pool B: New Zealand, Fiji, Scotland, England
Pool C: Kenya, Wales, Argentina, Spain
Pool Portugal, Canada, United States, Zimbabwe

Anybody going there ? Been to the George 7's and it is normally great fun.

shrek Wrote:

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> Wales recent losses have cost them dearly as no
> one wants the 9 spot which means you fall into
> tier 3 and could be in the same group as New
> Zealand and England.

Can't believe how 'average' they've been playing lately.

2015 World cup draw

Australia England Wales Oceania 1Playoff Winner Pool of death
South Africa Samoa Scotland Asia 1Americas 2
New Zealand Argentina Tonga Europe 1Africa 1
France Ireland Italy Americas 1Asia 1

Going to be bad losing England in the group phase. Never know why they need to do the draw 3 years before the Cup starts as teams can go serious up or down in the rankings.

Seedings really make the group stage very boring. Draw everyone out of a hat, then even the weak vs the weak becomes more interesting. I would rather watch S A vs England and Wales in early matches.