To celebrate, I've set up a prediction game that all are welcome to sign up in. It's based on the same system I've used for 6 nations prediction games in recent years, and for the Football world cup last year.Links....
- Prediction game website
- Wikipedia World Cup 2011 page
- My brief introduction to the game of rugby union
By way of an introduction to the competition, I have listed all the teams here, separated into groups of teams that I consider to be fairly equal in talent, to be a guide for your newbies or for people who actually know about rugby to moan about
The gulf in quality between the teams is bigger than you'd find in football; it just hasn't caught on around the world in quite the same way as football but it is spreading for sure. 12 years ago 65 teams tried to qualify for the rugby world cup - this was up to 91 for this year's World Cup.New Zealand - The world number one team, they have lost 1 game since the start of 2010 (if you don't include their reserves losing to South Africa recently). The rugby they play is incredible and they have enormous self-belief. They always seem to be favourites for the World Cup but always seem to mess it up somehow. With home advantage, could this finally be their first World Cup victory since 1987?
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Australia
South Africa
The other two "Tri-Nations" are ranked at 2 and 3 in the world for a reason. They have great teams, and South Africa won the world cup last time round. They don't have the air of invincibility that New Zealand possess however, but will be favourites against anyone else.
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France
England
Wales
Ireland
I can't see too much difference between these 4 teams. They have each won one of the last four 6 nations competitions, and have composed the top 4 in that time. Any of them can beat any of them. They could beat the top 3 too - but they'll need to have a good day. They've all had reasonable warm-up matches, except Ireland, who lost to France, Scotland and France again. An England-France quarter final looks like a distinct probability, and the semis will most likely consist of the top 3 teams and the winner of that.
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Scotland
Argentina
Italy
These three are not great, and don't play particularly thrilling rugby, tending to rely on forward play, kicks for goal and solid defensive work to get results. They will be underdogs against any of the teams above them, but beating them is possible, eg Italy 22-21 France (2011), Scotland 9-8 Australia (2009). Argentina were brilliant in the last World Cup in 2007, reaching the semi-finals, but have gone backwards since then. Scotland look the most likely of the three to achieve something.
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Samoa
Tonga
Fiji
These three pacific islands are tiny countries, but completely rugby-mad. They are full of athletic players who play in some of the top leagues in the world. I'm not necessarily ranking these below the rest - fact is they don't play against northern hemisphere teams that much so it's hard to compare them, but the top 7 at least should expect wins against them. Wales seem to have trouble against them in particular, and they have two of them in their group this time round - Fiji who knocked them out in 2007 and Samoa who beat them in 1991 and 1999. Also worth mentioning that Samoa even managed to beat Australia 32-23 earlier this year.
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These final 7 teams are basically here to make up the numbers. It will be a fairly major shock if any of them manage to beat any of the other teams. Still, they need to be here - only by playing top teams can they progress in the future. They are listed in order of their current world ranking.
Japan
Canada
Georgia
Romania
USA
Russia (the only débutantes)
Namibia
It can be hard to predict how badly these teams will lose by. For example, in the last world cup we had scores such as Wales 72-18 Japan, Georgia 10-14 Ireland, Italy 24-18 Romania and New Zealand 108-13 Portugal.
