Ben Darwin Tips Ireland for a World Cup Final spot

First topic message reminder :

http://www.theroar.com.au/2014/05/12/predicting-2015-rugby-world-cup-bracket/

Darwin works through the results one by one to see how the World Cup groups might work out, and he ends up with the Irish meeting New Zealand in the final, with the All Blacks winning. It's not the conclusion he would have expected from a top down approach. mind you.

It hinges on Ireland winning their group, and then beating Argentina in the quarters (he thinks they'll be 2nd in their group). Darwin thinks England will win their group, then face and beat Scotland and end up meeting Ireland in a semi. he tips Ireland to win, saying they were unlucky not to do so in the 6 Nations.

I haven't really thought about the permutations but it's interesting to see that Ireland could make the final without requiring any outlandish results by their current record.

Sure, Launch was in the Quins academy but they released him at an early age. I believe it was the ex Wasps connection in former prop Will Green, who was coaching Worthing at the time, who recommended him to Wasps.

fa0019 wrote:

Joe Launchbury is a bit marginal don't you think?  Dropped by quins aged 18 and went to a club in the 4th tier of english rugby with strong links to the pro london clubs... getting probably more game time than had he stayed at quins and perhaps a higher standard than the development teams. Given he got capped less than 3 years later I think it wasn't a bad thing to have happened.

Its almost like it was pre-arranged.

However how quins didn't see his talent I don't know. Whoever passed him up should be fired.

Chill out. It wasn't a lack of talent but a lack of money and spaces in his position in our pro academy, we opted to keep Charlie Mathews (who's now a starter ahead of Kennedy and been through all Int age grades) instead of Launchbury. We knew exactly what we were letting go (the potential in him that is, not that he would be an Int straight away or anything) but just couldn't keep him unfortunately.

Oh and while i'm rambling that bloke who "should be fired" is responsible for current England players like Marler, Buchanan, Collier, Robshaw, JTH, Monye and Brown. Not to mention the scores of youngsters we've got through in the last few seasons as we've repeatedly been in and around the top of the league.

However how quins didn't see his talent I don't know. Whoever passed him up should be fired.

Its a funny old world FA. It happens all the time in all sports.

Duncan Ferguson the ex-Scottish football forward 6'4 of raging aggressive attitude was initially let go in his youth by Rangers for being too small! They then bought him from Dundee Utd for around £4m which was a massive fee at the time.

i will have to see next years six nations before i can predict anything . Wales will have England and Ireland at home and the 3 blues away . we really need to win our home game against England or its good night Vienna at the world cup

GeordieFalcon wrote:

However how quins didn't see his talent I don't know. Whoever passed him up should be fired.

Its a funny old world FA. It happens all the time in all sports.

Duncan Ferguson the ex-Scottish football forward 6'4 of raging aggressive attitude was initially let go in his youth by Rangers for being too small! They then bought him from Dundee Utd for around £4m which was a massive fee at the time.

Glentoran, my local club from where I grew up in Belfast, turned down the chance to sign George Best because he was too small. He went and signed for some team called Manchester United instead...

Notch wrote:

GeordieFalcon wrote:

However how quins didn't see his talent I don't know. Whoever passed him up should be fired.

Its a funny old world FA. It happens all the time in all sports.

Duncan Ferguson the ex-Scottish football forward 6'4 of raging aggressive attitude was initially let go in his youth by Rangers for being too small! They then bought him from Dundee Utd for around £4m which was a massive fee at the time.

Glentoran, my local club from where I grew up in Belfast, turned down the chance to sign George Best because he was too small. He went and signed for some team called Manchester United instead...

Did he turn out to be any good Notch?

I heard he was ok

Football is a little different. Chaps are often released at a very young age say 14/15 and then shoot up as many kids do.

Launchbury was released aged 18.. when he was an age grade international so he must have been already half decent physically and skills wise. 3 years later he made his senior debut.

I find it remarkable that they let him go, an age grade international at 18.

Would never have happened at Saracens. They have a huge academy and affiliated clubs/programs for potential youngsters. In some ways its bad as they work through a shed load of juniors in the hope some will come good... but they would never get rid of such players

Quins do bring a lot of juniors through I acknowledge that but overall they haven't nutured a talent like Launchbury in a long time.

It reminds me of the ridicule the Portland trailblazers still get for passing on Michael Jordan in the 84 draft. This kid will go on to have a huge career.

With regards to the player’s figures earlier in the thread, I’m always a bit suspicious about published figures.

The IRB states that there are 2,028,348 players in England (men, women and children).
http://www.irb.com/mm/Document/AboutIRB/IRBOrganisation/02/07/03/26/irb-dev-glob-map.pdf

One section of the RFU website states that there are more than 3000 clubs in England, so if you estimate it at 3500, that would mean there are 579 men/women/children at each club, based on the IRB figures! I’m going to call cowpat on that. Every club I’ve ever played for has always been desperate for new players, often struggling to put a team out.

This however ignores a different RFU website which states that there 1200+. If this one is true then there are around 1600 people per club!

http://www.cantrugby.co.uk/Clubsnet/clubs.htm

According to the Daily Heil 1.9 million people played football in England last year. Now is anybody seriously going to come on here and tell me that more people play rugby than football in England? Again I am calling cowpat on that.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2340950/Drop-numbers-playing-football-cause-concern-admit-Sport-England.html

I don’t know how the figures are collated (it may be that they have included everyone who has ever even picked up a rugby ball), but I remain very suspicious.