No World Cup winner has ever dropped a match

First topic message reminder :

Two leading contenders for the title this year- England and South Africa - have already lost a match.

Wales play Australia, and Ireland play France in the pool stages. Unless there's a draw, that's two more sides who will pick up a loss. It's entirely possible that both qualifiers from the pool of death will have dropped a match.

Australia or Wales could of course stay unbeaten, but we might find ourselves with the situation that six of the eight quarter finalists will have suffered a defeat along the way. The exceptions in that scenario will likely be New Zealand or Scotland, and France or Ireland.

Both England and France have made the final despite losing matches, so we've already had three occasions when a side had a chance to win the title without an unblemished record. It hasn't happened so far but the odds of it happening this year are perhaps now higher than previous tournaments.

Then again, NZ might just sweep all before them as the bookies predicted.

Biltong wrote:South Africa?

Get to that final, Bilt. Then the stars and the fates and the stats will take care of the rest

SecretFly wrote:

Biltong wrote:South Africa?

Get to that final, Bilt.  Then the stars and the fates and the stats will take care of the rest

But....but.....we might have to face NZ before the final

Irish Londoner wrote:England have never won a World Cup in any sport when there's been a Conservative government in power.

They've never won a world cup in rugby either in a year that didn't end with 2003!!!!