World Rankings?

First topic message reminder :

Have just been looking at the World Rankings. England are down to 8th place. Just above Scotland.

I  cannot remember England being so low in the World Rankings. I guess this world cup as been a lot worse for England than it first looked.

What ever the out come of this review into England's world cup exit. Who ever takes over as a lot of work to do to take England back up the World Ranking table.
(1)
New Zealand
NZL
92.89
2
(2)
Australia
AUS
90.93
3
(5)
Ireland
IRE
85.74
4
(3)
Wales
WAL
85.71
5
(4)
South Africa
RSA
84.58
6
(7)
Argentina
ARG
80.49
7
(6)
France
FRA
79.77
8
(8)
England
ENG
79.77
9
(9)
Scotland
SCO
77.94
10

Read more at http://www.worldrugby.org/rankings#Z5ElslLgy5SlhhSf.99

mrsuperclear wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Not offended... But astounded......by your delusion .

Ireland haven't really beaten worthy opponent for a while. France are France, but the France of the past four years has been easy to nullify. I think after the final four face-off against one another in this competition we shall have a better idea of how the teams rank.

Does winning the last two six nations and coming first in our last two world cup pools count for nothing?

Other opponents we've beaten in the last 12 months include Australia, South Africa and England.

We'll see how the thing pans out, but don't think it's delusion at all, on the basis of the last two years 6N and the world cup thus far, don't think it's a far fetched order.

I obviously came across as a little offensive originally. So I'll put it a better way. To answer your first question, no it doesn't count for nothing. Ireland have been quite fantastic since Schmidt took over. More recently however, you tasted defeat to Wales and England who at the time were lower ranked than you. You can't lose those games and expect it not to affect these 'fan rankings.' In the mean time Australia have got better. They've beaten South Africa, New Zealand and have just topped the group of death. I think right now it's fair to say that you aren't on Australia's level - obviously you could prove otherwise in the next couple of weeks.

Ireland also beat Wales before the tournament. They're all warmups. They all count or don't count.
But if you're going to say they count, then they all count.

France beat England in the warmups. Ireland beat France in the real competition. Warmups aren't the WC.
QED

SecretFly wrote:Ireland? Twice. Well we know what you think of them. You think that they're ordinary and that they haven't beaten worthy opponents. Well, they beat Wales recently. Now if Welsh fans can use their beating of us (and have been doing so on these very threads in recent weeks) - then I think we can add beating Wales to our list. Do you count yourselves worthy opponents?

Ireland topped their group and pummelled a supposedly much superior French aggressive outfit into the ground in the second half (the word 'superior' based on the number of people here last week who promised us we'd be beaten) - with no Paulie or Sexton, the two players every outside observer said Ireland couldn't possibly survive without.

Recently they haven't. Seeing as these are 'fan rankings' then I thought unlike the official ones we could take into account other circumstances, such as rotating players. You beat a Wales team that was third string with some token first and fourth choice players - well done. However when you've recently played our first team you have lost both home and away.

Who the hell said the French were superior? They clearly haven't watched 6 Nations rugby for the past four years - and outside of that tournament they've hardly impressed. If those two players plus POM are missing I think that theory will be tested. How inspirational is Best for your boys?

mikey_dragon wrote:Ireland lost to Wales and England before the tournament.

SFW?

Cardiff Dave wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Ireland lost to Wales and England before the tournament.

SFW?

Why don't we begin with ABC.

mikey_dragon wrote: You beat a Wales team that was third string with some token first and fourth choice players - well done. However when you've recently played our first team you have lost both home and away.

I repeat, they are warmups - not the WC.  You had your third stringers - testing out stuff and what not.  Schmidt was testing out his bits and pieces with many of his mainstays.  You call those warm-ups full on Internationals? Gatland and Schmidt even had a chat about what they wanted from the games....
As for the real International (6N) - yes.  Wales won.  Good going.  Ireland won the year before.

But come clean.  Give your list of how the numbers pan out in your fan ranking.

I don't agree on the warm-ups and friendlies argument. They are still the national team There are many reasons why a team is not at its peak but in the end none of them matter. At the end of 2013 NZ barely scrapped past Ireland. NZ had a Ben Smith (a 15) playing 13 as Conrad Smith (best win ratio of the senior ABs) was on holiday as well as a 2nd string front row and a couple of relatively inexperienced players. If Ireland had won no Irish fan would have said no its not a real win because it was the last game of a long season and not all the top team were there and anyway its not the RWC so its only a friendly.

Yeah pretty much nganboy. SecretFly I found it a bit strange that you Irish were clinging so desperately on to that one win against a Wales 3rd team for....well, two weeks because we cancelled it out when our first team beat yours in Dublin.

nganboy wrote:I don't agree on the warm-ups and friendlies argument. They are still the national team There are many reasons why a team is not at its peak but in the end none of them matter. At the end of 2013 NZ barely scrapped past Ireland. NZ had a Ben Smith (a 15) playing 13 as Conrad Smith (best win ratio of the senior ABs) was on holiday as well as a 2nd string front row and a couple of relatively inexperienced players. If Ireland had won no Irish fan would have said no its not a real win because it was the last game of a long season and not all the top team were there and anyway its not the RWC so its only a friendly.

?  
Thus Wales won a pre WC friendly against Ireland and Ireland won a pre WC friendly against Wales.  
Can't have the argument both ways.  There were two friendlies.  Mikey ignored one to put a gloss on the record.  I'm telling him if he wants to count one of them, he has to acknowledge both of them.

I don't agree with you on the friendlies though.  I think some teams can try harder than others in friendlies - and especially in advance of a WC, getting systems right can outweigh putting your full team out to do a full honest intense attack on the opposition.  

As for the AB game.  That was a full blown AI game.  If the ABs showed up expecting a 'friendly' then it's they who got their dates wrong

mikey_dragon wrote:Yeah pretty much nganboy. SecretFly I found it a bit strange that you Irish were clinging so desperately on to that one win against a Wales 3rd team for....well, two weeks because we cancelled it out when our first team beat yours in Dublin.

Enjoy the memory of the win.     You'll find no comment from me crowing about that first Irish win.
But mikey, you still can't drift past the point that Gatland dropped a third string into the friendlies to 'test' - he certainly couldn't have been expecting a delicious win - or maybe he did?  He certainly sounded a little disappointed that the result wasn't closer..
Then Joe wants to try out things against your main bunch who he's been informed will be trying their hearts out.  So is it only Wales that use friendlies to try out things?

PS - Gatland complained that Ireland played no rugby in that last game. Meaning we showed him nothing.

mikey_dragon wrote:Yeah pretty much nganboy. SecretFly I found it a bit strange that you Irish were clinging so desperately on to that one win against a Wales 3rd team for....well, two weeks because we cancelled it out when our first team beat yours in Dublin.

Can't speak for everyone, but that's not true of me. I didn't rate any of the warm ups, win or lose.

If you want to argue that they do matter, then Ireland stuffed Wales at the MS, while Wales scrapped by Ireland. But as I say, I don't rate them

The AI's are not friendlies....

Sorry the term friendlies is a bit alien to us Kiwis. I thought you guys use it when not a championship kind of game eg not 6N or 4N or RWC. My point is all games count.

nganboy wrote:Sorry the term friendlies is a bit alien to us Kiwis. I thought you guys use it when not a championship kind of game eg not 6N or 4N or RWC. My point is all games count.

So you agree that the 2013 game against Ireland did count. Good

All games count for one reason or another, but the winning of all games is not always the priority, as nice as the winning is.

nganboy wrote: My point is all games count.

True. They all count IF you count them all.

Munchkin wrote:

nganboy wrote:Sorry the term friendlies is a bit alien to us Kiwis. I thought you guys use it when not a championship kind of game eg not 6N or 4N or RWC. My point is all games count.

So you agree that the 2013 game against Ireland did count. Good

All games count for one reason or another, but the winning of all games is not always the priority, as nice as the winning is.

We won so I'll count it!

mikey_dragon wrote:Yeah pretty much nganboy. SecretFly I found it a bit strange that you Irish were clinging so desperately on to that one win against a Wales 3rd team for....well, two weeks because we cancelled it out when our first team beat yours in Dublin.

Go ask the England team that beat us in Twickenham how much that win means now. I doubt they wouldn't want to switch places with their Irish counterparts and take to the field at the weekend. And if Wales don't make it to the semi-finals and we do, I doubt we'll see many Welsh fans coming on here to boast about your win in Dublin in the aftermath either!

These aren't really full test matches nganboy- it can't be compared to say the game in 2013 in Dublin because in the Autumn Internationals players are coming in battle-hardened, in the middle or at the end of their seasons. Thats not the case with these; the players are coming back from a long break from competitive rugby. The World Cup warm-ups are the first games of the pre-season and their main objective is to rapidly get match fitness up to test match level before the season proper begins. Their secondary objective is to put the work done on tactics in pre-season into practice- without showing too much of your hand. Then, after that, it's about the result. But it's inevitable that some players take longer to work out the rust than others and some coaches don't want to give a lot away, and most coaches will rotate the squad to assess who should be going to the RWC and who shouldn't so... I don't think, under the circumstances, they should be taken seriously. At all.

Notch I wasn't boasting I was merely trying to explain to fly that I didn't think Ireland were on a level footing with Australia - which is no insult as Aus are probably pushing for All Blacks level right now. It was also based on recent form where Australia have beaten various teams in the top 6 whilst Ireland had lost some games coming into this tournament - the only decent opposition they have beaten is France.

I think Ireland will beat Argentina and Aus will beat Scotland. That sets up a tasty quarter final! I get the feeling you'll be meeting Wales in a third place play off after that match though

These tests before the world cup started were pre season matches. If they were as important as some of you say, the teams would have played their strongest sides. Even the rugby championship in world cup year is more of a world cup preparation tournament than a championship they're all desperate to win. Look at NZ going through the motions, SA's performance against Argentina and all the experimenting the teams were doing.

maestegmafia wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Not offended... But astounded......by your delusion .

Ireland haven't really beaten worthy opponent for a while. France are France, but the France of the past four years has been easy to nullify. I think after the final four face-off against one another in this competition we shall have a better idea of how the teams rank.

France had nothing to offer once Ireland scored their try. They couldn't get back into the game. I fear for them that they are going to get an absolute pasting this weekend when the all blacks unleash their full game.

Funny that Argentina are being praised by everyone this week for beating Namibia and Tonga while Ireland only beat Italy and won easy at the weekend because France were sh!te. Last week the talk was that Ireland would struggle against the best prepared and fittest France side in years.

profitius wrote:These tests before the world cup started were pre season matches. If they were as important as some of you say, the teams would have played their strongest sides. Even the rugby championship in world cup year is more of a world cup preparation tournament than a championship they're all desperate to win. Look at NZ going through the motions, SA's performance against Argentina and all the experimenting the teams were doing.

maestegmafia wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Not offended... But astounded......by your delusion .

Ireland haven't really beaten worthy opponent for a while. France are France, but the France of the past four years has been easy to nullify. I think after the final four face-off against one another in this competition we shall have a better idea of how the teams rank.

France had nothing to offer once Ireland scored their try. They couldn't get back into the game. I fear for them that they are going to get an absolute pasting this weekend when the all blacks unleash their full game.

Funny that Argentina are being praised by everyone this week for beating Namibia and Tonga while Ireland only beat Italy and won easy at the weekend because France were sh!te. Last week the talk was that Ireland would struggle against the best prepared and fittest France side in years.

Absolutely on the money, Prof. All teams are better than Ireland.....unless they lose to us......in which case those teams were always rubbish. 'Sure even Ireland could beat that shower'.

....or as recently read; the team lost to Ireland because they were saving themselves for the All Blacks

Who's been praising Argentina? I think they're an okay team but haven't done much worthy of note since an away win against SA. They sure are tough to put away, but Ireland will do just that.

They did rather well against the stand out "best team in the world" only running out of steam around 60. Did better than most teams would to be fair and don't knock an away win in SA.

Here is a list of SA at home to various tier 1 nations since the pro era began

AUS -  4 wins in 22 (18%)
FRA - 2 wins in 6 (29%)
ENG -  1 win in 8 (12%)
ARG - 1 win in 7 (14%)
IRE - 0 wins in 4 (0%)
SCO - 0 wins in 6 (0%)
WAL - 0 wins in 8 (0%)
ITA - 0 wins in 7 (0%)

Only NZ have bucked the trend with 15 in 25. The rest its crumbs from the kings table so as much as people right off Argentina's achievement.... its something no NH has done in a decade.

Not knocking Argentina. I think the Irish must have been making that up "..funny that Argentina have been praised by everyone this week" just to get some attention.

All 4 games are 15 guys against 15 guys and in theory anything could happen but this one seems to be the least predictable. Ireland should win but Argentina seem to be real dark horses.