Draw gives Ireland good opportunity to proceed but topping pool looks essential

Insomuch as one can forecast how things might be panning out in almost three years’ time, Ireland were handed a reasonably negotiable pool draw for the 2015 World Cup yesterday.

But on the fairly safe premise that New Zealand will win their pool – the reigning World champions have done so with some ease in the previous seven tournaments – then Ireland will have every incentive to win Pool D ahead of their French bêtes noires and Italy.

Pool D has a distinctly Six Nations flavour and France are undoubtedly Ireland’s bogey side. Aside from one win in the last dozen meetings, Ireland have been evicted from previous World Cups by France at the quarter-final stages in 1995 and 2003, not to mention the 25-3 pool defeat in 2007.

Against that, Ireland have won their last 17 meetings with Italy, including a 36-6 pool finale in Dunedin last year.

In any event, the pool runners-up are more than likely going to run into New Zealand in the quarter-final stages. What’s more, that is also the half of the draw featuring the Pool B winners, which most likely will be two-time winners South Africa.

By contrast, the winners of Pool D will meet the runners-up in Pool C, which form and history would indicate will be Argentina, with the winners from the Pool of Sharks, aka Pool A (featuring Australia, England, Wales and most probably Fiji along with one more) also lurking in that half of the draw.

All in all, the rewards for winning the Euro-themed Pool D could be considerable.

Sigh of relief

The draw, with Will Greenwood as MC and London mayor Boris Johnson short, to the point and entertaining, was mercifully conducted with a minimal sense of drama at the Tate Modern. When Debbie Jevans, the RWC chief executive, drew England first out of the bowl containing the second band of seeds, it pitted the hosts with Wales in Pool A (courtesy of Johnson) and the representatives from the other second band of seeds would assuredly have breathed a sigh of relief – including a five-strong Irish contingent featuring Declan Kidney and Brian O’Driscoll in the fifth row.

If nothing else too, the value of earning that second tier seeding was underlined by the draw, as otherwise Ireland would have been thrown in amongst the sharks, ie Australia, England and Fiji. The England-Australia clash will be a reprise of both the 1991 and 2003 finals, which Australia and England won in turn.

Two time winners South Africa will meet Samoa for the third World Cup in a row, but were pushed hard for a 13-6 win in Albany last year, and this already appears like an ultra physical test for the third seeded Scots, with Japan and USA possible qualifiers to complete Pool D.

New Zealand will take heart from having beaten Tonga (in the pool stages) and Argentina (in the quarter-finals) en route to reaching their Holy Grail on home soil last year in a group which may also feature Georgia and Namibia.

Qualifying campaign

Ireland’s remaining pool opponents from the fourth and fifth bands have still to be decided. The qualifying campaign, which started in Mexico earlier this year, features another 80 nations playing 184 matches around the globe and the most likely teams to fill Pool D are Romania or Russia, as the second European qualifiers behind Georgia, and the best Americas’ qualifier, where Canada are fancied above the USA Eagles.

One takes Declan Kidney’s point that given the failure to reach the quarter-finals in 1999 and 2007, Ireland shouldn’t lose the run of themselves.

There is also the point that Warren Gatland makes, namely that New Zealand have often not been helped by sauntering through the group stages against an amalgam of second string XVs or second-rate rugby nations to then run into a more match-hardened team in the quarter-finals.

It’s also worth noting, as Gatland did, that the eventual two finalists in each of the last two World Cups came from the same pool.

The critical order of matches and venues won’t be finalised for another 18 months or so, and the political manoeuvrings in Pool A will be especially intriguing. Hosts and organisers will assuredly want England to host both Australia and Wales in a large English venue, ie preferably Twickenham or perhaps Wembley or the Olympic Stadium.

Unfair prospect

For commercial reasons, the organisers may well see value in having a few games in Cardiff, and with Scotland off the agenda, the one other game guaranteed to sell out the Millennium Stadium would be Wales against Australia. But this raises the distinctly unfair prospect of the top seeds and two-time winners Australia having to play both England and Wales away in their respective lairs.

As last year’s World Cup in New Zealand highlighted, one of the few spin-offs from Ireland returning to waves of emigration is that the ever-swelling Irish diaspora commercially commands big venues. (And heaven knows how much more the expanse of Irish “hotspots” will have been swelled in the intervening three years).

It is therefore more than conceivable that Ireland will meet say, France, in one of the three big London venues and, say, Italy, in one of Britain’s many Irish hotspots, such as the 77,000-capacity Old Trafford in Manchester. That there might be more overseas visitors than natives in the ground would assuredly make it just like a normal home game there too, no?