We all know there’s a busy summer of rugby ahead with the British & Irish Lions heading down under to take on the mighty New Zealand All Blacks and with plenty of Irish involvement in the squad we’ll be wearing red this summer (and hoping we don’t see a repeat of what happened the last time an Irish Lion stood up to the All Blacks!)
Source: ©INPHO/Hannah Johnston
Forward the clock ahead to summer 2019 (in the scheme of things it’s not that far away..) and Ireland will be going into battle in the Rugby World Cup. After the horrible scenes of France 2017 - Remember that career ending injury to Paul O’Connell?
Source: ©Ian Hogson
The French destruction of poor old Johnny Sexton?
Source: ©Getty Images
‘That’ horrible 1/4 final against Argentina?
Source: ©Getty Images
Hopefully atonement is on the way when the Rugby World cup touches down in Tokyo.
In the RWC there are four pools with five teams in each pool, picked by seeding based on the results of the last two years.
Having had a fairly impressive couple of seasons Ireland have managed to secure a the top tier ranking which means in tomorrow’s (well, tonight in Japan) pool draw we’re in the top group of seeding.
What does that mean?
The Band One teams for RWC 2019 are: New Zealand, England, Australia and Ireland. This means we won’t face another top seeded team until the 1/4 final (cause we’re gonna get out of the group.. aren’t we?
Who could be in our group?
The Band Two teams are: Scotland, Wales, South Africa and France (we’re definitely going to have one of those in our group)
The Band Three teams are: Argentina, Japan, Georgia, Italy.
Bands Four & Five are made up of emerging rugby nations and many of those places are yet to be decided.
Looking at the various premonitions and possible outcomes you’d imagine best case scenario is to end up in a pool with Scotland and Georgia (who almost ruined our party in RWC 2017, which is the year no Irish fan wants to talk about.) When you look at the worst case scenario you’d have to be fairly fearful of ending up in a pool with South Africa and Argentina.
The draw happens at 9am tomorrow and we’ll be watching with baited breath.
