RWC 2015 – Why I’m already excited!
By Gryff
March 19 2012
A strange topic for an article at this time you might think but I’ll try and explain in my insane ramblings below!
We have today finished a very interesting post RWC 6 Nations which has seen my beloved Wales claim the Grand Slam and a resurgent new look Sarries centric England enliven proceedings. We are 1,265 days from the start of the next Rugby World Cup in England (and a little bit of Wales) in 2015. The 2011 RWC set the benchmark for future tournaments and even from these far shores capture many hearts and minds. The thought of such a competition on these shores was immediately exciting. So exciting to me that we immediately started saving monthly to have a ticket fund ready!
Many of the details for 2015 are already becoming known. There will be approximately 2,800,000 tickets on sale but it is anticipated that for many matches demand will outweigh availability. This is a much larger number than in New Zealand double I think. There are however, reckoned to be 6 million rugby fans in the UK (though not at VR!) with a further 375,000 visitors anticipated so despite falls in club rugby attendance tickets may be at a premium for the tastier matches.
The RFU are intending to use large stadia and have targeted venues covering the country being Twickers,Millennium Stadium, Welford Road, Kingsholm, Emirates, Anfield, St James Park (Newcastle), St Mary’s (Southampton), Old Trafford, Anfield, Elland Road (Leeds) and our old friend the Ricoh in Coventry (will the SSA run coaches?). A large number of football stadiums but at present no Wembley. These should be finalised by the end of this year. They have said they cannot find a large enough stadium in the South West hence they intend to use the Millennium although there is some fuss about how many games Wales will be allowed to play there.
Ticket prices are not yet known but it has been stated they will be set at a similar level to New Zealand with many group match tickets available for £10. A registration process will be launched shortly at www.rugbyworldcup.com . Financially the RFU have guaranteed the IRB £80million from the tournament the last 25% being government guaranteed however the RFU does not anticipate using the guarantee and expect a profit above the £80m. As the main source of income is ticketing prices are going to be interesting!
So the infrastructure is well on the way to being sorted so now to look at the rugby. The set up will be the same as that for New Zealand being 20 teams in 4 groups of 5. Of these 12 have already qualified being the holders, the hosts and the top 3 in each of the groups in RWC 2011. Therefore New Zealand, England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, France, Italy, Australia, South Africa, Argentina, Samoa, and Tonga have booked their places. The usual subjects but some big names are going to have to qualify such as Canada,USA,Russia, Georgia and Fiji.
In all 80 teams are involved and qualifying take place through 5 regional conferences and a repechage. Africa, Asia and Oceania have 1 qualifying spot and Europe and Americas have 2 with 1 place from a repechage between the runners up in the African, Asian, Americas and European pools. Amongst the teams trying to qualify are the likes of Madagascar, St Vincents, Iran and Guam! Mexico are so new they don’t even have an IRB ranking at present. How has our game spread how can we not be excited?
Now to one of my spurious reasons for writing this. The 12 qualified teams will be placed in 3 bandings according to their IRB rankings after the autumn internationals this year! So much for England, for example, having a rebuilding period when results don’t matter! Realistically the 4th place behind New Zealand, Australia and South Africa is available and after the 6 Nations is held by England with Wales close behind in 5th. The holder of that place could avoid the southern hemisphere giants in the pools and if winning their groups until the semis. Being in the second ranked band face the possibility of a pool with one of them and a strong team in the third ranking of 9 to 12 say a resurgent Scotland or if Argentina fall this year, we would have a true pool of death. At the moment the rankings do not throw up any anomalies but Canada in 13th are not that far behind Scotland and if results go right could make it into the top 12. The ranking system works on a point exchange system and that would require another article to try and explain try being the operative word.
So the rankings are forming which will dictate the pools but what really got me thinking was seeing that next Saturday 24th March 2012 the first qualifying match is being played. At the stadium La Ibero Sante Fe in Mexico City Mexico plays Jamaica. A couple of weeks later Jamaica play Cayman Isles and the same day St Vincent & The Grenadines play Barbados. If I win the lottery this week I am going to one! The Webb Ellis Cup will be in Mexico for the first match accompanied by Lawrence Dallaglio nice work if you can get it!
So that’s why I am excited the rugby starts next week and I’ll be watching Total Rugby on Sky for coverage and checking the websites for updates and watching for venue and ticket news. It will be a completely different tournament to New Zealand with double the tickets planned and therefore on a larger scale. I do hope that some of the spirit and welcome seen in New Zealand will be seen and that the rugby community steps up to the plate and deliver.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012:03:25:12:59:56 by Kat..
No, seriously - thanks Gryff. That strayed into territory where very few of us could have ventured. Perhaps that could be the pilot for a series here about the progress of Guam et al towards the RWC Finals?
One of the successes of RWC in NZ was the local communities adopting visiting sides, so this could tie into that.
Any suggestions who we might like to follow? Are Algeria, Tunisia or anywhere else with camels (ignoring Australia) involved?
Nous sommes l'armée noir et rouge !
Madagascar, Namibia, Morocco, Senegal,Botswana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Zambia, Mauritius, Nigeria
..I think that's all of them.
Nous sommes l'armée noir et rouge !
It's a long time since Sports network paid anything!
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012:03:20:20:47:09 by Friar Sven.
Two matches Easter weekend with Jamiaca v Cayman Islands and Barbados v St Vincent's & Grenadines!
The between 14th to 20th April in the Philippines Sri Lanka, Singapore, Philippines and Chinese Taipei will battle it out for the honours of being crowned Asian Five Nations Division 1 champions as part of the qualification process
The Asian qualifying is particularly complicated but the winner of this group of matches gets into next years Asian Divison 1 along with the winner of a play off between the winners of Divison 2 and 3. Which then go into Division 1 for 2014 the winner of which qualifies. All become clear as matches progress I hope!