Was it?
Geoffrey wildly swinging for the fences now 
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Pretty much.
I hope you can be a bit more accurate in college.
Iād have been a great lover of rugby in the amateur days but tis awful hard to follow it now. I was under the impression the introduction of the world cup made autumn and summer tests fairly meaningless, but lads were saying a couple of years ago Irelands defeat of NZ in Chicago was one of the greatest days in Irish sport and because there are ranking points at stake these games are hugely important. Now Ireland get to no. 1 in the world rankings and the same lads are saying Ireland are huge underdogs and there are far better teams in the world cup. Are Ireland such long odds to win this thing just based on their history of failure on the big stage then?
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at world cups?
Ireland are at 8/1 because they will have to face one of the two traditional superpowers of rugby and currently the two best teams in the world New Zealand or South Africa in the quarter final.
If Ireland were looking at say France or Argentina in a quarter final, theyād probably be around the 4/1 mark that England currently are.
are you saying world rankings are immaterial?
Was the recent match vs England a test game?
Why the use of plural? Coach Schmidt has only been to one World Cup.
Im new to rugby mate, how did he do at the one world cup that he was manager for?
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So do these rankings matter or not? If the no. 1 team in the rankings isnāt even among the top 2 teams at this world cup then the rankings, and therefore autumn and summer tests, must be fairly meaningless now? The no. 1 ranked test side in cricket would always be considered the worldās best test team for example, as the absence of a world cup means all tests are treated with great importance. This no longer the case in professional rugby?
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mate, the scummy soccer crowd will laugh their heads off when they read that, as a rugby man you should really know who we face in the qtrs
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Cheers mate. Much appreciated. Typo, quarter final and not semi final. Important for us rugby guys to have each others backs against the scummy soccer crowd.
agreed
they would have pounced on that
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You donāt have to follow it though. I used to live soccer when I was a child. I have no interest now. And its on the telly morning noon and night. But I can avoid it just fine
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Not one jot
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4th favourites would suggest a semi final place, as i predicted weeks ago. Ireland will beat SA.
iām being genuine hereā¦ Maybe rugby needs to look at how it ranks teams, but if the no.1 tean going into any tournament gets turned over in the QF youd have to say that was massively underachieving ā¦ I think Ireland will beat SA if they play them, but will lose to NZ.
We all know you are genuine on rugby matters as you invest a lot of time and energy in it. Similar to soccer, rugby relies primarily on the ranking system when it makes its World Cup draw. South Africa were at a very low ebb when the draw was made, they were outside the Top 4 and didnāt earn a Number 1 seed ranking. The vagaries of the draw with South Africa as a number 2 seed saw the 1 in 4 chance of the two traditional superpowers New Zealand and South Africa ending up in the same pool materialise.
South Africa are now resurgent under Coach Erasmus and you have the anomaly of the two strongest sides in the world New Zealand and South Africa in the same pool, with Ireland having to face one of them in the quarter final.
I rarely comment on rubby these days.
You talk about other teams all you want, tge fact remains that ireland are the no.1 team in the world and need to back it up.