Rugby league: 2013 World Cup draw is contrived

It was hard yesterday to get your head around a tournament that is almost three years away.

In fact, it was exactly three years yesterday until the final of the 2013 Rugby League World Cup, which is why we were all freezing off our fixture lists and watching a firework display at MediaCityUK on Salford quays.

The format of the tournament was already arousing some criticism. In case you haven’t seen it, the allocation – you can’t call it a draw – has produced the following groups:

a) England, Australia, Fiji, Ireland
b) New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, France
c) Scotland, Tonga, European qualifier
d) Wales, Cook Islands, Atlantic qualifier

Three teams will go forward from each of a) and b) and one each from c) and d). Just to keep it nice and convoluted, teams in c) and d) will also play one team from the opposite group. Got that? It should be clear by 2013.

Of course, it’s a contrived format. So was the 2008 tournament, but the test is whether it produces enough competitive matches. It might just do that; I’m already looking forward to Fiji v Ireland and PNG v Samoa.

The fact is that there aren’t enough teams of comparable standard to have an ‘open’ draw, so it has to be contrived. The question is whether it’s contrived right. There will be a few floggings in the group games and we hate that in rugby league. They aren’t half so fussed in union and, for once, I think they’ve got it right.

We’ll have a better idea how it will all hang together when we see the venues. Presumably Wales, Scotland and Ireland will play their home games on native soil, so there will be a genuinely national spread. Wales, however, hardly has plum fixtures – Cook Islands and the two qualifiers.

Those qualifiers will emerge from two pools – Italy, Lebanon, Serbia and Russia in one; Jamaica, USA and South Africa in the other. Those will be decided next autumn. November in Serbia anyone?

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