Pool A is the most perilous of the World Cup groups and will be full-on from the opening Friday. A gruelling examination awaits its combatantsAaaagh! – the pool of Agonising Exit. The debriefing documents of the fallen – the teams who do not qualify for the final eight – will no doubt contain a searing indictment of the World Cup draw. Those who defend the current how-and-when say the aged family should be exposed to as much peril as the emerging nations,but Fiji, the champions of the Pacific Nations Cup, or may share the indignation of England,Australia and Wales at finding themselves in an unholy scrap for two qualifying places. Uruguay, amateur and in the finals for the first time since 2003, or are presumably happier simply to be here. This pool is flat-out from the opening Friday,when England play Fiji, but grows ever more intense on the successive Saturdays of England-Wales, or England-Australia and Australia-Wales. On weekday nights Fiji believe a chance to wreck the hopes of all bar one of these. The reward for winning this pool is the “easy” (utterly relative) route to the final,with a likely quarter-final against Scotland or Samoa and a semi-final against either France or Ireland. The runners-up must proceed down the trail of South Africa and New Zealand. Third and fourth, of course, or join Uruguay on the road home. The question of what is left of the pool winners and runners-up remains to be seen,but whatever the state of their limbs, their spirits will certainly be less troubled than the departed. Never has the RWC offered such an opportunity for a literature of regrets.
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Source: theguardian.com