RUGBY LEAGUE WORLD CUP WRAP #2 - Foot to the floor, but driving into the wall

Before I launch into my thoughts about week 2 of the World Cup, I thought it might be helpful to set the scene and remind you of the rather unusual group structure we have.

We have Pool A, which features Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Cook Islands. This is the most straightforward as each side plays each other and the top two teams qualify for the semi finals.

In Pool B, there is England, Samoa and Lebanon. Pool C features Tonga, France and Papua New Guinea.

The table for these two pools are combined. The teams in Pool B play the teams in Pool C and vice versa. The top two teams in these combined pools qualify for the semi finals.

If the sides finish level on points, the first tiebreaker is head to head record. If the sides have not played each other, the second tiebreaker is points difference.

The practical reality of this meant that if England lost their opening match against Tonga, their fate would be out of their hands and qualification for the semi finals was unlikely. Tonga had the harder fixtures, but if they lost to England, their fate remained in their own hands because they were playing Samoa. The way the fixtures fell, Samoa had the easiest run of these three teams.

There has been a degree of consternation in the England camp at perceived unfairness. It is an argument I have little sympathy for.

This is not a school sports day where everyone gets a medal for taking part and trying hard. It is a World Cup. And no matter what structure you have, some teams will have tougher runs than others.

Quite often in Rugby League World Cups, we have decided to manipulate the draw to create blockbuster group fixtures. You will have seen that with the Australia v New Zealand opener this time around. Or England hosting Australia on the opening day of the 2000 and 2013 World Cups. Or the much-hated "super-group" format of 2008, which saw Australia, New Zealand and England all placed in the same group.

At the 2021 World Cup, we took a different approach. We used a more conventional seeded draw. This kept Australia, New Zealand and England (the traditional big 3) apart from each other. 

Each system has its positives and negatives. In a sport desperate for attention, it is understandable that we manufacture a situation to ensure that most desirable fixtures are played. Especially in a sport where international competition has long been an afterthought.

We did not have England play Australia or New Zealand in the 2021 World Cup and the tournament did feel lacking for that, notwithstanding the reason for this was down to one of the worst England performances of modern times, losing to Samoa in the semi final.

The 2021 tournament was one with greater sporting integrity than any of its predecessors. But the chasm between some of the participants made the group stages feel more like an opposed training session than the pinnacle of the sport.

The return of the manufactured tournament set up means that there is always one side that will be a sacrificial lamb. And no, it was not England. This year it was Fiji. Placed in a group with Australia and New Zealand and needing to finish in the top two to qualify. Fiji have made the semi finals of the World Cup on three of the last four occasions. I think they deserved a fairer crack of the whip than this.

The obvious answer was to have two seeded groups of five. You could have pooled the teams as so:

Pool A: Australia, New Zealand (the top two of the IRL rankings)
Pool B: England, Samoa (3rd and 4th in IRL rankings)
Pool C: Tonga, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Lebanon, Cook Islands, France (remaining teams)

Those groups would be comprised of one team from Pool A, one team from Pool B and three teams from Pool C, with the top two sides qualifying. I have done a dummy draw, which may have looked something like this:

Group A: Australia, Samoa, Tonga, France, Papua New Guinea
Group B: New Zealand, England, Fiji, Lebanon, Cook Islands

I think this would have been a better balance between fairness, maintaining genuine jeopardy as to who would progress and still some enticing fixtures.

This would have been the obvious way forward. So why wasn't it used? The players union in Australia has demanded that the number of games in the World Cup be reduced. The structure I propose would see six matches needed to win a World Cup, compared to the five of the structure used.

There has been criticism of England not playing a warm up match. Lebanon Coach Michael Cheika has told the press that the limitations on the number of matches meant his side were not permitted to play a warm up match.

This gives the impression of a tournament that is de-prioritised and lacks prestige. I am sympathetic to the demands on players. This is a sport which carries huge physical demands. Where I do not agree with the current approach is that when we look at how to manage that workload, the axe swings at the one vehicle which can attract audiences that the club game can never reach.

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From the off field matters to the on-field. England's second match at the World Cup was against France. England knew that due to head-to-head record (and Tonga's win over Lebanon on Friday), Tonga could not be overhauled. England's only hope of qualifying for the semi final was to win their last two matches, hope Samoa slipped up and overturn Samoa's massive points difference advantage.

That task became even harder as Samoa made light work of what looked a tricky fixture on paper. Its annihilation of Papua New Guinea by 6-64 meant that the points difference gap became even larger.

It was not a case that England needed to win but they needed to win big. That was looking quite unlikely as their game against France reached the 20 minute mark and we were yet to see a point scored.

After that, England ran riot. 14 tries were scored in the remaining 57 minutes of the match to see England win 82-0. That is on average a try scored every four minutes. If you assume a set of six takes 60 seconds and that our sport is designed so that teams have equal possession, that is a try every other set of six.

England had to put their foot to the floor to try and reduce the points difference gap. The only problem is with that gap remaining huge, it just feels like they are driving into a brick wall at higher speed.

By margin, it was England's largest ever win over France, surpassing the 84-4 win at Leigh in 2015. I had the misfortunate of being at that match at Leigh, which was a terrible spectacle, as was today's match.

When our sport is close, I do not think there is anything that can match it. But its physical nature means that when one side is superior to another, there is little room to hide. You cannot play ultra-conservative and hope for the best. You will be exposed. And when our sport has blow-outs like this, it can be a pretty dire watch.

Without wanting to come across like a whinging Pom, there is very little satisfaction to be had in destroying a side far worse than you and realising there is very little meaning to actually doing so.

France have not beaten Great Britain or England since 1990. Someone may correct me, but I do not actually remember a truly competitive game between the two nations in my 30 or so years of watching the sport.

The introduction of Catalans and Toulouse to Super League has done little to reduce the gap. It would be naive to expect that to be so either. You cannot realistically place the growth ambitions of a sport in an entire country on one or two clubs and think that will work. Especially when we tie those clubs' hands by making them pay bonds to enter the Challenge Cup, pay for other teams' flights and accommodation and, in Toulouse's case, reduce central funding.

The reality for England is that if they want to play a competitive international match, the only sides that can offer that are based 12,000 miles away. We talk about needing a mid-season international and more training camps. But given the paucity of competitive opponents available to England, I am far from convinced it would make any difference.

And if you were not depressed enough after watching two largely uncompetitive matches in the men's tournament, we then got to witness the unbecoming sight of Australia defeat England's women's side 78-0.

The only positive I could take from this game is that it wasn't quite as bad as the 90-4 loss England suffered the last time these sides met.

I am not critical of the England's women side here. They tried their best. But they are part-time players, holding down full-time jobs and taking annual leave stored up for a year, to play in this tournament. They are playing against the best Australian full time, professional female athletes with access to facilities to which our women could only dream. Their commitment is unwavering and admirable. But they are lambs sent to the slaughter.

Such is the gap between Australia's women's team and the rest, you reach the point of calling into question the purpose of the tournament as a meaningful sporting contest. There is an argument that player safety is compromised. You never want to close the sporting door on anyone, especially for the women's game, who have to fight harder for anything close to equal opportunity compared to their male counterparts. But as a spectator sport, it is hard to watch.

I am aware that this piece has been filled with negativity. So I'll try and be more positive.

In my railroading against the men's tournament structure on Twitter, some people have replied to say that the blowouts are made more interesting because, for example, England, have to keep going against France to close the points difference gap, making it more interesting that say the blowouts at the 2021 World Cup. A fair counterpoint.

And the final round of group fixtures is not a total dead rubber. If England win and Tonga beat Samoa, qualification for the semi finals comes down to point difference. England will need to overhaul a 69 point deficit to do that.

This may be tougher still as Tonga may choose to rest some players against Samoa, with their qualification for the semi finals all but assured.

For England to qualify, I would suggest a minimum of a 50 point winning margin is needed, as I do not see Samoa losing to Tonga by more than three scores (and even that would be a surprise). Realistically, England need to be winning by 60 to 80 points to stand a chance of qualifying. 

And whilst England will be overwhelming favourites against Papua New Guinea on Friday, such a margin of victory seems highly unlikely.

Anyway, I said I was being positive didn't I? Although the World Cup this time has felt like a Pacific Cup with some invitational teams, every time Samoa play Tonga, the atmosphere and intensity is incredible. And we have that to look forward to next weekend. The knockout stages of the tournament also promise much. It might be a bit of a grind to get there, but we still do have an exciting couple of weeks ahead.

Just probably not if you're an England fan.