For the World Cup draw at the Paris Stock Exchange next month, Wales will take their place at the top table as if the Six Nations had never happened.
They will be there as one of the four best teams on the planet, their presence as an integral part of the elite quartet made all the more implausible by their failure to finish in the top four in Europe.
World Rugby have brought that about in defiance of their own official rankings, a decision almost as illogical as Mr Trump’s allegations of election fraud.
The game’s supreme governing body have chosen to ignore every result this year and base the draw on the rankings as they stood 12 months ago, not as they stand today which had been standard practice. Instead they have chosen to turn the clock back and make absolutely zero allowance for the vagaries of form as reflected in the most recent ups and downs.
France, up to fourth on the strength of their exhilarating revival, are therefore denied one of the top four seedings for their own World Cup. Wales, according to World Rugby, remain in the top four even though the same World Rugby system has demoted them to eighth, beneath Scotland.
That will make Welsh presence in Paris on December 12 alongside holders South Africa, New Zealand and European champions England rather odd to say the least. The Scots remaining stranded in the third tier for the next World Cup due to their early exit from the last seems every bit as odd.
The organisers attempted to justify their decision as ‘the least worst option’. They made it, they said, ‘because of disruption to the calendar and Japan being unable to play’.
Their drop down one place to nine cannot be ascribed to their enforced inactivity with any certainty. Keeping them in eighth place and therefore among the second band has left France and Scotland to feel short-changed while elevating Wales to a position way above their current station.
The best of all Welsh draws could leave them with Japan, Italy and two qualifiers. The worst of all English ones could leave them with infinitely more tricky obstacles in the form of France or Ireland and Scotland.
What goes up must, of course, come down and the top ten may well look very different when France 2023 gets underway, Covid-permitting. Ignoring every Test result this year obliterates any modest attempt to reflect changes in fortune from one World Cup to the next.
The three bands for the draw on December 12 are taken from the rankings as they were at the end of the World Cup this time last year:
Band 1: South Africa, New Zealand, England, Wales.
Band 2: Ireland, Australia, France, Japan.
Band 3: Scotland, Argentina, Fiji, Italy.
Had the current rankings been used, the bands would have been rather different as follows:
Band 1: South Africa, New Zealand, England, France.
Band 2: Ireland, Australia, Scotland, Wales.
Band 3: Japan, Argentina, Fiji, Georgia.
World Rugby’s decision to ignore all that does Wales a mighty favour. In guaranteeing them immunity from having to swim in the same pool as the Springboks or the All Blacks, it opens up the possibility of an infinitely less demanding route into the last eight.
Whether they will be capable of making the most of such generosity is another matter entirely.
PETER JACKSON
