Planet Rugby Forum

So what's the deal here then

Canada, Kenya, Hong Kong and Germany left to fight it out for the last spot

How are each of the teams going currently - presumably Canada are the clear favourites for this?

And what's the format to determine the winner? Two legged knockout?

Canada definitely the favorite but man have they been shit lately and having Kingsley Jones as head coach doesn't exactly inspire confidence either.

Format is round robin, played on 3 consecutive weekends during the November test window all in Marseille.

It would be great to see a new flag at the World Cup but surely Canada will walk this ? Don’t they have plenty of pros in European leagues while the other countries don’t really have any , or is this no longer the case ?

Kenya is my favourite.

julian wrote:Kenya is my favourite.

I think Germany if not the Canucks. I want to say Canada will walk it but as goeagles says they have repeatedly underwhelmed.

HK the only one I don’t see with a chance. Could be a very entertaining three weeks, hope WR or someone will throw up some streams.

Conspicuous wrote:It would be great to see a new flag at the World Cup but surely Canada will walk this ? Don’t they have plenty of pros in European leagues while the other countries don’t really have any , or is this no longer the case ?

playing in marseille, pretty much home then...

fonzeee wrote:

julian wrote:Kenya is my favourite.

I think Germany if not the Canucks. I want to say Canada will walk it but as goeagles says they have repeatedly underwhelmed.

HK the only one I don’t see with a chance. Could be a very entertaining three weeks, hope WR or someone will throw up some streams.

Canada has all the numbers but I would like to see a side like Kenya go to the RWC. My decision is purely pasional not rationale.

If you check on the Canada rugby thread in this here parish, you will see that :
1) We are far from optimistic. whatever the opposition in front of us, we will manage to play down to them, or even beneath them.
2) We are universal in our condemnation of Rugby Canada and in particular its handling of the NSMT.
3) Being out of the RWC may just be the shake up the sport in this country needs

hard to believe everybody, including their own fans, are rooting for Canada to lose

@goey cheers for the info - round-robin seems like a weird format to me given there's four teams, any reason why they did away with the knockouts?

openclashXX wrote:hard to believe everybody, including their own fans, are rooting for Canada to lose :lol

For years I’ve been waiting for them to take a long term, foundational approach to making rugby great again here, but it’s always paper over the cracks, shuffle the deck chairs and point to any good moment as proof that things are fine. It’s amazing how bad things have got the last couple of years and yet they had the gall to raise registration fees this year to fund the men’s team’s last ditch chance to lose every game in Japan and secure their precious World Rugby handout (little of which goes back to us, according to the year-end financials).

If not making it means heads roll and the survivors take a hard look at the whole picture to fix every level, then so be it. Go, Kenya!

Surely DTH Van Der Merwe would beat these other teams on his own?

In order for me it would be
Kenya
Germany
Canada
Hong Kong - aren't they just stacked with non HKers?

Interestingly Hong Kong are the highest ranked of the four at 21st on WR rankings FWIW. I haven’t watched the other sides so it’s difficult to make any predictions, but Hong Kong have a core group of players that have been together for a while now, are well coached and the Union has a lot of money so the team has access to good resources they’ll be no pushover.

LandOTurk wrote:In order for me it would be
Kenya
Germany
Canada
Hong Kong - aren't they just stacked with non HKers?

Yes, in short.

A chap I used to live with, his mate plays for Hong Kong. His stellar career featured UCT and a few Currie Cup appearances form what I recall before getting a job in HK after a deal with the union.

The squad looks incredibly unrepresentative of Hong Kong: https://www.hkrugby.com/national/nation ... tional-15s

Considering the winner of this tournament goes in to the same pool as New Zealand and South Africa, this is basically the RWC for whatever team wins this. I'd like to see Kenya there, given they've turned some heads in Sevens, they could sneak in.

Did South Africa qualify?

I have a close relative involved somewhere in the HK system.

but meh, I would rather Kenya go through.

capt hurricane wrote:Considering the winner of this tournament goes in to the same pool as New Zealand and South Africa, this is basically the RWC for whatever team wins this. I'd like to see Kenya there, given they've turned some heads in Sevens, they could sneak in.

True, but the funny thing for us is that one could argue that Uruguay, by winning our playoff, got the more difficult of the 'other teams' in the pool. They get Georgia and Fiji. Winner of Repechage gets Italy and Namibia.

Nieghorn wrote:

capt hurricane wrote:Considering the winner of this tournament goes in to the same pool as New Zealand and South Africa, this is basically the RWC for whatever team wins this. I'd like to see Kenya there, given they've turned some heads in Sevens, they could sneak in.

True, but the funny thing for us is that one could argue that Uruguay, by winning our playoff, got the more difficult of the 'other teams' in the pool. They get Georgia and Fiji. Winner of Repechage gets Italy and Namibia.

And there is a slight chance that Namibia will pull out of the RWC due to a dispute between the players and the NRU.

As has been noted, HK is ranked higher than each and we have beaten Kenya and Germany recently. Canada are beatable but whether we can remains to be seen.

As for our national squad being unrepresentative, all are either born and raised in HK or are qualified through WR residency rules. Some have even given up their foreign passport to represent HK

Hong Kong wrote:As has been noted, HK is ranked higher than each and we have beaten Kenya and Germany recently. Canada are beatable but whether we can remains to be seen.

As for our national squad being unrepresentative, all are either born and raised in HK or are qualified through WR residency rules. Some have even given up their foreign passport to represent HK

I think the criticism from some is because they are seen as an expat team so the fact that they qualified through residency only reinforces that. Although my understanding is some of the white guys are HK born and raised.

I think people are probably underestimating HK a bit. The players all seem familiar/well-drilled, they play a decent spoiling style. Canada should qualify over Germany, but I wouldn’t be surprised if HK beat Kenya. Kenya are the people’s favorite and exciting but really not at the technical level to challenge yet, and don’t tend to travel well.

Canada have been awful, but they should be fine.

Tyler Ardron has played some fantastic rugby in New Zealand this year, he'll be a big boost for Canada.

It depends which Kenya turns up.

From their recent home form, they should be able to beat Hong Kong and Germany, the test will be Canada.

Should be some interesting games.

Are all games in the official international window? Then a full-strength Canada with the likes of DTH van derr Merwe on board should be too good for the rest even if they've been piss poor for a number of years now.

It's a shame they don't use these games as curtain-raisers for the main November tests. Would be a good way of getting punters in early, and good for these teams to play in mainstream stadiums in front of a decent crowd.

goeagles wrote:

Hong Kong wrote:As has been noted, HK is ranked higher than each and we have beaten Kenya and Germany recently. Canada are beatable but whether we can remains to be seen.

As for our national squad being unrepresentative, all are either born and raised in HK or are qualified through WR residency rules. Some have even given up their foreign passport to represent HK

I think the criticism from some is because they are seen as an expat team so the fact that they qualified through residency only reinforces that. Although my understanding is some of the white guys are HK born and raised.

Place of Birth: UK 12, HK 8, Aust 5, SA 3, NZ 2, Ire/Fra/Ger/China/Thai 1
Somewhat counter intuitively - neither of the guys with Cantonese family names were born in HK (China/UK - edit I know the good folks of Guangdong are primarily Cantonese)

Caley_Red wrote:

LandOTurk wrote:In order for me it would be
Kenya
Germany
Canada
Hong Kong - aren't they just stacked with non HKers?

Yes, in short.

A chap I used to live with, his mate plays for Hong Kong. His stellar career featured UCT and a few Currie Cup appearances form what I recall before getting a job in HK after a deal with the union.

The squad looks incredibly unrepresentative of Hong Kong: https://www.hkrugby.com/national/nation ... tional-15s

Looks like a HK side from 1975.

Taurua wrote:Canada have been awful, but they should be fine.

Tyler Ardron has played some fantastic rugby in New Zealand this year, he'll be a big boost for Canada.

He's played in some of the stinkers, though. Not sure DTH has, but they seem to like to play him on the wing, meaning the ball will have to go through a few pairs of sub-standard hands before he can do anything with it.

Sandstorm wrote:

Caley_Red wrote:

LandOTurk wrote:In order for me it would be
Kenya
Germany
Canada
Hong Kong - aren't they just stacked with non HKers?

Yes, in short.

A chap I used to live with, his mate plays for Hong Kong. His stellar career featured UCT and a few Currie Cup appearances form what I recall before getting a job in HK after a deal with the union.

The squad looks incredibly unrepresentative of Hong Kong: https://www.hkrugby.com/national/nation ... tional-15s

Looks like a HK side from 1975.

Pretty much, still a journeyman's paradise. A mate I played juniors with in Australia moved there after uni and got into the 7s and XVs team and played a good few years, good on him but thought that more non expats would have risen to national level by now, first Chinese player made the national team in the 90s.
Hard to see any side getting near Canada

it should have been Romania tbf

It should be Kenya as I have one of their shirts.

Apologies for my ignorance but is there a China XV and then a Hong Kong XV?

backrow wrote:it should have been Romania tbf

more like spain actually
romania were ahead and would have taken Russia's direct spot
all moo points now obviously

julian wrote:Apologies for my ignorance but is there a China XV and then a Hong Kong XV?

Yes same for all sports. China allows it....for now.

Go Kenya!

Akkerman wrote:

backrow wrote:it should have been Romania tbf

more like spain actually
romania were ahead and would have taken Russia's direct spot
all moo points now obviously

Imagine Germany qualifying - would essentially mean the 8th best nation from continental Europe is good enough to qualify for the RWC.

With the caveat that a full-strength Germany with all their Heidelberg pro players involved (as in the Samoa play-offs) is a completely different proposition from the B-team that played in the Rugby Europe Championship and narrowly avoided relegation.

julian wrote:Apologies for my ignorance but is there a China XV and then a Hong Kong XV?

Yes, separate Rugby Unions most of China’s focus is on 7s rather than 15s due to the fact it’s an Olympic sport.

Re. the ethnicity/birth places of the HK team some of the players born offshore have parents born in HK, which isn’t any different to the national captain of the world’s biggest rugby union Dylan Hartley or a number of players who tap into their ancestral roots to play international rugby for nations they weren’t born and raised in.

Nieghorn wrote:

Taurua wrote:Canada have been awful, but they should be fine.

Tyler Ardron has played some fantastic rugby in New Zealand this year, he'll be a big boost for Canada.

He's played in some of the stinkers, though. Not sure DTH has, but they seem to like to play him on the wing, meaning the ball will have to go through a few pairs of sub-standard hands before he can do anything with it.

Which is the main reason why I would play him at 13. Get him more ball.

Hong Kong wrote:As has been noted, HK is ranked higher than each and we have beaten Kenya and Germany recently. Canada are beatable but whether we can remains to be seen.

As for our national squad being unrepresentative, all are either born and raised in HK or are qualified through WR residency rules. Some have even given up their foreign passport to represent HK

Hong Kong usually hosts those games though, this’ll be in France.

Also I see they haven’t played Germany since 2010; the Krauts have improved massively since then.