Pools give Pumas and N.Z. rematch

Press, 5 December 1985, Page 80

Pools give Pumas and N.Z. rematch

NZPA staff correspondent PETER O’HARA London Argentina’s Pumas get a rematch against New Zealand at the outset of rugby’s first World Cup, after giving the All Blacks two robust tests.

New Zealand, Argentina, Fiji and Italy comprise probably the toughest of four pools announced in London by the International Rugby Board’s World Cup organising committee for the inaugural Webb Ellis Trophy tournament in May and June, 1987.

The Pumas pushed the All Blacks close in the series which replaced the cancelled South African visit by New Zealand, losing the first test, 20-33, and drawing the second, 21-21.

The World Cup pools are.—

Pool I:—Australia, England, Japan, U.S.A. Pool 2:—Canada, Ireland, Tonga, Wales. Pool 3:—Argentina, Fiji, Italy, New Zealand.

Pool 4:—France, Rumania, Scotland, Zimbabwe. South Africa was not included in the tournament because of opposition to its apartheid regime. Organisers anxious to ensure a successful first tournament, and save face for the leading IRB member nation, offered an invitation to the republic on the basis that it would be declined.

With Argentina rated by many observers as one of the top three or four nations in international rugby, and Italy and Fiji both lively opponents, the All Blacks will not have a simple passage in the 32-match .competition in New Zealand and Australia. The top two teams from each pool enter the quarterfinals, and contest a knockout for a place in the final, due on Saturday, June 20, in

Auckland. In the quarter-finals, the top team in Pool 1 is likely to play the second team in Pool 2, and vice versa, with the same applying to Pool 3 and Pool 4, although organisers have still not finished their planning. The tournament committee chairman, Mr John Ken-dall-Carpenter, avoided listing the 16 nations in any order of seeding, although he said New Zealand and Australia were at the top, and “arguably France is fairly close.” Wales or Ireland would be next, the English headmaster told reporters. Seven IRB nations, Australia, England, France, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales, and the nonmember nation, Argentina, were picked as the top eight by the committee, and spread throughout the pools. When the other teams were added to the pools, the main aim was to give them matches against countries from other regions, Mr Ken-dall-Carpenter said. Reticent about the seedings of even the top eight, he said the committee had avoided current form and "taken it back over a span of five or more years.” He would not say whether Argentina was ranked eighth, replying that the question was designed to find out whether England was seventh.

England, whose dismal tour hardly thrilled small crowds in New Zealand last season, has certainly been given an excellent chance of making it through the first stage of the tournament.

The “London Standard” newspaper was cock-a-hoop about the draw, reporting it was a boost to English rugby and that Australia and England should “have little problem reaching the quarter-finals.” Dates and venues are still

undecided, but Mr KendallCarpenter hoped this would be settled after meetings by the Australian and New Zealand organisers this month. It was fair to say some disputes had led to delays in the planning, he said. However, teams of 26 players plus three officials were due to assemble in the Southern Hemisphere on May 17 when an opening ceremony would be held, probably in Auckland, he said.

The first match would be about a week later, and each team would play all the others in its pool Australia would host the pool its national side was playing in, and New Zealand would host the other three, apart from one game in Brisbane “to balance the number of matches."

Two quarter-finals would be played in Australia and two in New Zealand, with the two semi-finals in Australia. •

Mr Kendall-Carpenter said the matches would be played on any day of the week including Sunday, and could be under floodlights at “normally accepted kick-off times.”

Fourteen referees will officiate, two each from the seven competing IRB countries, and local referees will be added if necessary.

The “London Standard” said it was obvious that much had not been resolved. “Both Australia and New Zealand seem determined to give away very little, so far as venue is concerned. “While Australia was the main driving force behind the first World Cup, New Zealand — with its four test centres in Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin — was ideally suited to this inaugural event,” the paper said.