It shouldn’t really matter to those of us whose first sport is rugby union, but you have to admit that the round ball World Cup in Qatar has had an irresistible fascination for people like me who want their sport to be unpredictable.
The shocks provided in the group stages by the likes of Japan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, not to mention Cameroon defeating Brazil, were proof positive that football can often be difficult to foresee – it’s why the bookmakers make fortunes on their fixed-odds coupons.
Anyone who thought that Germany and Belgium would crash out at the first hurdle must have had a crystal ball, and if it’s you can I copy your lottery numbers, please?
I am writing this before the final two matches in the round of 16, but already we can see that as the tournament has wound on, the big boys are asserting themselves and there have been no shock results at this round so far.
Can rugby learn anything from the footie World Cup? What can Scotland glean from Qatar? My first point is this – the seedings for Qatar were aimed at ensuring the likes of England, Brazil and France got an easy passage out of the group stage, but the draw was still a lot fairer than World Rugby’s joke system where the seedings and the draw are fixed so far in advance that the ranking system that was used to pick the seeds is now a a joke.
The ascent to the top of the rankings by Ireland and the descent to ninth place by Wales are proof that fixing the seedings years in advance of the tournament was just ludicrous. Back when the draw was made, the rankings on January 1, 2020, were used. I pointed out that Scotland had been badly treated because then we were ninth and now we are seventh. Back then Wales were ranked No. 4 and went into Band One for the draw, while we had slipped behind Japan who went in to Band Two. That all looks nonsensical now.
If the draw had been made this week, Wales would be in Band Three and we would not have been put into a pool with Ireland and South Africa as their rankings now mean they would have been kept apart as Band One sides instead of Band Two and Band One as was the case at Ne’erday 2020. What it means for Scotland is that we have to play the reigning world champions and the world’s number one side, and I don’t see Ireland giving up that status easily – get your money on them for the Six Nations.
So Scotland will have to do something that’s happened in Qatar and something that we are occasionally very good at – winning as underdogs.
After the Grand Slam triumph of 1990, Ronnie Browne of Corries fame showed what a talented artist he is with the brilliant painting of the Scotland Five Nations champions. He called it Underdog Rampant and prints of it sold in the hundreds if not thousands.
I often think of it because March 17, 1990, was the best day of my sporting life and I hope to live long enough to see its like again – can I at this point thank all those friends and colleagues and complete strangers who have wished me well following my revelation in last week’s column that I have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease as your good wishes have meant a lot to myself and my partner, the remarkable Deb Armstrong, and my family.
In a sense I am now an underdog fighting this incurable condition, and fight it I will. Qatar has shown the best qualities of an underdog are a commitment to battle to the final whistle and to be not afraid of teams who, on paper, are far superior. That will be my attitude to Billy, as I call my disease.
I expect the rest of the World Cup to play out as predicted and though I would love Brazil to win it, I am now happy to say that I think France will triumph and go on to be double World Champions when they host the Rugby World Cup next year. Home advantage will be massive for them and I can’t see past them for lifting the Webb Ellis Trophy in Paris on October 28 next year.
Because of that unfair draw, Scotland will enter the tournament as underdogs whose matches against South Africa and Ireland will determine whether or not we progress out of the pool stage. No insult to Romania and Tonga but if we cannot beat the sides currently ranked 20th and 15th respectively then we have no right to progress past the pool stages.
Being the underdogs suits Scotland as we often make a hash of being favourites. That’s why I would encourage Gregor Townsend and his squad to build that underdog mentality by the time we go to France to play world champions South Africa in Marseille on September 10. And then let the underdog be rampant again.
