Sports   (Talk about balls here.)

jay1

You are right, but a bit strange that Australia should lose to Ireland and not top their group.

As a result, it ended up with two seperate hemisphere pathways, which I suspect the organisers wanted so that the final would not be between two nations from one hemisphere with nations from the southern hemisphere being the top three fancied nations.

Imagine what effect it would have on northern hemisphere rugby union if three of the semi finalists were from the southern hemisphere and the final was any two nations from Australia/New Zealand/South Africa.

But, of course you will not see it that way.