14 October 2023 , 08:00
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Ireland will look to overcome their quarter-final hoodoo in World Cups when they face New Zealand on Saturday night.
The Irish are on a sensational winning streak, lasting well over a year, and are the world's top ranked nation, arriving in France as reigning Six Nations champions after their Grand Slam triumph. The All Blacks meanwhile are the most decorated team in rugby and among the most revered in all of sport.
Their cloak of invincibility has been knocked off somewhat in recent years though with Ireland winning a series in their back yard for the first time ever last summer. New Zealand also lost a pool stage game for the first time in their history a few weeks ago, but they and Ireland remain two of the World Cup favourites.
So it begs the question - just how have two titans of the sport, ranked one and four respectively, ended up playing in a last eight clash when England, ranked sixth, and Fiji, ranked tenth, will face off less than 24 hours later?
The answer is a somewhat flawed draw system, which has copped huge criticism, meaning the top five ranked nations all found themselves in one half of the draw. The pool draw took place on 14 December 2020 in Paris and was based on world rankings at that given moment.
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Teams were placed into bands based on their ranking, so band one included teams ranked one to four, and so on. At that stage, a year after the last World Cup, the four highest ranked nations were South Africa, New Zealand, England and Wales.
Ireland were fifth, Argentina sixth, France seventh and Japan eighth and went into band two. Scotland were not even in the top eight, hence an immensely difficult pool that has already seen them go home after losing to Ireland and South Africa.
Ireland won their first ever series in New Zealand last yearFast forward near enough three years and things look immensely different. Ireland and France are now one and two and Wales find themselves down in eighth. Nevertheless, the draw means that two of the main protagonists for the World Cup will go home early, as Ireland face New Zealand 24 hours before South Africa play France.
Unfortunate though it may be, Ireland will hold no fear when they take on the three time world champions. The Irish have beaten the All Blacks three times under Andy Farrell's guidance and twice before that under Joe Schmidt. The Irish head coach insists his team are comfortable with their top ranked status ahead of their most important game in a decade.
He said: "I suppose an inferiority complex is what's happened in the past, as far as getting to world number one and thinking that we're going to fall off a cliff, because this shouldn't be happening to Ireland. I think what we've learned to do is throw ourselves into big challenges and try to meet them head on and embrace that."