Kiernan an Irish hero once again

Many people, some of them French, still labour under the illusion that Aime Jacquet guided France to success in last year's football World Cup finals, according to a friend from L'Equipe. In my friend's view, it was Michel Platini who orchestrated it all by the way in which he `arranged' the draw.

On home soil France, it will be recalled, had merely to negotiate the easiest group of the lot, namely a fading Denmark, South Africa and Saudi Arabia, before overcoming Paraguay by virtue of a golden goal, Italy on penalties, Croatia in the semi-finals, and then a thoroughly distracted and out of sorts Brazil. Now, admittedly, that was a bonus, for presumably not even Platini could have arranged that.

Similarly, there is a school of thought that suggests that Ireland could reach the semi-finals of this year's rugby World Cup thanks in part to a favourable draw. "Ireland for the semi-finals," repeated the man from L'Equipe during last summer's tour of Oz, in part jokingly (for it could be at France's expense in the quarter-finals) but in part serious.

Were it to come to pass, no doubt bouquets of thanks will be sent to Tom Kiernan in Cork, on the premise that the shrewd IRFU negotiator was influential within the corridors of RWC in `arranging' Ireland's draw.

Presuming form and tradition are the criteria, then Ireland is probably the onl y one of the four Home Unions who could reach the semi-finals without overcoming one of the three Southern Hemisphere heavyweights (New Zealand, South Africa or Australia).

In comparison, even if Wales win their group they will probably have to face Australia (presuming they top Ireland's group) in the quarter-finals, while similarly Scotland (unless they beat South Africa at the group stage) would eventually run into New Zealand in the quarter-finals and England (unless they beat the All Blacks at the pool stage) would eventually encounter South Africa in the last eight.

Nonetheless, it would be unfair to say this is Ireland's easiest ever World Cup draw. That, assuredly, was in the inaugural 1987 tournament, when a rusty Irish team (all of whom were told to take the preceding month off from club rugby) lost their opening match to a moderate Welsh side whom they had beaten earlier that year in Cardiff.

On the strength of that pivotal win, Wales went on to overcome the might of Canada and Tonga in that pool, and then beat a poor English side in the quarter-finals, lost to the All Blacks in the semi-finals and then beat Australia in the play-off for third and fourth. Meanwhile, Ireland went out to Australia at the quarter-final stage. In comparison, Ireland's group in 1991 was arguably easier than this year's group (of USA, Australia and Romania, all at Lansdowne Road). Granted Scotland had to be beaten away in addition to overcoming Japan and Zimbabwe at home, but had Ireland done so, they would have met a tiring Western Samoa in the quarter-finals rather than Australia.

Undoubtedly, Ireland's group draw four years ago was tougher than this year's, for aside from having to face the extremes of New Zealand and Japan (this time read, say, Australia and the USA) they had to beat Wales to qualify for the last eight. And on doing so, France then had to be beaten on neutral territory as opposed to Dublin, which might well be the case this time around.

However, where this year's draw differs, of course, is that were results to go according to tradition and form, and Ireland finished runners-up in Pool E behind Australia, they would have to negotiate a potentially tricky play-off in Lens against the best third-placed country from the five groups.

This might be anyone from say Argentina, Japan or Western Samoa in the Welsh group, or perhaps Italy or even Uruguay. The ensuing quarter-final in Dublin for the winners of that play-off takes place only four days later.

Even so, it's a promising enough draw if the Irish team clicks, and hence some shrewdies have already invested on Ireland reaching the semi-finals at the tempting odds of 8/1.

At least the football World Cup is presented as an `open' draw, or up to a point anyway. The draws for both the labyrinthine qualifying stages and the finals of the rugby equivalent are relatively lacking in transparency or fairness.

Take the example of Argentina. The Pumas desperately wanted to win their Americas qualifying round last August in Buenos Aires to qualify in first place and so ensure what they thought would be the best draw in the finals - mindful as they were of a surprisingly unproductive record in previous finals which amounts to just one win, against Italy in 1987.

They duly did win their qualifying round, and thereby avoided New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, France and England. However, as the Pumas' coach Alex Wyllie dryly commented yesterday, at the time the draw for the finals was made the Welsh group looked the easiest. Wales were then going through tough times, but have since been galvanised into a serious force with seven straight wins under Graham Henry.

Argentina had also presumed this pool would include Fiji. But, amid the Pumas' and Wyllie's suspicions that Manu Samoa didn't exactly try their hardest to finish second in the Pacific Qualifying Tournament in Australia last year, Argentina now find they must play the Samoans for the third successive time in the RWC. And the Samoans have won the previous two.

Furthermore, whereas Japan might have seemed a relatively soft touch a year or so ago, now, as Wyllie observed, "they've brought in about half a dozen New Zealanders." Indeed, buoyed by the infusion of five newcomers from the direction of Auckland (including former All Blacks' loose forward Jamie Joseph and scrum-half Graham Bachop) under the three-year residency ruling, Japan recently won the Epson Cup (formerly the Pacific Rim tournament) with wins over the USA, Western Samoa, Canada and Tonga.

Inevitably, it has already been labelled the Group of Death (there's always one). Nor will the third-placed side in this pool necessarily advance to the Lens play-off. This is due to a flawed ruling which determines the best third place side, whereby a country's points scored supercedes their points difference.

In other words, were the Pumas to lose two games narrowly and win the other, they still might not be categorised as the best third side were, say, Uruguay to concede a ton in the pool stages to both South Africa and Scotland, but run up a big score against Spain.

Due to this dubious ruling, there has been speculation that Ireland might well meet Uruguay in the Lens play-off. But given that Uruguay lost by 68-8 to Glasgow Caledonians in the United States just two weeks ago, that would surely be too good to be true.

Or maybe that scenario was the brainchild of a man in Cork?