Hello, me again! Looks like I got the permutations wrong for Pool A if Japan, Ireland and Scotland all finish on 15 points. I didn’t realise that the three-way tiebreaker resets after the winner is chosen, which would mean second place in the pool would be decided by the head-to-head records of the remaining two teams.
I’ve updated it onsite but I know it won’t change what’s in your inboxes so hopefully I can explain this little nonsense for you now so you can bore all of your friends to death before Sunday.
The “simple” route
Either Scotland (currently +71) or Ireland (currently +52) would top the pool ahead of Japan (currently +46 and unable to improve that figure in a defeat).
Once the top spot is determined, the tiebreakers would then start again for the remaining two teams, which means it would go to their head-to-head record.
So if Scotland had the best points difference, Japan would come second and Ireland would go out because Japan beat Ireland in their head-to-head game. And if Ireland had the best points difference, Scotland would come second and Japan would go out because Scotland would have to have beaten Japan to trigger this scenario.
In order to get a better points difference than Scotland, Ireland will have to beat Samoa by at least 20 points more than the score by which Scotland beat Japan.
Thought that was bad? Wait ‘til I get going!
This is where it gets w̴̯̙̻̮͆͂͂ẹ̵̓̈́̕i̸̢̼͆r̸̩̫͆d̶͎̣̠̑͝͝
Where was I?
The rules actually aren’t clear on what happens if two teams are level on points difference ahead of a third team, as would happen in a case where Ireland’s margin of victory was exactly 19 points more than Scotland’s winning margin over Japan.
The simple solution would be to split it off into two teams at the top with the tiebreakers starting again. This would see Ireland top the pool with Scotland second.
But the rules say the tiebreakers will be applied “until one of the Teams can be determined as the higher ranked” and technically no single team will be the higher ranked in this scenario.
If they take this interpretation, it would then move onto the next tiebreaker: try difference between the three teams, which could lead to another tie, bringing it to points scored and then, if needed, tries scored.
Finally, if it gets all the way down to the end, Ireland would top the pool by virtue of having the highest position in the official world rankings.
Of course, this could — and hopefully will — all be avoided by Ireland taking a bonus point against Samoa on Saturday.
While it’s not likely to occur, it could still happen and I wanted to make sure you guys were sufficiently up to date/nervous. Thanks to my brother Rob for spotting my mistake and indirectly giving me a headache trying to figure all of this out.