World cup groups for this year

[adrenalinxx]

I agree with PNG, the format for the World Cup seems to be very unfair on one team.

PNG are not a bad team but it will be very difficult for them to beat Australia, England and New Zealand.

I don't understand why PNG were selected as the four team in that group, according to the World ranking Tonga are tghe 4th best team in the world.

I think the format should be something like this:
Group A
- Australia
- England
- PNG
- Fiji
- European Qualifier 2

Group B
- New Zealand
- Tonga
- France
- European Qualifier 1
- Repechage

Two from each group go into quaterfinals

NZ and Australia are likely to win their groups, but France and Tonga will compete for the second spot in Group B and PNG could trouble England in group A.

The idea of the super group was to stop huge scorelines but teams like France and PNG need to play against the top teams at some stage so that they can inprove, but those group formats also allow some competition between the 'lesser' sides. They could also have a second tier play-off between teams finishing 3 and 4 in each group.