Don't fully agree with that, altho almost

Mostly fair enough, obviously, and the Irish are clearly whingeing. But -

(1) I'd have thought the fairest solution would be to seed the play-offs, but on the basis of performance over this qualifying tournament, not over the past 20 years or whatever they're planning to use.

That way, as you say, you'd be giving the best chance to the teams who've done the best - rather than teams who did the best in the past.

(2) More generally though, the point is that you should always, always decide these rules in advance. It's not as if they couldn't have foreseen that there would be play-offs, and they'd have to decide who played who somehow.

Announcing rules late on - which is what I assume they've done here - inevitably p*sses someone off, and gives the impression that they're favouring someone over someone else.

Why on earth werent the rules clear in advance? It's the equivalent of the football league announcing how this season's play-offs were going to work in March next year. Bizarre.

Posted By: Tricky Hawes, Oct 12, 08:52:25