Talk:2019 Rugby World Cup – Europe qualification

Lithuania already eliminated
I changed it back again. Lithuania is already eliminated since 15 April. They have a 5 point deficit to the Czech Republic and lost the direct match up. It is the same confusion as during the Championship. People read the tournament rules. It is the direct match up which counts if two teams are split on points. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gorbeh0332 (talk • contribs) April 2017 (UTC)

Switzerland and Poland eliminated without playing
As of March 12, 2017 Switzerland (with 9 points in 3 games) and Poland (with 4 points in 2 games) can reach 19 points at best, in the 2016–17 Rugby Europe Trophy. Doing so, they would tie with Portugal, which already has 19 points. The first tiebreaker would be «The Union having more number of match points in the games payed between the tied Unions» (http://old.rugbyeurope.tv/upload/file/1472905992_160902%20RE%20Staff%20Manual%20REC%202016-2017.PDF). Considering that both Switzerland and Poland lost against Portugal, both would loose the tiebreaker. Unless there were more than two teams tied. But this is not possible: in order to reach 19 points, Switzerland would have to win over both the Netherlands and Poland, leaving both with less than 19 points; the same for Poland, which would have to win over Moldova, the Netherlands and Switzerland, leaving both the Netherlands and Switzerland with less than 19 points. As a result Switzerland and Poland were eliminated when Portugal reached 19 points, even if they didn't play that day. Is it accurate to say they were «Eliminated by Portugal on 11 March 2017»?J lamb (talk) 14:44, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Then the same would presumably true for the Netherlands - and Portugal would have clinched the group at that point. 134.159.131.34 (talk) 22:30, 19 March 2017 (UTC) (the point being the 18th obviously - not the 11th like the others)

Utter confusion
Okay - here goes. According to the article (and RugbyEurope things - or http://www.worldrugby.org/news/227637) - the Europe 1 spot will be decided by the combined results in the REIC in 2017 and 2018. But this http://www.rugbyeurope.eu/reic-promotion-relegation-and-rwc2019-qualifying-rounds says the the 6th place team in the Championship (Belgium) will now play Portugal (winner Trophy) TO BE IN 2018 Championship. So Portugal (already in the play-offs to get to play the "2nd place" Championship team across those two years) could actually "be" the 2nd place Championship team across the two seasons if they wiped the floor in the championship next year and moved up to that place, even only having half the matches played. (Actually I don't know if this is mathemthically possible now but it would have been given the right results in the Championship this year). And then Belgium would be eliminated? Is this what this means. If so - that is mad 134.159.131.34 (talk) 22:40, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

A: As far as I understood the rules if Belgium loses the relegation play-off, the 2 year sheet is cut-down to a four team field. Thus only ROM, ESP, RUS, GER would remain and all games played against Belgium would not count towards the final standings, thus Belgium would be eliminated. Portugal would participate alike Georgia for the 2018 campaign, but all matches would not count towards WC qualification because they already play in November for the right to face the runner up of the 2 year tournament in 2018. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gorbeh0332 (talk • contribs) 13:57, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

World Rugby Members
Should Turkey and Estonia be listed on this page? Should their results count towards qualifying? I know last time around there was a fair bit of confusion once it was realized that Cyprus was not an IRB member (funnily enough, the IRB actually published several articles breathlessly speculating on the possibility of Cyprus qualifying, until it occurred to them to check their own membership rolls). With Turkey, it is kind of a moot point, as everyone has the same "result" against them. It also seems pretty reasonable to predict that everyone will take five points from their game against Estonia, but in a tie-breaker situation, the scores against them could come into play.216.165.225.19 (talk) 00:15, 22 March 2017 (UTC)