Road to 2014 World Cup kicks off this week

Originally posted on Scrumqueens, By John Birch

The 2014 Women’s Rugby World Cup may be more than two years away, but by Thursday evening the first two teams will already have been knocked out.

The European Championship “B” group is being played in Enkoping, Sweden, this week – and there is a more lot at stake than national pride and FIRA rankings. Only the winners of this year’s tournament will be able to compete for a place at France 2014.

Readers will recall that France and England have already qualified for the WRWC, as hosts and runners up, and two more of Europe’s six places will be awarded to the next best two Six Nations teams, based on 2012 and 2013 results. The other two Six Nations teams will have to play-off for the final two European places against Spain and the winners from this week’s event.

The Enkoping tournament will feature the hosts, Sweden, plus Netherlands (pictured), Russia and Finland – and will be a simple knock-out competition, with the semi-finals on Thursday, and the final (and third place game) on Sunday. Netherlands and Finland will launch the competition at 2pm CET, followed by Sweden v Russia.

Rarely has there been a FIRA competition with such high stakes, and rarely has there been one that has there been one that has been so unpredictable with so little guide to form. Only Netherlands have played any international rugby this season, while the players from the other three teams have only just begun playing again at all after the long winter break.

Overall Sweden must start as favourites. Not only have they more experience at the highest level – the core of the team played at the last World Cup in England, but they are at home – and moreover at Enkoping, the scene of their triumph at the last European WRWC in 2009. Elisabeth Ygge leads a team that sees the return to international rugby of Ulrika Andersson-Hall, alongside a number of other names familiar to anyone who saw the team come so close to beating France in Guildford in 2010, including Katarina Boman, Henrietta Högberg, Jessica Melin and the hero of 2009 Jennifer Lindholm. The team also shook off the snows of winter last month with a brief tour of England at Easter, comprehensively beating Thurrock – newly promoted to the English Premiership – 32-5.

Netherlands – in terms of European ranking – would seem to be Sweden’s greatest rivals. The Dutch have the advantage of having played through the winter, and also beat Sweden at last year’s European Championship in Spain, where they finished fifth. However the Dutch RFU’s priorities are clearly with their Sevens squad, and with both the London and Amsterdam Sevens coming up in the next three weeks, few of the country’s leading players are likely to be travelling to Sweden. At Corunna the Dutch also lost to Russia, and in the team’s only international since EC 2011 was against Scotland where the suffered a 33-10 defeat and were generally reported as being outclassed. Since then their only games have been against club sides – Dutch champions RUS, where the national side scraped a lucky 5-3 win, and a more impressive 29-0 win over German champions HRK Heidelburg at Easter.

Despite the largely unimpressive form shown by the Dutch national XV in recent months, they should still prove too strong for Finland who were thoroughly out of their depth in Spain, finishing 8th and suffering massive defeats to both Spain and France A, as well as Sweden and Russia. Overall the Finns scored only 8 points in their four games last year and, with few opportunities to play together since it is unlikely that the team will have significantly improved.

Russia, on the other hand, have the potential to spring a few surprises, though like the Dutch they may competing priorities due to Sevens. At Corunna last year they beat the Dutch, and would have made the top six but for heavy defeats in their other two games. However, like Finland, the Russians have not played together since.

Overall the competition should see the expected Sweden/Netherlands final – but with so much to play for, so little preparation, and no margin for error, unexpected results are very possible.