World Cup Draw Announced
The World Cup order of play has been made public (editor’s note: well if you have sources in Western Australia who are friends with someone in Zambia like we do anyway) and the host nation of the United Kingdom will not play the opening game on July 8th, as often happens in a lot of World Cups. However, they will play the first game after the opening ceremony, which takes place on the second day (much like it did at the Australian National Championships at Ballarat earlier this year. This time however the ceremony probably won’t feature aboriginal dancers but you never know!).
The honour of playing the first game goes to the current champions, Australia, and will be a repeat of the opening game from 2007 which saw them convincingly beat the USA. Even though the USA have had four years more training, Australia don’t have home soil advantage and the Australians have also sacked their captain Suzette Thomas in recent weeks (rumours have it because she wanted to bring her children on tour with her which the PAA did not like but a recent article from the Warwick Daily News in Australia cited a family illness as her reason for “withdrawing” so the reason is still unclear) it would still seem likely to be a easy opening victory for the green and gold.
After that it is the all African clash of South Africa versus Zimbabwe, which will be fast and hard.Then the UK kick off their campaign against Zambia, which could be a tough match as no one outside of Africa really know what to expect from the Zambians, who are playing in their first World Cup (editor’s note: We sent a reporter called Richard Chapple to Zambia to find out what was going on but so far all he seems to be doing is try and fly planes…). Then to round off day 1 New Zealand take on Ireland, which could also be a hard battle.
Day 2 seems the opening ceremony and then the UK take on their closest foes in Ireland. The two countries are probably have a warm up friendly just a month before the World Cup to get themselves ready and seeing the battles which took place when they clashed in 2010 it should be an excellent match. The two pools are based on the results of the 2007 World Cup, with Zambia taking Canada’s 8th spot. Therefore Australia get South Africa (3rd), Zimbabwe (5th) and the USA (7th), while the UK, who finished second in 2007, get New Zealand (4th), Ireland (6th) and Zambia (8th).
The competition will take place over two weekends, with a mid week break, and in the mid week break there will be a International Challenge of polocrosse featuring 6 polocrosse nations who are currently below the top 8 in the World; France, Canada, Germany, Holland, UAE and Norway
World Cup play restarts on Friday the 15th, with the final taking place on Sunday the 17th.
To see the full draw click here.
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