http://korfball.org/ikf/tournaments/121-u23-world-championship/1814-ikf-u23-world-korfball-championship-2012-pools-drawing-known

What are peoples thoughts?

Looks like a tough pool for England.

The sentence 'The pools were drawn with each set of two teams based on the current IKF Ranking' suggests that the pools should be 1,4,6,7,10,11 and 2,3,5,8,9,12. Which would have England in pool 1 and Catalonia in pool 2.

Or was there some kind of random draw to it as well?

Could you explain it please Graham?

The pool containing the hosts was called Pool A so that the hosts would 'appear' as the 'home' team in later rounds, e.g. 4th Pool A vs 3rd Pool B.

Quite simple really!

The way it is at the moment the teams ranked 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the world are in the same pool presumably meaning one will not reach a semi-final.

This means that in the other pool one of the teams ranked 5th, 6th or 7th in the world looks likely to reach a semi-final.

Doesn't seem the most obvious option to me.

On recent form there seems no question that these two pools appear unbalanced with England's group being the far tougher of the two.

Maybe there is a need for a world U12/U23 ranking?

It is basically allowing a team that is not doing great(low raning) to get into a semi final and therefor increase there ranking!

also what does this do for the competion. holland get no serious games until the semi final and there 3 closest rivals are all tired having had to play atleast 2 other top teams.

Having played these other top teams alot of coaches will maybe take a risk agaist the weakest team in the group possibly meaning they lose that game through tiredness?

I thought the idea was to improve the sport and make it more likely that other teams can challenge holland but this is just giving it to them

If one was to take the points awarded from the Continental u21/23 events last year that were used in the overall ranking table and place teams into pools using a draw, then England and India would swap places. Pool A would still have CZE, GER and CAT and pool B BEL, TPE and POR. Instead the pools were drawn by Continent so as to avoid too many Asia/Oceania teams being in the same Pool. This has to be taken into consideration as much as the overall ranking.

One should not place teams into pools for a Youth event using the overall World ranking. However, if one did then swapping NED with BEL and CAT with TPE would give the same pools as what we have got.

Steve is quite right that the draw certainly makes for an easier than normal tournament for the Dutch who will not be challenged until the semi finals, while Belgium could well face tough challenges in the earlier rounds from Chinese Taipei and England making any potential challenge to the Dutch more difficult.

Based on recent form the top four nations at this age group are the Netherlands, Belgium, Chinese Taipei and England which is in line with the World rankings and it is certainly a shame that one will miss out on the semi finals.

Finding a more effective means of determining pools is clearly a challenge as Graham outlines and I agree with Steve that it does not seem to make sense to have a structure that so clearly favors the team that dominates the sport

If you would get cross finals between the numbers one and two of the pools, then you may get the same four countries as in China, which sounds quite 'fair' or 'accurate'. Where can I see the playing schedule after the first pool phase?

Consider that, with currently three 'A' countries, you are always lucky to be in the pool with one of those, and out of luck when in the pool with two. This of course depending on what happens after the first phase. And, in a system like the World Championships, you are lucky when you are in the pool without one of those three.

In this light I am really curious when the KNKV reveals its development support plan with the six countries it will assist in becoming real competitors to The Netherlands and Belgium. This should change these discussions as at lease one more true medallist candidate must emerge.

It's clearly helpful if pools can be balanced, but particularly below senior level it shouldn't be the be all and end all.

The way the pools have been drawn also means that to have a chance of reaching the Semi finals England will need to beat either Chinese Taipei or Belgium, something that we have never done at this level and is something that may well motivate us work even harder in our preparation to have a chance of doing so.

We have the players capable at this age group and the key will be to enable them to continue the development of their technical, tactical, athletic and mental skills to give us a chance of achieving success in this tournament

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