Background OFC

The other qualifiers that start in the non too distant future are those in Oceania. The OFC don't really have much to do these days, without Australia they are left with a few obscure island nations with a few people on them, who would rather play rugby anyway. They don't even have to run most of their own qualifiers, these will be part of the 2011 Pacific Games. That means those of us following the World Cup qualfiers will be amongst the only people outside the islands who are aware of the Pacific games. Even New Zealand don't bother with these things. They get a bye into the final round of qualifiers, a group where they will be joined by the finalists and third place winner of the Pacific Games, which will be entered by-

* American Samoa
* Cook Islands
* Fiji
* New Caledonia
* Papua New Guinea
* Samoa
* Solomon Islands
* Tahiti
* Tonga
* Vanuatu

American Samoa are a notable name, having lost 31-0 to the Aussies a few years ago, before they realised they were actually Asian. The Pacific games football will actually have two more teams in it than that- Kiribati and Tuvalu, but they aren't FIFA members, so can't qualify into the final draw. I don't know how you can fail to be FIFA members. I mean American Samoa managed it. Still, three of those will join, and nearly certainly lose to, New Zealand in the final stage. Look out for the relative giants of Fiji and new Caledonia.

So then you have a final group, made up of New Zealand and three other sides. And while it might seem a bit embarrassing to have New Zealand as your regional giants, they did leave the last World Cup as the only undeafeated side. And a couple of their players are pretty good, like Ryan Nelsen and, um, others.

But winning this group only gets a play off match with a team, randomly either from Asia, North America or South America.

So will New Zealand continue their invincible world cup form? Will anyone even be reporting from the 2011 Pacific Games? Will Ryan Nelson be slightly embarrassed by the qualify of the other players around? It'll all be reported right here!