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DIEHARD
07-11-07, 06:46 AM
Wales in danger of missing out on 2008 World Cup

Wales, semi-finalists in each of the last two World Cups, are in serious danger of missing out on the 2008 event in Australia.

An 18-16 victory over Scotland in Glasgow on Sunday was not enough to earn them automatic qualification and they must now enter the dreaded repechage in a bid to claim the 10th and final place in the main draw.

The Scots grabbed ninth place courtesy of a 37-32 aggregate victory and will make history by appearing in the World Cup finals for the first time.

Steve McCormack's men, who join England and Ireland in the main draw, will start their campaign against France in Canberra on October 26 and meet Fiji on the Central Coast on November 5.

Wales, meanwhile, have little time to lick their wounds. They face a sudden-death tie against Lebanon at Widnes on Friday, with the winners taking on Samoa or the United States in the repechage final at Featherstone five days later.

With an influx of former New Zealand Test players in their ranks, Samoa are the firm favourites to reach the World Cup via the back door and McCormack admits he was mightily relieved not to have to go down that route.

"Nobody wants to play in the repechage but I think Wales will go there and do really well," he said.

"I hope they qualify. We want all the home nations to get to the World Cup. It was desperate that we didn't get into the repechage and I thought the effort in the last 10 minutes of the game reflected that."

Scotland, who went into Sunday's game with a seven-point cushion from the game in Bridgend, turned a 14-4 interval deficit into a 16-14 lead thanks to second-half tries from Ben Fisher and Jamie Benn and two further goals from captain Danny Brough.

A late try from Welsh winger Damien Gibson gave Wales the victory but the brave Scots repelled a late onslaught to make sure of the aggregate success.

The Welsh were worthy of their early lead, which came courtesy of tries from centres Luke Dyer and Adam Hughes, both converted by Iestyn Harris, but they were badly hit by ankle injuries to captain Lee Briers and hooker Ian Webster.

Wales were angered by their exclusion from the five-strong list of seeded teams for the World Cup but executive chairman Mark Rowley still believes they can reach Australia.

"We'll have to do it the hard way," he said.

"We've come up short a little bit so we need to beat Lebanon, then probably Samoa, both sides we've beaten before.

"On our day, we can beat anybody, but today wasn't our day."

Lebanon, who were also forced to enter the repechage after losing out in the other European qualifying group on points difference to Ireland, are equally confident of grabbing the final spot.

Team manager Anthony Elias said: "We only lost 24-22 to Wales in the 2000 World Cup and they haven't got as many players as they had then, with Keiron Cunningham and the other guys not playing now.

"I think we can still put a good effort in against them."

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