The secret to Ireland qualifying for more major tournaments? Stop playing friendlies

The Republic of Ireland are in a tight spot in Group D.

Not because of Monday night's thoroughly depressing and scarcely believable 2-2 draw in Serbia. Martin O'Neill's men were in a tight spot before a ball was kicked, when they wound up in Pot 4 of the UEFA Qualifying seedings. Landing Wales as a top seed helped, as did second seed Austria and third seed Serbia (considering they could have been Spain, France and Sweden we got off pretty lightly). Both Wales and Austria won last night to go top of the group ahead of Ireland and Serbia. At least the Boys in Green have a chance to build up a head of steam at home to Georgia (October 6th) and away to Moldova (October 9th) before a trip to Vienna on November 12th. https://twitter.com/SportsJOEdotie/status/772906579557511168 Many questioned the value of last week's friendly against Oman as preparation for a World Cup qualifying campaign, and it seems that Ireland's heavy friendly schedule may be having a detrimental effect on the team's Fifa ranking, upon which the World Cup seeding was based. As highlighted by The Setpieces, Wales (top seeds in Ireland's group remember) have figured out how to hack the Fifa ranking algorithm. The trick? Stop playing friendlies. Fifa's website outlines the relatively straightforward equation used to calculate rankings.

The number of points that can be won in a match depends on the following factors:

• Was the match won or drawn? (M)
• How important was the match (ranging from a friendly match to a FIFA World Cup match)? (I)How strong was the opposing team in terms of ranking position and the confederation to which they belong? (T and C)

These factors are brought together in the following formula to ascertain the total number of points (P): P = M x I x T x C

Having wound up in Pot 7 for World Cup 2014 qualifying, the Welsh FA decided to dive deep into the numbers and they realised that the low reward for friendlies could actually harm the good work they were doing in competitive matches. So they stopped playing friendlies. Following one pre-World Cup friendly against Louis van Gaal's Netherlands in June 2014 they went 17 months without playing a non-competitive game and in July 2015 entered the Fifa Top 10. In the same period Ireland played seven friendlies, against Turkey, Italy, Costa Rica, Portugal, Oman, the United States and England - beating Oman and the US, drawing with Italy, Costa Rica and England and losing to Turkey and Portugal. While a successful Euro 2016 qualifying campaign eventually saw Ireland's ranking climb from 64 to 31 between 2014 and 2015, Wales went from 34th in 2014 to the top 10 in time to earn a top seeding for World Cup qualifying. Romania enjoyed a similar result by eschewing friendly matches and performing strongly in their Euro 2016 campaign. Friendlies are vital for giving game time to new players, trialling new tactics and formations, plus of course making money for the FAI, but the upward mobility of Romania and Wales shows that friendlies are not a win-win situation.

The GAA Hour Hurling Show relives Tipperary’s sensational All-Ireland victory with Paidí Maher. Listen below or subscribe on iTunes.