2011 Rugby World Cup

Go Pumas!

pumas-1.jpg
 
what the heck's going on down there? England swapping the rugby balls for illegal ones during conversions but not punished, Somoa fined for not wearing the correct mouthguards?! :blink:
 
Cmon Aussies! I hope they play with some purpose and intent, and not just take it as a given win. As it happens, it's Grand Final day here, so I won't really get to see any of it.

Happily though, tomorrow's match (when I'm sober) between Ireland and Italy is going to be a ripper. Here's hoping the Azzuri can cause an upset :D

what the heck's going on down there? England swapping the rugby balls for illegal ones during conversions but not punished...
Haha apparently a couple of the coaching staff have been barred from their next matches, but it did make me laugh when I read it. Bloody Poms. :p
 
Not worried about how it affects our chances...
Someone's confident... :p

Nah I do agree with you though. Personally when I watch a match (of any sport) I want to see the best players out there and DC is certainly one of them. I think there's an emotional side that is sometimes lost in print. The nature of his injury for starters, and then the other stuff such as captaining the All Blacks in McCaw's absence. Unfortunately, it's just one of those deflating moments that sports can throw at people, but you have to take the low-points with the highs. Steyn is a big loss for South Africa too.

Best performed team of those eliminated? First time I've seen the USA play and they were ok. Better than I would've thought. Samoa for mine, I love the way they play even though they can be frustrating to watch at times.
 
Someone's confident... :p

Nah I do agree with you though. Personally when I watch a match (of any sport) I want to see the best players out there and DC is certainly one of them. I think there's an emotional side that is sometimes lost in print. The nature of his injury for starters, and then the other stuff such as captaining the All Blacks in McCaw's absence. Unfortunately, it's just one of those deflating moments that sports can throw at people, but you have to take the low-points with the highs. Steyn is a big loss for South Africa too.

Best performed team of those eliminated? First time I've seen the USA play and they were ok. Better than I would've thought. Samoa for mine, I love the way they play even though they can be frustrating to watch at times.

One could call it confidence or arrogance. I was thinking about it more along the lines of, if we lose, then losing Carter to injury won't be an excuse.

As far as the 12 eliminated teams, this year was definitely the minnow show. While it was all "traditional powers" that advanced to the knockouts, 9 out of the 12 going home would be pretty foolish to be disappointed in their overall performance. The three that, I believe, have the right to be unhappy with how they performed:

Fiji - most obvious one. Unimpressive most of the tournament, I think of the eight halves of rugby they played, they played one good one in the second half against Namibia.
Scotland & Italy - I would imagine that both teams had a pre-tournament goal of at least qualifying for the knockout stage. While I don't imagine too many people are surprised that they didn't, both of them had pretty "average" showings, as opposed to all the other teams going home except Fiji, who played pretty well overall.

Japan, Russia, and Romania can be disappointed that they didn't win a single game (Namibia had a really tough group so probably aren't disappointed that they went home winless), but especially with Russia being at the tournament for the first time, all three of them have plenty of positives they can take out of the tournament. A Romania fan I talked to said that they were very good against Scotland, but their other three games they played like crap.
 
With the Dan Carter thing. He's not just an ordinary player for the All Blacks. He is one of the most useful assets in the whole team. He is effectively the big play maker for the AB's. Losing him is a massive blow.

Him being replaced by Colin Slade isn't really the end of the world. He can do the job. The difference is, while Dan will play solid games everytime, Colin will play good games sometimes, not all the time. Plus, Carters kicking is just epic.

[video=youtube;9bDwI-1jPSQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDwI-1jPSQ[/video]
 
With the Dan Carter thing. He's not just an ordinary player for the All Blacks. He is one of the most useful assets in the whole team. He is effectively the big play maker for the AB's. Losing him is a massive blow.

yes, and Brisbane lost Darren Lockyer for their match against Manly a couple weeks back in the NRL finals....that stuff just happens I'm afraid.

whatever happened to Nick Evans? He was fantastic for Otago when I was living there about 5 years ago :blink:
 
Last edited:
Gonna go for Wales in a close one over the Irish.
 
Top