RUGBY World Cup 2007

[Axver]

My ethnic heritage or whatever...also I don't really want Australia to be good at Rugby cause it takes the focus away from the Socceroos, who are the only Aussie international sporting team I wholeheartedly support.

Ah, right. I love all of you traitorous Aussies who aren't behind the Wallabies all the way.

The Wales vs Australia game was rather remarkable really. 25-3 in favour of Australia in the first half, but 17-7 to Wales in the second, 32-20 at full time overall and Wales unfortunate not to have come closer. The Welsh really lifted their game in the second half and exposed Australia for what they are: a fragile team that is just clinging together. Due to a simple lack of attacking flair, the Welsh blew a few opportunities that the All Blacks or Boks would have absolutely scored from, and Australia's basic skills were unimpressive. Facing England (or Samoa) in the quarters will still gift the Wallabies a pass to the semi-finals, but I don't see them making it to the final. Wales, on the other hand, despite their obvious passionate determination, will probably be dealt with clinically in the quarters by a Springboks side that appears to be running rampant.

 

[LJT]

I want to die

How could we get any worse after Namibia?

What the hell has happened to the team since the 6 nations?

That was horrible...Geogia should have won.

 

[Axver]

What. The. Fuck.

Georgia came so close to pulling off the greatest upset in World Cup history. Hell, losing by just 14-10 almost qualifies as an upset anyway! They got a bonus point out of the match! Well, this is one minnow that won't lie down and die.

I suddenly get this feeling that unless Ireland can seriously turn things around, Group D won't be much of a group of death and Argentina and France will easily cruise into the quarters after giving the Irish a couple of rugby lessons.

 

[LJT]

A year ago we were the best we've ever been...and now to these performances...it's like getting punched in the gut.

It's embarrassing to watch.

 

[Axver]

I desperately hope you Irish can pick up enough to beat France though. Not only would it be amazing to see the hosts bow out at the group stage, but I'd feel more comfortable about the All Blacks beating Ireland than France.

So, onto tonight's games:
- Fiji vs Canada: Should actually be well under way as I write this post. I was thinking Fiji should win by a clear margin, but their difficulty in beating Japan makes me think this could be quite close. I just wish it was being shown here!
- Samoa vs Tonga: Considering the size of many of the players on both teams, this should be a huge physical encounter, and watching the teams do their equivalent of the Haka at the same time would be great. Samoa should win this with a bit of daylight, but I don't think we'll see a blowout. However, a strong win will make me even more strongly suspect that an upset in Samoa vs England could be on the cards.
- France vs Namibia: OK, well, if you'd asked me the outcome two weeks ago, I would have said 90-0. But after Namibia's valiant effort against Ireland and the lacklustre French play against Argentina, this could be closer. France will still win, but if it's unconvincing, that will bode well for Ireland in the crucial Ireland vs France game in five days.

 

[Salome]

Ireland were depressing last night

had Georgia won it would even have been deserved

 

[LJT]

Too many of Ireland's moves broke down due to very bad handling...plus the kicking was awful

Tonga did very well today to beat Samoa...was an extremely physical game, but great fun too!

 

[LJT]

We're dead

 

[financeguy]

We're dead

I'm sorry to say that I agree.

 

[Axver]

Yeah, Ireland's fucked, which is a shame. This game is France's to lose - and they won't.

I'm still surprised that Samoa lost to Tonga as Samoa has the better team. Still, if Samoa can beat the woeful English, they could still potentially make the quarters, I think.

And if I'm not grossly mistaken Scotland plays Romania tonight. This will be an interesting indicator of whether or not the Scots will trouble the All Blacks any more than Italy did.

 

[babyman]

I realized only today that SouthAfrica walked over England 36-0! is it true, or was it a teletext mistake from my TV?

 

[1stepcloser]

sadly it's true babyman. england were world champions 4 years ago believe it or not...

 

[Axver]

The thing about England is that they never were truly world champions after the Cup. Sure, they were best on the day and won the Cup, but then the winning team vanished and the 2004-07 English team has simply been a pretender to the crown.

 

[babyman]

I think they miss Jonny Wilkinson more than we imagine

 

[1stepcloser]

yeah lots of that england team were at their peak in 2003 and also at least 30 or rapidly approaching 30. the likes of johnson, dallaglio, greenwood, catt, robinson and a few others have either retired or are about to retire now. much like the great french football team of 1998-2000. they all hit their physical peak at the right time.

the england team now is a mere shadow of what it was, henceforth the lesson given out to them in international rugby by SA last week.

 

[Axver]

Yeah, in 2003, England weren't solely dependent on Wilkinson to be the playmaker and score points. Sure, he was probably most prominent, but some other guys were doing some really hard work and the team could survive without him. Ever since? No Wilkinson = no imagination or initiative, and the game against the Springboks was a vivid illustration of that. I can't believe it took until the 47th minute for England to be in a tryscoring opportunity, and the loss of Robinson has effectively ended their tournament as nobody else on the team seemed to possess a milligram of imagination.

 

[babyman]

Isn't this worldcup format too long?
Boy, 1month and a half!
I'm not having so much emotions, New Zealand plays every 10 days, and the other games aren't so much interesting....................
Another quest, why are they playing some games in Cardiff and Edinburg?

 

[guill]

Because Wales and Scotland voted for France.
Big teams like New Zealand are protected and play every 7 days when small nations play every 4 days.
On a related note, Japan won't have the world cup in 2011.
The International Rugby Board is a true familia

 

[Axver]

On a related note, Japan won't have the world cup in 2011.

And why should they? The World Cup should be held every time in New Zealand rather than ever go to Japan until they become an established country worthy of hosting the Cup. If you are getting your arse kicked 91-3 by Australia, you should not be hosting the Cup. I believe only the following countries should host the Cup: New Zealand, Australia, South Africa as long as the political and social situation improves, Argentina, the UK, Ireland, France, and a joint venture by the Pacific Islands. Anywhere else needs to prove rugby is a mainstream sport and that its national team is worth a damn first.

As for length, this isn't any longer than the soccer World Cup, is it? And rugby's a far more physically demanding and tiring sport.

Regarding the latest results, Italy has a lot of explaining to do. They only just beat Romania 24-18, while Scotland, who are two places worse in the world (eleventh to Italy's ninth), beat the Romanians 42-0. This looks ominous for Italy's quarter finals ambitions.

Oh, wait, Scotland's moved up to tenth in the world in the latest revision a couple of days ago. Check it out. After their unexpected loss to Tonga, Samoa's tumbled from 10th to 13th and the Tongans advance to 12th. The USA also lost ground, falling to 17th after also losing to Tonga; I haven't seen the US this low before - every time I've checked, they've been around 14-16.

 

[babyman]

And why should they? The World Cup should be held every time in New Zealand rather than ever go to Japan until they become an established country worthy of hosting the Cup. If you are getting your arse kicked 91-3 by Australia, you should not be hosting the Cup. I believe only the following countries should host the Cup: New Zealand, Australia, South Africa as long as the political and social situation improves, Argentina, the UK, Ireland, France, and a joint venture by the Pacific Islands. Anywhere else needs to prove rugby is a mainstream sport and that its national team is worth a damn first.

As for length, this isn't any longer than the soccer World Cup, is it? And rugby's a far more physically demanding and tiring sport.

No, football/soccer is around a mere month.


I think you're wrong by saying that the world cup should be hosted by someone who has rugby as mainstream sport. This means that in the countries where it isn't you will never find new fans, new addictions, you will never give the chance to discover this sport. Instead you should incentive it. What more counts for hosting a sport championship are the good organization, money, and the infrastructures. I tell you that Japan would probably host the ever best championship you can ever imagine, look what I'm revealing to you now.............
Football is an example for this, USA hosted in 1994, the team sucked, the organization was a triumph,and since then the US team had several improvements, and they become at least a competitive team. But not only USA, Chile hosted, Mexico hosted, they aren't strong in football, they have never won. Next in 2010 the worldchampionship will be hosted by SouthAfrica, who is damn weak football team. What you say, would mean an elite thing, and this is frankly bad. Not only the teams who are extra strong deserve to host a championship, this is silly. Next time maybe, if it's so, then let New Zealand, Australia, SouthAfrica and a mix of european teams play for it, do a couple of games and it's all over.

 

[intedomine]

Yep, the World Cup in non-football nation the USA attracted average crowds of over 60,000.

The Japan and South Korea FIFA World Cup has pretty much made football the outright biggest sport in those regions, and that tournament was highly appealling to locals.

The problem for Rugby however, is that it's appeal as a spectator sport is pretty minimal for many folk.

 

[Axver]

Citing the US as an example isn't exactly a smart thing to do. Firstly, soccer is one of the largest sports in the US in terms of members, especially amongst children, so it already had a base in 1994. Secondly, check out their domestic sports: the gridiron league has the highest average attendance to regular season games out of any sporting league in the world. How 67,000 people per game manage to sit through a pseudo-sport more boring than watching grass grow is completely beyond me, but it just goes to show that the high attendance at a huge global sporting event is hardly surprising in context.

And I'm kind of baffled at the mentions of Chile, Mexico, and South Africa hosting the soccer World Cup. Sure, they aren't the most successful soccer countries in history, but soccer is the dominant sport in all three! In a global sport such as soccer, it's very difficult to win the World Cup, so having your team be "worth a damn" in soccer is much different than in rugby.

I don't mean that the Rugby World Cup should be hosted by an elite group. I mean it should be hosted in a country whose team won't be booted out as early as possible and roundly thumped by decent opposition (re: Japan). I mean it should be hosted in a country where more than a fifth of the people at any given game are actually locals. Seriously, be honest - if the Cup were held in Japan, with a game like Portugal vs Romania in a 40,000+ seater stadium, would it be even half full? And how many of those people would actually be Japanese as opposed to All Blacks, Springboks, et al fans killing time?

If the World Cup were held in Japan, it would be a complete joke and do nothing good for rugby. The only good thing from my perspective is that it would be held in a decent timezone.

 

[babyman]

Citing the US as an example isn't exactly a smart thing to do. Firstly, soccer is one of the largest sports in the US in terms of members, especially amongst children, so it already had a base in 1994.

No, it is. USA and football were always 2 different things. The americans took part for the first time in a football worldchampionship in 1990, and they were the worst team in all its definitions. In less than 15 years, and mostly after the hosting of 1994, the movement grew up in USA, making giant steps.
USA is the home of other sports, but in football they were pretty never interested. Many of the strongest nationalteam players play in Europe, not in America

 

[babyman]

And I'm kind of baffled at the mentions of Chile, Mexico, and South Africa hosting the soccer World Cup. Sure, they aren't the most successful soccer countries in history, but soccer is the dominant sport in all three! In a global sport such as soccer, it's very difficult to win the World Cup, so having your team be "worth a damn" in soccer is much different than in rugby.

Chile hosted the Worldcup in 1962 if I'm not wrong, in that time, probably the chilean thought that the ball was a square thing..............
It became one of their dominant sport AFTER the hosting, and the same thing is related to Mexico after 1974. Before they hosted the championship, they were ZERO in football.............

 

[intedomine]

Would Argentina make a viable IRB World Cup host in 2015?

 

[babyman]

I don't mean that the Rugby World Cup should be hosted by an elite group. I mean it should be hosted in a country whose team won't be booted out as early as possible and roundly thumped by decent opposition (re: Japan). I mean it should be hosted in a country where more than a fifth of the people at any given game are actually locals. Seriously, be honest - if the Cup were held in Japan, with a game like Portugal vs Romania in a 40,000+ seater stadium, would it be even half full? And how many of those people would actually be Japanese as opposed to All Blacks, Springboks, et al fans killing time?

It depends everytime of the resonance. Hosting important championships or important manifestations takes a country in the eyes of billions of people. This means tourism, this means advertisement, this means taking money to a country, this mean bringing incentives to a global movement in a country where the force of a team is not necessarly the same of New Zealand, Australia, SouthAfrica. Portugal-Romania doesn't have 40.000 people neither in New Zealand, I'd bet with you. But how many people would go to an Australia-New Zealand, France-England, SouthAfrica-Ireland etc etc..........Probably the same crowds you would see in Japan. It's not important how far the hosting team goes, what more counts is that you give the chance to the crowds to see how the masters play, and to get caught by the will of starting a movement. If you don't see someone else, you will never know what thing he's doing. Now, don't underestimate other countries rugby interest or understanding just because they have weak nationalteams. Italy, for example, became one of the most increasing movements in the last 10 years. Until 10 years ago, nobody knew nothing about. It was thanx to the entering into the 5 nations that Italy has now triplicated addictions to rugby. If they would have considered Italy not worth to play against England, France, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, or to host them in Italy, probably no one would have known nothing about this sport. The main point is, why should you preclude other "weak" nations their possibility to let a movement grow?
Nothing has more resonance or more visibility when it's in your country. Japan is one of the most leading economics countries of the world, they have everything, Money, Infrastructures, Huge stadiums, and japanese crowds are always hot as fire..................... You can't pretend that only the mainstream teams have to host the championship, this would leave rugby, as every other kind of sport, stuck in the mud, static.
In F1 they're going everywhere in Asia. Asia never had champions, they never had drivers at all! But there, first of all, they find money, but mainly, circuits filled with 100.000 people, and I don't think they all go down from Europe or America.

 

[financeguy]

France 25 Ireland 3.

The result was more or less as I would have expected, though I hoped that the margin of victory would be somewhat less. We didn't bottle out, at least we competed (most of the time). I doubt if any French player was going off the pitch saying 'Piece of cake!'

Reasons to be cheerful: Reddan did very well, I thought, and Horgan played a lot better than in recent matches, though still a little short of his best.

Reasons not to be cheerful: we lost, and we didn't score a single try. Progression now looks unlikely. You know, it almost reminds me of the bad old days (90's) when Ireland going to play France or other similarly highly rated teams were ALWAYS the underdogs, and if we lost but gave them a tough game we talked about such strange concepts as 'the moral victory'! Well, we didn't have even the moral victory today, but we didn't disgrace ourselves completely.

Has Irish rugby really progressed so little? I'd like to think not, but don't forget that of the last 5 occasions prior to this one when Ireland and France have played, France won on all but one occasion. (For that matter if we look at the last 6 occasions, the margin of victory in France's favour in the 2002 encounter was even higher than today). That's the form book. Overall, it was always a long shot that we would beat France in Paris and that would STILL have been true had we performed decently against Georgia or Namibia.

Those statistics - only 1 victory in 7 games against France - really put the recent good times in Irish rugby in perspective. And as for competing with the Southern Hemisphere sides, well, we've beaten South Africa a couple of times in recent years, but had they been in our group in this World Cup, there would not have been a snowball's chance in hell.

Questions are still being asked about whether there are, or were, 'issues' within the squad, or between some members of the squad and Eddie O'Sullivan and to be honest some of those questions are valid. Frankly I think that there is no smoke without fire (what are we to make of O'Sullivan's admission that Ireland were 'in crisis' after the Georgia match?), but we'd best leave the post mortems until after the World Cup.

Heavens, this is by far the longest post I've ever written in Put 'em under Pressure.

 

[Axver]

Well, I'll tackle both topics in this post.

Firstly, France vs Ireland. The ref, Chris White, needs his whistle confiscated or something. He almost singlehandedly ruined the game, and I just about went back to bed when it became apparent Ireland were not going to come back. I think the biggest problems the Irish had in that game were 1. a lack of energy to make it through the game, and 2. a lack of imagination on attack. Ireland looked like they were going to come back at the start of the second half, but by 65 minutes, they were obviously tired and never going to get anywhere. And they seem to be plagued by the same problem that faces all the Six Nations sides with the possible exception of France - no imaginative flair in attack. The Irish attempts to score tries went NOWHERE. No wonder they struggled against the minnows. The minnows are probably looking at the All Blacks and Springboks saying "we want to be like them", while the Irish are saying "we wish we could beat them". I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you want offensive rugby done properly, you want Southern Hemisphere rugby. This is why the top four teams in the world at the moment are all from the Southern Hemisphere, and why all but one World Cup winner has been from there.

As for our ongoing discussion on where the World Cup should be hosted, perhaps that deserves a thread of its own. I just feel that for a competition as young as this in comparison to something like the FIFA World Cup or modern Olympics, it would not be beneficial to host it in a country where rugby does not satisfy one of the following criteria: the host nation is at least decent (by that, I mean top ten in the world) and/or is a mainstream sport in the host nation (so, because it's the country's second sport, I'd fully support the Cup being hosted by Georgia if they were actually capable of doing so). Nobody wants to see the host as some poor minnow that gets thrown out uncompetitively and finishes without a win, or for interest in the quarter finals to be primarily tourists. If the only people at an All Blacks vs Wallabies semi-final are going to be people who've flown in from New Zealand or Australia, what was the point in going to, say, Japan? Neutral turf? That's the only advantage I can see from having the Cup in a minnow country: for all the big guns, it's neutral turf.

 

[Axver]

Haha, I just realised something awesome. After today's French win, it looks likely that Argentina will top Group D and France will be second, meaning New Zealand will play France in the quarter finals. I was initially worried about this, as I thought the quarter final would be played on French soil and that would make life just a wee bit tougher for the All Blacks.

Then I noticed the quarter final for Winner Group C vs Runner-up Group D is in CARDIFF, WALES! i.e. NOT in France! Suddenly, the French home advantage evaporates. Brilliant, fucking brilliant.

 

[cobl04]

Yeah so the dickhead ref in the France/Guiness game today. Rewards a penalty cos some idiot with a hobo beard got stepped on.

The game stops and starts enough as it is. The conversation between the ref and the line guy was bad enough.

"I saw that guy, 7 green, he stepped on the other guy."
"oh did he."
"mmm."
"having a nice day?"
"yes yes quite nice, quite nice."
"well i spose ill go have a chat with 7 green."
"sure, sure."
"toodles."

This is why the game frustrates me. Sorry to rain on everyone's parades, but I hate it even more when one team gets all the way to like the 20 line, then lose the ball and it takes another five minutes.