The Game for Those with Odd-Shaped Balls (the Rugby thread)

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  • I asked the Knotweed which she enjoyed most of the results between England vs Fiji and Scotland vs Georgia and got "Oooh, that's a difficult one!" You can probably guess her loyalties from that!
    (England 22-Fiji 30, and Scotland 33-Georgia 6)
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Quite! :mrgreen:
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    They are all keeping their powder dry at the moment
  • Ohh la la! Les Bleus have thrown down the gauntlet. The opening match of these tournaments can be rather disappointing but not tonight. Granted the first half was a tad scrappy but the last 20 minutes or so, magnifique.
    France 29 - 13 New Zealand
  • Not often you see the All Blacks rolled like that. I may well miss the England game tomorrow as I am cricketing, but certainly plan to be down the battlecruiser for the Scotland game. Given how rubbish England have been in the buildup for this World Cup, Scotland for me the noo, and anyone who disagrees will get a Glasgae kiss.

    For cricket its England all the way, but I can afford to be free with my allegiance for egg chasing.
  • Ohh la la! Les Bleus have thrown down the gauntlet. The opening match of these tournaments can be rather disappointing but not tonight. Granted the first half was a tad scrappy but the last 20 minutes or so, magnifique.
    France 29 - 13 New Zealand
    Ohh la la! Les Bleus have thrown down the gauntlet. The opening match of these tournaments can be rather disappointing but not tonight. Granted the first half was a tad scrappy but the last 20 minutes or so, magnifique.
    France 29 - 13 New Zealand
    Agreed Les Bleus were formidable and unstoppable with home ground advantage and a friendly ref. I think NZ could have copped a red card on another day. Be a brave man to write off the All Blacks just yet. My pick is that it will come down to who stays injury free.

  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Purgatory Host, Circus Host
    ALLEZ LES BLEUS!!

    (Go the Blues). Sorry, having a French moment because we beat the All Blacks!! Yay!
  • Baptist TrainfanBaptist Trainfan Shipmate
    edited September 2023
    How many Wales fans nearly had heart attacks? Fiji at the end were magnificent and probably should have won.

    But they didn't - yay!

    What was lovely to see was the bonhomie between the players after the match.
  • Phew. Rather too exciting for the last 5 minutes but we managed a win and a bonus point. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

    BTW, anyone who ever wondered just how committed the Princess Royal is to the SRU need wonder no longer - try this
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    She'll presumably be feeling as pissed-off as I am at the moment ... :cry:
  • We didn't play the game at my old school. It was just football and cricket. I never even took much notice of the game on tv. At training school I chose to have a go at Rugby instead of a cross country run. I was totally confused by the offside rule. My son played for the junior section of a local club and I used to take him to games. I am now happy to watch games involving England.
  • Fewer schools here continue to offer rugby, either Union or League, particularly at Prep school level, More are offering soccer, while Rules is gaining some ground outside its traditional States.
  • FIJI! FIJI!!!!!

    First win against Australia in almost 70 years, 15-22.
  • With apologies to Aussie Shipmates but Weren't Fiji AWESOME!!!!

  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    Indeed they were. But, it leaves me with a question about the pool (probably irrelevant in as the next set of matches in Pool C would shift things around). But, at present following that fantastic match, Pool C (you'll need to select the right pool, as there's no direct link) has Fiji above Australia - of course, Wales on top of the pool (in a position where they can only fail to get through to the quarter finals if they manage to get beaten by Georgia and Australia). Both Fiji and Aus have won one and lost one, with bonus points putting both on 6. But, with Aus having a better point difference (+13 cf +1) and more tries scored (6 cf 5) I'd have still expected Australia to be above Fiji in the group table.
  • England were not convincing.
  • This former long-term resident of Fiji got up in the middle of the night to see on TV the big match of the Rugby World Cup (being played in France). Result: Fiji 22 d Australia 15. .From here in Australia I could almost hear the roar from Fiji's open windows . This time Fiji rode a tide of penalties in their favour, unlike in their previous match v Wales where the penalty tide was against them (including some that should have been given but were not). In a close group, I fear that Fiji will just miss out on a count-back of bonus points to the Rugby establishment of Aust and Wales.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    Thanks, that makes the Fiji-Australia placing in the table clear.

    I was a bit late coming back to this thread because I was out on Sunday evening and recorded England v Japan. I got home from work last night, and at about 8pm sat down to watch the recording having managed to succeed in not knowing the result for the best part of 24h - that's a surprisingly difficult task (watching news yesterday morning, dashing out of the room to sort out my lunch or something when the sports news comes on, a quick move to a different part of Coop when grabbing some groceries when I heard the radio start talking about rugby - with the only bit I caught being "England need to up their game", which having now watched the match I agree with).
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    I'm reminded of an episode of The Likely Lads when they weren't able to either attend or watch a footie match, and the lengths they went to to avoid hearing or seeing the score (which included crossing the road to avoid seeing into the window of a television shop) before Match of the Day came on later that night. :mrgreen:
  • A couple of juicy matches. Ireland v SA and Wallabies v Wales. Whoop whoop. Let’s hope the refs don’t wreck ‘em.
  • FIJI! FIJI!!!!!

    First win against Australia in almost 70 years, 15-22.

    Some of us are keeping very quiet.
  • @MPaul The refereeing so far has been inconsistent. I understand the IRB wants to involve officials from the smaller nations but they don't have the experience at this level.
  • @MPaul The refereeing so far has been inconsistent. I understand the IRB wants to involve officials from the smaller nations but they don't have the experience at this level.
    Yep really the officiating can influence outcomes like no other code. The advantage rule is problematic because it is discretionary. I do get the safety concerns as there are titanic clashes at times.

  • Piglet wrote: »
    I'm reminded of an episode of The Likely Lads when they weren't able to either attend or watch a footie match, and the lengths they went to to avoid hearing or seeing the score (which included crossing the road to avoid seeing into the window of a television shop) before Match of the Day came on later that night. :mrgreen:

    Didn't that end with Thelma saying "Well watch it if you like but you won't see any goals!"
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    edited September 2023
    No - I've just watched it on You Tube, and it turned out the match was postponed because of a waterlogged pitch, and when Bob and Terry settled down to watch it, they were showing figure-skating instead. :mrgreen:
  • The Springboks with 7 huge forwards on the bench ready to swing on in place of the big lugs they had on the pitch at the start, forgot to include a reliable goal-kicker either on the pitch or on the bench and were beaten by Ireland (who played their hearts out). Figuratively that is; there were no players hospitalised after the match.
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    A perfect summation IMO, @Tukai. South Africa had several opportunities and advantages and could very easily have won. One missed goal after another.
  • . 'King of the north meets king of the south'
    My greatest fear was that officiating would influence the outcome via scrum penalties or applying the advantage rule for 30 phases after the infringement. Luckily, sanity seemed to prevail..no yellow or redcards either.
    Ireland seemed fitter the springboks were down to a walk by the end.
    But, 3 missed penalties from the tee was super costly for them.
    What is the bet Handre Pollard plays the next game for SA.

  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    edited September 2023
    Well done Ireland - I didn't see the match, but I hear it was a nail-biter!
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Scotland vs Tonga result as might be expected - not that Tonga didn't put up a better show than the score line might suggest.

    Surprised that the Wales v Australia is quite so one sided.
  • The Aussie scrums were truly awful.
  • Firenze wrote: »
    Surprised that the Wales v Australia is quite so one sided.

    Surprised that it was quite so one-sided? Eddie Jones (does he have selectors as well?) has a pool of players with very little experience at this level, that's what happened: a group of players unused to playing together or to playing on such a big occasion, and it showed. They were already rattled having lost to Fiji, and the early Welsh try didn't help. They made some schoolboy errors, then the discipline started to go. By the time they brought on their final subs it was far too late because the implosion was ongoing. The result was the biggest ever winning margin for Wales against Australia.

    At the moment it looks as if Wales will face either Argentina or Japan in the Quarter-Final... 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
  • Agree with that. That was the dumbest game I have seen an international side play. Wallabies played inside their own half rather than kicking for territory. Wales played to their strength good D and had a way better kicking game. Anscomb took over at 10 from Biggar but was superb. But unco-ordinated is the word that strikes me about the wallabies. They lost the plot and panicked.
  • Will Jones go to Japan? He denies it of course ...

    https://tinyurl.com/2s3wbvwf
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    Piglet wrote: »
    Well done Ireland - I didn't see the match, but I hear it was a nail-biter!
    It was definitely the match of the weekend. Even before kick-off I was thinking it would be a great match up for the final - still can be, of course.
  • All Blacks vs Italy this weekend .. has a different kind of pressure. Tournament sport is a unique kind of contest.
  • All Blacks 97 ? Italy 10. That was rugby poetry from NZ. Italy are a pretty good side these days.
  • Error correct..nz 96 Italy17
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Scotland 84 Romania 0.

    Crikey! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
  • Pretty much my reaction @Piglet 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 I was watching last night whilst dealing with a bad headache, and had to check the result again this morning to be sure it was real!
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    And England hold on by 1 point against Samoa. Samoa must be gutted.
  • Samoa were robbed. The third try was awarded and the conversion taken, then just as the ref was about to blow the whistle for the restart the TMO intervened saying he thought there'd been a knock-on. Footage on the screen showed a contested ball being knocked forward we were told - absolute rubbish.
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    Samoa were robbed. The third try was awarded and the conversion taken, then just as the ref was about to blow the whistle for the restart the TMO intervened saying he thought there'd been a knock-on. Footage on the screen showed a contested ball being knocked forward we were told - absolute rubbish.
    I saw that replay too. Shows the. Swings and roundabout effect of TMO implementation. The officiating of rugby has become super intrusive so as to dictate outcomes.
  • Fantastic match between Fiji and Portugal. The Fijians weren't firing on all cylinders and the Portuguese - IMO the breakthrough team of the tournament - showed wonderful handling skills and commitment.
    The result - Fiji 23 - 24 Portugal - means Fiji go through to the Quarter Finals and Australia go home.
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    And France and Ireland exit. Both worth of Semi final spots.
    I blame the draw.
  • The draw was incredibly problematic.
    We all know this.

    However, we have had 4, yes FOUR fantastic matches over the weekend. Each of them was brilliant.

    AFZ
  • TukaiTukai Shipmate
    And so England sneak through to the semi-finals, ahead of Ireland and France, who have shown themselves far worthier to be there.
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    Interesting all right but now they are there, It will be a great match up with SA. England will be just a physical and I bet they won’t give the chances to SA that France did. Officiating will be key but despite my cynicism, I haven’t had too many complaints so far.
    In the NZ vs Ireland game, the first AB’s try seemed to result from Brodie Retallick, the AB lock playing the ball when off his feet. Maybe others saw it differently but I would have expected Barnes to ping that.
  • Just watched the 3rd place match. As a neutral, I enjoyed it greatly without having to worry about who won 🙂. Comment from @Sandemaniac at the end was that it was good a match as any of the quarter-finals!
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