| Author |
World Champions!!!!
|
|
| bearing 2003-11-22, 1:48 pm |
| England are Rugby World Champions, thank fcuk for that I seriously thought my heart was going to give up on me.
But who cares we did the Aussies in their own back yard, not bad for a bunch of old blokes.   | |
|
| Watched the match on the back end of a 12 hour night shift. My eyes were killing me; I could only just stay awake long to kill off eights cans of beer and wait, oh the agonising wait, for Johnny to drop goal us into Rugby heaven.
What a way to go - and we scored a try! Courtesy of that man Billy Whizz.
A Knighthood for Woodward, OBEs all round for the team. Shame that most of them won't be around for the next world cup - when I predict we will win the final against the South Africans. (Nearly made up for all the disappointments in the last 12 years) And next year, well the Six Nations of course.
Swing Low, Sweet Charity.
Hippo (Countryman RU tight head prop and champion beer shifter)
| |
|
| Geez - what a sad indication on the state of rugby when the two teams that made the final are so gawd awful to watch play and are experts in flopping all over the ball and taking out players without the ball and being able to claim it is clearing out at rucks and mauls.
I will however congratulate England on actually scoring a try in the final - something I never expected. I will also congratulate them on winning the cup, but with the proviso that if the draw had actually been a draw and not a rigged table to keep them away from any decent teams before the final then they wouldn't have made it. Hopefully for the next one things will be legit - I do however doubt that though as long as the IRB is structured in such a poor fashion 
Don't worry - I used to feel the shame when we used to rely on Grant Fox for so many of our wins. | |
| enforcer 2003-11-22, 4:04 pm |
| I'm sorry, easy draw. Come on we had S africa in our group and samoa.
Ok so we were expected to beat them, and we did.
group games we probably had the toughest group. if we had not won it then we would have had to go through Austrailia and New Zealand.
we won our group beat wales (whose 2nd string gave the all blacks a tough time) and then beat the French who looked very strong.
Before beating Austrailia in the Final, Ok it wasn't pretty but we came up with the goods.
Now tell me, if you had won in the same circumstances would you be upset about it?
Well done lads. | |
|
| quote:
Originally posted by RussS
Geez - what a sad indication on the state of rugby when the two teams that made the final are so gawd awful to watch play and are experts in flopping all over the ball and taking out players without the ball and being able to claim it is clearing out at rucks and mauls.
Don't worry - I used to feel the shame when we used to rely on Grant Fox for so many of our wins.
Yeah, but we made the final didn't we? You didn't! So we can't be that "gawd awful". And I can't remember one incident where we took out a player not in possession of the ball. At least one penalty against the Aussies for that 'tactic'.
There's no shame in using a key player for a specific role. The rest of team played their part in the territorial and tactical game to put Wilko in the kicking position. | |
| RussS 2003-11-23, 12:25 am |
| quote:
I can't remember one incident where we took out a player not in possession of the ball. At least one penalty against the Aussies for that 'tactic'.
ummm - watch the game again ... lol
Actually I spent most of today analysing it with the analyst for the local super 12 team. Yup - they're bad too ... lol
In all honesty the poms weren't as bad as expected by all & sundry. I was however referring to the current 'trend' of clearing players at rucks & mauls. I would rather see good old RUCKING back where it should be. As far as I am, concerned 'blowing through' is just taking a player out without the ball and should be penalised. Freakin game has been so screwed up by the law makers that it might almost be poor mans league :-( | |
| RussS 2003-11-23, 12:37 am |
| enforcer
heh heh heh - ya, and if you had Australia or NZ in your pool you wouldn't have made the semis.
Actually the whole thing is a freakin joke. There are really only 8 teams that offer consistant competition and another 4 that are almost there. The rest just don't belong there at all.
England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, France, Wales, Samoa & Scotland.
Add in Ireland, Fiji, Italy and Tonga and you have 12. 2 pools of 6 teams for the round robin and then semis and the final.
Place the rest of the teams in a Nations Cup competition run at the same time and have them play on the days between the real games. Drop the last place team and promote the top nations team for the next World Cup.
The weakness of the competition is probably why the ABs fell short. I'd bet that if they played a couple better teams then maybe things would have been considerably different.
BTW - congrats to the English team on a very well fought campaign. | |
|
|
| ruscorp 2003-11-24, 11:46 am |
| quote:
Originally posted by bearing
England are Rugby World Champions, thank fcuk for that I seriously thought my heart was going to give up on me.
This is actually quiet amusing. | |
|
| As a citizen of the country who won the first cup and haven't seen it for about 20 years all I can say is I hope we do not become like out pommy bretheren and the '66 football world cup ;-)
Bearing - ya, but damn if it wasn't for the kiwi coach or the kiwis in the french team they would have been well back ..... lol
Actually it was good to see them do well and hopefully they can continue to improve and bring along Ireland and Scotland. That new concept discussed about a 9 Nations fitting in between the World Cup sounds like a bloody good idea. I'm damn bored of watchin the bokkies and the ozzy boys. | |
| enforcer 2003-11-24, 5:54 pm |
| quote:
Originally posted by RussS
I'm damn bored of watchin the bokkies and the ozzy boys.
<space reserved for a bad taste comment involving Michael Jackson> |
|
|
|