As an Aussie, I hope you’re right, but I’d have the Wallabies as “maybes” right now.
Interestingly, the points gap between Wales at 5 and Australia at 6 is larger than the points gap between the top five teams.
Thanks for your helpful comments.
I heard a rumour that Eddie Jones will use George Ford as an emergency scrum-half. Ford is a talented player, but has little experience of the specialist position.
To win the world cup a team needs to beat three tier one nations in a row.
Which makes you both incorrigible optimists. 
The chance of Australia winning three tier ones games in the tournament is Buckley’s.
A lifetime of supporting New Zealand teams in various sports has led me to never prematurely write off Australia in any international competition.
Conversely, this side of the ditch has a lifetime of watching the All Black ritually butcher any Wallaby team that runs out … even when the team is packed with as many Pacific Islander born “Aussies” as Australian immigration will allow.
Surely a 89% winning record since the 2011 Rugby World Cup and 77% winning record for the past 120 years is some sort of salve to the pathological need to win at all costs? Was Richie McCaw ever seen onside during his career of 148 Tests?
Surely the rare prospect of dropping the occasional international every decade or so is a small price to pay for the incessant privilege of pinching everybody else’s lunch money?
First try to Russia! Well that was unexpected.
Good entertainment so far, and a decent standard, though a few dropped catches and handling errors. I imagine the Russian kicker wouldn’t have thanked his try scorer for not getting closer to the posts, but he nailed the kick perfectly anyway.
Russia doing much better under the high ball than Japan. Presumably they will tire more in the last quarter, but at the moment they look favourites to win this.
Q. What do you call a Welshman who makes the World Cup Final?
A. Nigel Owens.
That looked a try all day long but turned out to be a great saving tackle by the Russian winger. So they retain their slender lead. Although they just very nearly lost it to the most obvious charge down ever - the defender was practically on top of him when he attempted the kick! But it went to Russian hands and they get away with it.
Russia could have scored a couple more to be honest but the ball carriers didn’t get the last pass away. Much closer game than I expected, but the Russians are starting to look tired.
Yeah, sooner than I expected. Japan running away with it now. I thought that was a poor kick over the top by Japan just now, but he got a helpful bounce, and then the Russian kick was truly terrible to basically give away that last try.
Good opener for the tournament.
Loving the gong sound effect (rather than the usual hooter) marking the end of the 80 minutes - a nice touch. Russia still doing their best to score in the last play of the game, but can’t quite manage it.
Russia did well in defence but look pretty limited in attack. Far too many aimless kicks.
Japan need to start with their reserve first-five, the starting guy had a shocker.
Well, that was an entertaining way to open the tournament.
The Russians definitely suffered from a lack of conditioning. They were already looking tired in the last ten minutes of the first half. Some terrible kicking by both teams. Far too many off the side of the boot, or straight up in the air. I thought that the shorter kicks, just over the first line of defense, often looked like the best option, and I’m surprised that both teams didn’t try it a little more often. Some good tackling by both teams, though.
The Wallabies face Fiji tonight, followed by France and Argentina, and then a huge matchup between the All Blacks and the Springboks.
As a person who has never watched Rugby before, if I wanted to try to follow the world cup is there some sort of cheat sheet that exists to help me understand what is happening?
Just ask questions in the thread - there’s some right knowledgeable types who form a small but perfectly formed rugby community on here. Be aware of timezone differences though.
Edit: Also, have a look through previous rugby threads in this forum - there’s usually been a fair bit of explanation going on
A Beginners Guide to Rugby Union
If you’re willing to do a bit of clicking and reading, that will certainly help.
Here’s a shorter, more straightforward guide.
Here’s another, although it’s from 2000 and some of the finer points of the rules have changed since then.
But really, there’s no better way to learn a game than to just watch. Often, watching and listening to the commentary will give you a pretty good idea of what’s going on, and over time you’ll get the hang of what the rules are, what the penalties are all about, and why they are doing what they’re doing. And, as Baron Greenback says, feel free to ask questions here.
I think it’s worthwhile saying too: don’t get too hung up on the minutiae of the rules, they can seem quite arcane in some situations. The referee is miked-up though, and the commentators are usually good at explaining what is going on.
Basically, just enjoy the ebb and flow, and stand enraptured by Scotland scoring the two most swashbuckling tries of the tournament but also completely failing to defend against any opponent who has more than one working leg
Australia - Fiji starting well. I think we’re in for another exciting one.
A boil over looked quite a chance for a while but the yellow card gutshot their chances.
The Fijians wearing gold played pretty well.
You gotta love a game where the final gong sounds and four minutes later they are still playing.