The ref in Ireland-Samoa is the first guy to really impress me in this RWC. Very calm, very clear, unafraid to overrule his TMO if he sees it differently, unafraid to keep giving pens against an increasingly pissed off Samoa, sympathetic in his explanations but hard enough to point out that he’s not the one committing the pens.
Looking at the internet, it’s Nic Berry. He’s unlikely to get the final (assuming Australia don’t get there) as he’s a bit young and arguably doesn’t have the experience, but I’d take him over Angus Gardner (also Aussie) every day of the week on this performance. Give him a couple of years of decent development and he should be doing all the big games.
Great that the game is on. Great, from a neutral point of view, that Japan are playing so well.
But my word. Scotland started well, but they just don’t have an answer to Japan’s relentless, accurate attack. It’s very hard to score if you never have the ball.
That was a great game to watch, and Japan thoroughly deserved their win, and their pool victory. Scotland were the stronger team for much of the second half, but they had just fallen too far behind in the first.
You have to get past all the big teams to win anyway, but Ireland must be wishing they had managed to win the pool so that they could avoid the All Blacks in the quarters. The Springboks are a good team, but I’d still prefer to face them rather than New Zealand. I wonder if Japan’s relentless play, and their fitness, will be able to overcome South Africa?
First QF game is next Saturday, between Australia and England. I’ll be interested to see which Australian team shows up, and which England team, for that matter. Later that day, New Zealand play Ireland, and while I’ll be cheering for the Irish, I just can’t see them winning that game.
Great game. Happy that Japan are through with absolutely no aterisk against them. They top the table unbeaten in a group with Ireland and Scotland and that means they throughly deserve it.
I have to say that the tumbling offload for their first try was thing of beauty. Pass of the tournament so far for me.
That was a game and a half. Around the middle of the second half I was thinking Japan were out of gas and Scotland were going to do the impossible. But while they managed to get the ball, they couldn’t break down the Japanese defence.
Some lovely attacking play from Japan in the first half and some backs-to-the-wall defence in the second. Their weakness is turnovers, because they’re so keen to get forward that they sometimes get isolated. Then again they gave away about six turnovers in the first half and still had 75% possession.
I’m from the U.S. and I’ve come to enjoy rugby more and more the last couple of years (the formation of MLR has been a HUGE help in that regard; doesn’t hurt that my local team has won both championships so far). Its appeal to me is that it’s got the “physicality” of American football but without all the breaks and it’s (mostly) got the flow of soccer but without the feigning of injury and time-wasting. I have found so many of the comments in this thread to be enlightening. Thank you very much! I was in Panama for a good chunk of the tournament so I’ve missed a lot (plus, as previously noted, the coverage of the tournament in the U.S. isn’t what it is in places like the U.K., Australia, and N.Z.) but I look forward to the QFs. After JAP - SCO the other day I heard a couple of things that I haven’t yet seen mentioned in this thread:
that JAP beat South Africa in the tournament 4 years ago in what was considered, at the time, to be “the biggest upset in their rugby history.” Can they do it again in the knockout stage on home ground?
that IRE just might be N.Z.'s “bogey team” as they’ve beaten them two straight (I’m not sure if that was “two straight, period” or “two straight times in RWCs”).
From previous comments it doesn’t seem that folks are giving IRE much chance of the upset but with the All Blacks having won the last two RWCs is there a possibility that they simply won’t be as “hungry” this time and therefore more “ripe” for an upset?
I have “no dog (left) in the fight” so I don’t really care who wins, but am I right in guessing that the Northern Hemisphere teams and their fans would rather not see a Southern Hemisphere team win it and vice versa?
Possibly not but make no mistake, Japan are very capable team. The RSA win in the last world cup probably was the biggest upset at that time…right up until Japan beat Ireland in their group game a couple of weeks ago. After their defeat of Scotland yesterday we can’t rule them out against RSA and damn sure they will keep going at 1000mph. Could be a lot of fun but I’d take RSA
No out of the last three meetings, Ireland have won two of them.
Too close to call, NZ have a slight upper hand but it is close enough for no-one to fancy betting the house on it. An Ireland win would not be an upset. Mind you, I’m not sure that NZ even know what “not hungry” means.
I’m an England fan but I’m happy to see great matches and surprise winners if it entertains me.
I’m an Australian, and hope that Australia can win it, but if they don’t, I’d far prefer to see it won by a team that’s never won before, like Wales or Ireland or Japan.
In my entirely unscientific and relatively ill-informed view, I’d put chances of progression to the semi-finals as roughly 35% Japan, 65% South Africa, 40% Ireland, 60% NZ. I’m not sure how many of NZ’s current squad are already WC winners, but a fair number won’t be and regardless I’m sure they are all hungry for more.
In terms of the North/South divide, well most teams hate England and we tend to hate them back, that certainly goes for Argentina and Australia, and to a lesser extent NZ. If England can’t win it, of the teams remaining I’d probably be happiest to see Japan triumph, or failing that SA. Worst from an English perspective would be Wales or Ireland, since no matter how many times we lose to them in the Six Nations, for now at least we can say we have won more World Cups!
There’s someone I’ve been communicating with via e-mail for years whom I’ve never met. He’s English (though he’s currently living way east in Canada) and he’s not one to let his biases out, much, but a few things I’ve figured out in our many years of communicating is that he hates ARG when it comes to football (soccer) and he hates (or “greatly dislikes,” if you prefer) SCO and especially WAL when it comes to just about anything.
Okay, but it’s not until the last few RWCs that NZ really imposed itself on the tournament, right? Of the first 5, or so, of these tournaments the All Blacks - for all the talk about how they’re perennial favorites - won only one, isn’t that right?
In general we hate Argentina, yes. We have not forgotten not forgiven the Falklands War, the 1986 football World Cup (Maradona, Argentina’s star player, blatantly cheated to score the goal that ultimately proved to knock England out), and more recently the disgraceful treatment of a British television crew (by admittedly a very small minority of the population). Not to mention their perennial status as an economic basket case. I’m quite happy to let that spill over into rugby, the only other sport in which there are high-profile matches between the two countries. I’m sure the majority of Argentinians are wonderful people, but sport is partisan, so what are you going to do?
I personally don’t hate Scottish sportsmen/teams, possibly because I’m of an age where they have not really been much of a threat to England on the football or rugby pitches for most of my life. As such I’m happy to root for them when they’re not playing England, as they’re usually the underdogs. And in recent years they have been playing some good rugby. They’ll be very disappointed not to have made the quarter-finals (albeit from a tough group). Most English fans probably do root against them, though.
That is correct, yes. They have made up for that the last two tournaments though. Very few non-NZers will be rooting for them to win again.
In my entirely unscientific and ill-informed view, people are giving the underdogs too high a chance. I’d expect at least 3 of the QF favourites (NZ, SA, England, Wales) to win and the most likely upset is good-Australia turning up against an untested England or France pulling one out of the hat against an off-key Wales. I’d give Ireland (who haven’t been playing well) a 20% chance at best against the All Blacks and Japan less against South Africa.
There’s a lot of (rather studied and theatrical) tribalism about rugby, and it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s being put on for effect. I’d suspect that most England fans would be cheering for Wales or Ireland in a final against South Africa or New Zealand, but I wouldn’t expect all of them to admit it in public.
I don’t get how you can “hate” a team as a general principle. I’ve certainly got preferences and on a case-by-case basis I may dislike a team from a specific point in time but I’m not a fan of allowing that to linger. I never liked Maradona but it was nothing to do with his nationality, Ardiles and Ricky Villa were much loved in the UK.
I’ve heard people from Scotland express proper hatred for English teams on a blanket basis and that never makes any sense to me, seems childish and bigoted in the extreme and rather ugly. I’d be perfectly happy for any of the home nations to be successful on the world stage and I find it a little dissappointing that more don’t feel the same.
I’m no fan of the Argentine national soccer team, either. There are several reasons for that which I won’t go into right now. Suffice it to say that just about ANY time La Albiceleste is playing, I hope it loses. So my English friend and I are certainly in agreement on that! (although I have nothing against the Argentine national rugby team [“Los Pumas”])
Being from the U.S. I’ve never had anything against the Scots and in fact I’d love to visit Scotland but I’ve never been impressed with their national soccer team. Perhaps if I’d been born a few years earlier I would have been but since the time I first started following international soccer (the 1982 W.C.) the Scottish team, in my opinion, simply hasn’t been very good. (I haven’t been following rugby long enough to have formed an opinion about their national rugby team)
I don’t bet on sport as a rule, but if I did I’d be seriously looking at the right hand side teams at those odds (assuming I’m reading them correctly, as I’m not used to fractional odds). I think all the games are closer than those odds imply. I guess the bookies are out to balance their books?
That was some game! It really seemed Japan were on the pitch with 24 players, certainly the first half. There were always 5 players around the ball. Excellent effort and discipline. It reminded me a bit of the Uruguay victory, I just hope they can keep their form against SA.
It was clear that Scotland tried to slow down the ruck the second half and not always in so subltle ways: players running on-site again past the scrumhalf - “oops, didn’t mean to do that, sorry” - happened far to often.
Dragging a player down and elbowing him in the face should have been straight red card. I’m surprised that got missed, even when the Japanese player had trouble getting up. I guess the pace of the game prevented the refs from picking that up. Citing Jamie Richie now wouldn’t do any good of course…
I’m also puzzled that after two forward smash into each other head first, they are not taken off for an HIA, that seemed the very least they could do to help player wellfare. It would have “hindered the flow of game”, I guess, but it was stopped anyway to tend to Horie’s cut.
Looking forward to weekend!