Forum Rugby Club

I must admit I did enjoy watching Ireland get embarrassed by a very brave and utterly committed Georgia side. I know it doesn't excuse England's own complete failure against SA last night but it made it all a little easier to cope with...!

its not just Portugal, look at Georgia last night against the irish. If you can do the basics well and play with passionyou will do ok. Too many of the northern hemispheres teams think they are so much beter than they are and don't deserve to be beaten so get casual.

If you go out with no fear and play with heart there is a lot that can be achieved. England still have a great squad with many talented players, but they showed no passion and a very poor attitude generally thats why they got beat like they did.

I've never seen a professional or international team give up lke that.....it was disgusting. And i'm not just saying that because i'm scottish, it was embarassing to be british.

Ryan

Thought I'd take a brief respite from the horror of RWC, by looking to see how the domestic season started.

I was truly sorry to see that Wasps and indeed Sale lost.

I wonder how Tigers got on? What was that? Away win you say...

Bollox. He noticed.

Don't know about these Twickenham awayday thingies, although our last vist there went alright eh James?

James?

Aww, where's he gone?

Its early days yet and i'm sure revenge will be dealt out later.

And RWC horrors......what you talking about?? Oh i forgot you're english

Ryan

quote:

Originally posted by Chillkram:
Not looking good for Wasps against Saracens either at the moment.

Why the hell do we have our domestic season going on at the same time as the World Cup? Crazy.

Cheers

Rich

It is a bit mad Rich......most of the big teams must be playing with 3rd string teams at the moment.

On a more positive note....another good performance by the Scots. Definitely playing the best of the home nations, although Sunday may be a bit of a sobering experience!

Ryan

That's not what Sky are saying, Ryan!

Mark

quote:

Originally posted by ryan_d:
Its early days yet and i'm sure revenge will be dealt out later.

And RWC horrors......what you talking about?? Oh i forgot you're english

Ryan

quote:

Originally posted by Rich Cundill:

quote:

Originally posted by Chillkram:
Not looking good for Wasps against Saracens either at the moment.

Why the hell do we have our domestic season going on at the same time as the World Cup? Crazy.

Cheers

Rich

Not just you guys, but our domestic/privincial championship is not quite half way through...

In a way it is not a bad thing as it gives the understudy players in the stronger unions a chance to play and impress the selectors. Not to mention the chance of smaller unions without AB's in their team to actually beat their bigger counterparts - and maybe have a realistic chance of grabbing the Log of Wood.

Crunch time this weekend, well, not quite.....although quite literally in another sense!!!

How does everybody think they'll do....???

England vs Samoa on Saturday at 3pm

Scotland vs New Zealand on Sunday at 4pm

I'm on nights out here at the mo and will be setting my alarm early both days!!!

I know the answer to the second match already – it’ll be damage limitation....our must win match is a week on Saturday against Italy, and from what I saw of the highlights at lunch (back of midnight) it'll be a good match.

Oh oh, got to run - Water Injection's just fallen on it's arse!!

Cheers,
Ali

Oops. A bit of a bashing for Ireland tonight. So far all of the Home Nations have been pretty useless.

Mark

What do people think of ITV coverage - personally I find it awful. The short time between advert slots means that knowledgeable and respected commentators have only time to blurt out the briefest cliches. While match commentary is not a patch on the BBC.

I agree David. I actually find their coverage of all sporting events annoying in the extreme because of the commercial breaks.

That said, they have some absolutely top drawer pundits: Martin Johnson, Sean Fitzpatrick, Michael Lynagh, Francois Pienaar...etc. Blimey, it doesn't get much better than that!

Mark

What a game, Boks v Tonga!

England should watch the video of Tonga in that game to see how to play with passion, power, fire in the belly and not a little skill.

SA struggled to contain them in the end.

England on the other hand will not beat Tonga.

quote:

Originally posted by David McN:
What do people think of ITV coverage - personally I find it awful. The short time between advert slots means that knowledgeable and respected commentators have only time to blurt out the briefest cliches. While match commentary is not a patch on the BBC.

Reminds me of American Football commentary.

And hasn't Stuart barnes got verbal diarroeah compared with Brian Moore?!

Oh bugger, the geriaritric England squad survive. But they won't get very much further on this anad previous showings.

It was better. They played well for the first 30 mins and the last 15. Gomarsall and Easter played well and Cueto, Tait and Sackey showed some willingness to run good lines and break the gain line when they could. Wilkinson is clearly not match fit as his kicking both dead ball and from hand was a bit wayward for him.

At the beginning England were dynamic at the breakdown and moved the ball quickly, attacking with pace and power. Samoa couldn't cope with it. But the complacency soon set in and we slowed it right down, turning it over through lazy play and played in to Samoan hands with poor kicking, inviting the counter.

Some signs of recovery then, but still not good enough and Tonga will be a challenge.

And another draw for one of my teams! Wasps this time. 24 all away to Worcester.

Hopefully England lose against Tonga so that we can have the World Cup players back sooner rather than later!

Mark,
I read the Sky pundits "report".....he must be one of the bitter english squad

The Scots are playing well, but tomorrow will, as I said earlier, be a sobering experience. But it should be a good atmosphere anyway.

Ryan

quote:

Originally posted by Chillkram:
And another draw for one of my teams! Wasps this time. 24 all away to Worcester.

Hopefully England lose against Tonga so that we can have the World Cup players back sooner rather than later!

And mine won again Leicester 26 Bath 16 and currently lying second - only by virtue of points difference to present leaders Quins (nice shirts, I always thought).

James

quote:

Originally posted by JWM:
And mine won again Leicester 26 Bath 16 and currently lying second

We'll soon wipe the off your face when the squad comes back from France!

All Blacks' Try after 5 minutes...

Plus ... with this new style of spiderman suit they wear for shirts these days, I can't tell the difference between Scotland an NZ in the melee ... I really can't be bothered to try to watch any more.

I am sorry to be an old fart, but it really was much easier when the host team changed to a plain shirt of contrasting colour when necessary...

But elsewhere, another gutsy performance from a team of Pacific islanders, with two excellent tries from them. Well done, Fiji. Entertaining stuff too.

quote:

Originally posted by JWM:
All Blacks' Try after 5 minutes...

And Howlett is now NZ's greatest try scorer of all time - 47.

quote:

I am sorry to be an old fart, but it really was much easier when the host team changed to a plain shirt of contrasting colour when necessary...
.

You should try and differentiate the colours at 3:00am - and no alcohol induced blurred vision either...

Still the AB's have botched at least 2 tries due to handling errors...

Agree - the strips worn in the Scotland vs NZ game were ridiculous. If I had been the ref I would have sent one of 'em off to change. How he was supposed to figure out what was going on in ruck and maul situations I have no idea.

Cheers

Rich