Rugby World Cup general discussion
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@scribe said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:
I’m going to miss my daily fix of The Front Row show on NZR+; weirdly it grew on me. I think George Bower is reasonably natural in front of the camera.
I thought George Bower and Andy Ellis were excellent. I hope we see more of them.
The corpulent English lass was a strange choice though. I found her awkward and not funny.
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Over all I think its been a really weird world cup. Some cities in France blew it big time. Fan Zones need to be a thing now and they need a screen and a bar. If they can manage it for football I don't know why rugby can't do the same. They missed a trick here.
Also France going out let a lot of the air out of it. The last 2 weeks would have been hard to tell anything was going on.
Finally the draw I know they have a solution in place lets hope it works out better. Not many upsets in this world cup either which is a shame. I am hoping with another cycle the Island teams get a big benefit from the new eligibility rules as I feel Samoa and Tonga under performed a bit.
Whoever was in charge of the tv production needs an uppercut. To many here is a famous person shots. Not enough here is what the ref just whistled for shots. I know they went impartial but wouldn't it just be easier to get a few crews over and mix them up?
For the final well TMO is going to TMO. Its killed a lot of passion for me. As soon as they make a TMO call for me its a total lottery and I can't fault the players or even the refs when the outcome is affected. All I can say is thank god I don't gamble on games.
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@mooshld said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:
Whoever was in charge of the tv production needs an uppercut. To many here is a famous person shots. Not enough here is what the ref just whistled for shot
i for one greatly appreciated them finding hot fans from each side during every broadcast
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@mariner4life said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:
@mooshld said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:
Whoever was in charge of the tv production needs an uppercut. To many here is a famous person shots. Not enough here is what the ref just whistled for shot
i for one greatly appreciated them finding hot fans from each side during every broadcast
Pretty standard operating procedure since forever,no problem with that
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Well this is a perfect fucking summary of what happened in this tournament. Flats is a top journalist / pundit. I hated thinking he was right the first time I saw this, I wanted France or Ireland to go all the way (I never thought we had a chance), but fuck me the simplicity of this message is perfect
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@Dodge i don't know who that guy is but he's alright
Some fucking genius in the "Who Will Win the World Cup" thread said the following
"I've said South Africa all along, because the style they play is perfect for tournament rugby. They are so very comfortable in the pressure and grind of knockout rugby, but they actually have the outside backs to take advantage of the few opportunities that come your way."
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@mariner4life said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:
@Dodge i don't know who that guy is but he's alright
Some fucking genius in the "Who Will Win the World Cup" thread said the following
"I've said South Africa all along, because the style they play is perfect for tournament rugby. They are so very comfortable in the pressure and grind of knockout rugby, but they actually have the outside backs to take advantage of the few opportunities that come your way."
Flats is an ex Bath, briefly ex England prop, he’s a brilliant pundit / presenter on English rugby. No idea who you are in real life but it seems you might also be brilliant.
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@Dodge said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:
it seems you might also be brilliant
my superpower is sounding like i know what i am talking about even though it is 100% bluff
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@mariner4life fake it till you make it.
Yeah SA game is designed to win knock out footy, it might not win too many fans, but it is effective to win at rugby.
I think there is a happy medium somewhere for playing the grinding rugby SA* play and the more open game we and others invariably want to play, which is attractive to current fans and new fans, how we get there from where we are right now however, I'm not sure.
*given they have some mighty talented backs who given the chance, can play, it is odd they will more often revert to the grind style.
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when it came to the crunch we played pretty narrow as well. See the previous chats about our midfielders playing straight and close, and then wingers making most of their runs around the fringes.
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Entirely dependant on stats, and which stats you choose to compare but
https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/67263233?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA
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BB has made every team of the tournament I have seen but never found universal favour on this forum.
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@Billy-Tell said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:
BB has made every team of the tournament I have seen but never found universal favour on this forum.
Overseas judges are weirdly enthralled with him based on his breakout season in 2016, which even carried him to a second world player of the year award that really was undeserved. He wasn't the best 15 in the RWC.
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People ignore the minnows a bit but from memory the Georgian 15 was pretty good or was it Portugal? Ramos and Keenan are very good. Keenan’s kicking would have been mighty handy at times.
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@mariner4life yeah I do think for whatever reason, Fozzie had a plan, and it was centered on the RWC, but wonder if some of the changes were made too late for them to bed in as instinct when under pressure.
Too often under Fozzies reign we have panicked when the heat came on, and this happened on the weekend.
This year has been a mixed bag of performances from us, and there have been subtle improvements, but not enough time for whatbthey were trying to achieve to bed in.
But then you wonder how much impact Schmidt and Ryan have had on things too.
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@Billy-Tell said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:
BB has made every team of the tournament I have seen but never found universal favour on this forum.
He's better than he's been rated on here. I think it's mix of comparing him to his previous highs, him being blamed for obvious team tactics and a few posters seem to really dislike him
Like RM he had too many error's offsetting the good stuff in the final. Thought he played well in QF & SF.
Somewhere between OK and goodish for the tournament. Not worthy of the negativity or a place in the team of the tournament -
@taniwharugby said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:
@mariner4life yeah I do think for whatever reason, Fozzie had a plan, and it was centered on the RWC, but wonder if some of the changes were made too late for them to bed in as instinct when under pressure.
Too often under Fozzies reign we have panicked when the heat came on, and this happened on the weekend.
This year has been a mixed bag of performances from us, and there have been subtle improvements, but not enough time for whatbthey were trying to achieve to bed in.
But then you wonder how much impact Schmidt and Ryan have had on things too.
We never really settled on a consistent playing style. I don't know why that is but as HC Foster should have set that
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@Dodge said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:
Well this is a perfect fucking summary of what happened in this tournament. Flats is a top journalist / pundit. I hated thinking he was right the first time I saw this, I wanted France or Ireland to go all the way (I never thought we had a chance), but fuck me the simplicity of this message is perfect
It’s funny though eh?
I also picked SA to win the whole thing a couple of months ago. For all the same reasons, knockout rugby, kick goals from 60m, solid defense blah blah blah
And yet, we were a solitary point off them in a game where absolutely nothing went right for us. We dropped ball stone cold (Jordan, ALB, Richie), threw a bunch of sloppy passes, inexplicably stopped contesting line outs, had a try disallowed, got the short-end of the stick from the officials (most believe) but either way had to play with 14 for 60mins, and we missed 2 kicks to give us a lead that we could potentially have defended
It kind of raises 2 questions/observations.
- Were SA actually as good as we are all making out?
And
- Ireland must have watched that performance from both SA and NZ thought “what if”
