Reply With QuotePortugal play some lovely stuff mind.Originally Posted by ToTaL ITK
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But you have to play someone in the quarters and I think teams would rather face Wales, Argentina, England or (probably Fiji) than Ireland, France, NZ or South Africa.
Portugal play some lovely stuff mind.
Yeah, but they knew it would have to be one of Wales, Australia or Fiji and I reckon they'd rather play the latter two
Fiji are in a spot of bother here
Yeah, fair point 👍
Fantastic scenes as Portugal win by a point, fully deserved
Played with the ball in hand,well done Portugal
I enjoyed that, everybody wins with that result. Fiji looked nervous and therefore tight, Portugal never stopped believing and their defence kept them in it.
Fiji are the most overrated team in the tournament.
Game management was awful.
England (if they drop Farrell from centre) will grind a result out comfortably.
Fiji were missing a few big hitters last night and it certainly showed . Although that still doesn't explain the crazy amount of knock ons, that absolutely killed them.
I think kurovoli makes them a much better side, Lomanis passing from 9 was absolutely abysmal at times.
Semi should be back for England game aswell I guess
Yeah let’s not forget with a slightly better pass or handling they would have been kicking for the game against Wales too.
Wild card team and maddeningly inconsistent but they are better on paper than Samoa who England were very lucky to beat. On their day they will give them a major scare.
Who knows, Fiji may have been playing with quarter final in mind. They are better than that.
Could well see 4 northern hemisphere teams in the semis - the complete opposite of 2015.
That would be cool and unlikely to ever be repeated
If my auntie had balls...
Wales were out of sight at 60 minutes and never looked like losing. Made subs and a few brain farts let them back in.
Fijis results in the WC have seen them scrape past opponents (worst Australia team in history and a poor Georgia) or lose. They beat a poor England team drained of energy in the middle of a fitness building campaign in the warm ups and that's their first win against a tier 1 nation since 2018.
Rugby fans desperately want them to be good because its romantic that they play flamboyant offloading, running rugby but ultimately their basics are poor when under pressure. They've improved slightly but revert to type every time.
A northern semisphere.
So , to ask again
Why given England have loads of players to pick from .....the most of any rugby nation .....are they so crap ?
I'd say that the England football team have adapted their game away from what might be called a traditional English approach and are better for it. Despite rugby being more of a power based game than it's ever been, there is still a place for skill (I was very pleasantly surpised by the quality of some of Ireland's tries against Scotland), England don't trust talent or mavericks (how many caps would someone like Campese have won for them?), never have done in my experience and so they tend to be easy to defend against at the top level even if they're dominant up front.
They got to the final 4 years ago remember after beating New Zealand in the semis.
Eddie Jones though set them back after that. They seem obsessed with picking Owen Farrell when George Ford is a better player, and the don't have a genuine number 8.
A northern semisphere.It won’t be happening. The All Blacks will put a stop to it. Maybe South Africa too. Argentina won’t.
My worry is that if Argentina get beat, they’ll take off all the keys on the cans of corned beef in revenge.
You don't keep a spare?
Quite right. When someone as distinctly average as Owen Farrell can command a regular starting place, there is no way that this England team will rise above the level of mediocrity they now find themselves in.
just occurred to me that Argentina still have an outside chance of being world cup winners in Football and Rugby at the same time. that would really be something.
I guess if anyone were ever going to achieve that then it would most likely be France or England?
Alternatively South Africa could win the rugby and cricket world cups within a month of each other.
Not a bad shout this
Felt sorry for Ireland with that incredible last few minutes they had. However, although it's a harsh way of looking at it, they bottled it yet again in a World Cup when it got to the knock out stages. New Zealand were up for the challenge and just about deserved their won I thought, but an Ireland side playing like they did against South Africa and Scotland would have beaten them I reckon - when the pressure came on, Irelands started to make uncharacteristic errors (e.g. Sexton missing a simple penalty, Doris knocking on a ball he'd have caught ninety nine times out of a hundred and Gibson-Park, who usually always takes the right options, pushing too hard when there was no need to).
For me, the winner of the France v South Africa game now become the favourites.
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