Official 2011 Rugby World Cup Thread

[GreGorGy]

ENG/ARG Kicking: That stadium is sealed - no wind. So with no wind, neither could kick straight.

 

[CHURCHILL]

Argentine kicker left his boots at home. Poms were damn lucky to say the least.......

Come now SinghDude, England and Argentina both missed the same amount of kicks, if any one was lucky this weekend, it was the Boks

 

[CHURCHILL]

SA pulled off a much needed win, as did the English, this is World Cup Test Match style rugby, not Hong Kong Sevens.
It may have been unpretty rugby, but winning your games is what counts.

 

[SinghDude]

Lock Victor Matfield and centre Jean de Villiers’ World Cup dreams are still alive, Springbok team doctor Craig Roberts confirmed on Monday.

Roberts said both players will be out of action for 10 days, which means they will miss this week’s match against Fiji and possibly the following week’s contest against Samoa.

“Jean picked up a grade one rib cartilage sprain and it was more of a precaution and we didn’t want to make it a lot worse on the field,” said Roberts.

“Victor started feeling his hamstring tightening up and with a long tournament ahead we decided to pull him off to protect that hamstring.”

The most serious injury concern in the Springbok squad remains the Achilles tendonitis, lock Bakkies Botha is struggling to recover from.

Roberts said that Botha’s recovery is not going according to plan.

“He hasn’t responded as well as we anticipated, we are still working on it and we haven’t made a decision… on how we are going to continue with him at this stage,” said Robberts.

Bok coach Peter De Villiers would not divulge whether a replacement will be called-up to replace Botha.

Asked when a final call on Botha’s fate will be made, De Villiers said: “Sooner rather than later.”

Should the 74-cap veteran not be sent home, either Bulls lock Flip van der Merwe or Stade Francais’, Gerhard Mostert could be asked to join the team.

The Springboks enjoyed a day-off on Monday and would resume training on Tuesday. - Sapa

Maybe its best to send Bakkies home..... Smith can help him with his luggage

 

[SinghDude]

Come now SinghDude, England and Argentina both missed the same amount of kicks, if any one was lucky this weekend, it was the Boks

Wales were the lucky buggers.... they had an English ref.

 

[CHURCHILL]

Wales were the lucky buggers.... they had an English ref.

Trust me it could have been worse, you could have had Bryce Laurence........

 

[thestaggy]

Wales were the lucky buggers.... they had an English ref.

The Welsh actually hate the English and the English generally have a poor opinion of the Welsh. The 'net is a buzz with criticisms of the assistant referee's and referee's failure to award what really did look like a successful penalty kick.

We got lucky. We were not the better side.

 

[Devill]

Du Preez didn't have a terrible day - he just had a very average day - and there is a difference. I'd lie to see PDivvy stick with the team as it is (Realistically I don't see John Smit being dropped.) and give them a few more games together to gel as a team a little more.

Another thing I'd love to see is Frans Steyn hitting more gaps at speed. He's a big strong fullback and I honestly think that he will become the best fullback in the world if SA rugby decides to make him a specialist fullback. Big, strong, fast and reads the game well, just not as a number 10.

+1 He should be playing at fullback, I must confess that I doubted if he would be ready for this WC but he has looked to be in good form and I will gladly now give him the benefit of the doubt in any up coming games.
I also agree that Fourie did not look 100% but he should be ready for the next games. At the least he deserves the next three games to prove that yesterday was a once off.

Agree with a lot of you oaks, Smith should really be dropped. 5 mins after the replacements came on we scored. Back line was a total mess after Jean De Villers went off, but that's mostly due to putting another nr 10 on the field. Can't really blame the wings and Centrers for not performing after that. Better choice would have been putting Lambi on the bench so he can go full back and bring Frans up to inside center. What I don't understand is why the give the ball to Schalk or Russouw to carry up?! If Spies had those balls we would have been singing another tune about his performance, IMO they don't utilize him.

+1 On Lambie on the bench and Frans moving to inside centre. I also feel spies was not utilised fully.

Pretty much everybody acknowledges that Bismarck is the best hooker in world rugby, question is WTF does one do with Smith ? Play him at prop ? And how can springbok captain NOT. Start or play ?

To me we did fine without Smith on the the field. We won the game (we did not hold onto a lead...). Thus I really feel that Smith should be at most on the bench.

Personally I was expecting a lot more from the Boks today. Wales are a useful outfit. Look forward to a Wales vs Oz quarterfinal.

Same here, if the welsh could keep the same forward domination going vs Aus we might even be looking at an upset....

I also feel that Habanna was not having a great game and you could feel the energy when Hougaardt came on. Further I must say that I was impressed to see Morne Steyn not crash and burn with Fourie not having his normal great game, Morne's skip pass had Frans go over in the corner for the first try.

I feel that we are VERY thin on locks as Matfield is out so Muller and Russouw will prob. start on Saturday. I wonder if Alberts will fill the gap if anything happens to one of them.

All and all I think the Welsh played brilliantly and we had a very average game with one or two things that did not fall into place very well. I hope that we can fix these small niggles before we go through to the qaurter finals.

 

[hungrybeaver]

The Boks need to assess whether they want to start with Bismarck or use him as an impact player. My choice would be to start with him.

Pretty much everybody acknowledges that Bismarck is the best hooker in world rugby, question is WTF does one do with Smith ? Play him at prop ? And how can springbok captain NOT. Start or play ?

Start with Bismarck - we have to. Smit can come on for the last 20 minutes or so but he cannot start. Bismarck is too good a player to NOT start.

The beast had a fine game i thought, didn't do much less than the guthro. Sandman winning on the scoreboard is all that matters at the end of the day.

We did just about enough to win the game and i think if you look at our defense we did amazingly well to hold them off. It's our attack game that needs work. Pass the ball and spread it like the all blacks, if we can do that we will be unstoppable. Look how we scored our first try, pass pass pass, rest of the game crash crash crash

I feel we are wasting habana out wide and if we are not going to pass the ball to him then don't play him. He is wasted out wide sadly because he never gets the ball.

I agree with this. The ball hardly ever went past inside centre. The last part of the game is how we should play... breaking the line, quick ruck over and quick distribution. So many times in the 1st half we allowed Wales to get their defence in order while we waited for the forwards to setup so they could crash . We need to spread it more often.

While Habana has increased his performances of late, Hougaard played a lot better. Habana does work a lot but as more of a supporting role (he is involved a lot at rucks) where Hougaard looks for work around the ball to create opportunities for himself or a teammate.


What was with the commentary? SS commentary was a few seconds ahead so we switched to NZ commentary - man they butchered our guys names You'd think after playing in the Tri Nations / Super Rugby for this long they'd know how to pronounce names better.

 

[Niren_M]

Boks tend to defend a lead, rather than killing the game off when the opportunity is there. And when we're chasing a lead, it seems we play more attacking rugby. This has been the trend for the last couple of years.

 

[sand_man]

People are going on about the penalty that went over but was adjudged not to. What about the forward pass leading up to the Welsh try?

You can watch that penalty on tv as much as you like but you never going to have a view of it like the touch judges did.

 

[Pitbull]

Start with Bismarck - we have to. Smit can come on for the last 20 minutes or so but he cannot start. Bismarck is too good a player to NOT start.



I agree with this. The ball hardly ever went past inside centre. The last part of the game is how we should play... breaking the line, quick ruck over and quick distribution. So many times in the 1st half we allowed Wales to get their defence in order while we waited for the forwards to setup so they could crash . We need to spread it more often.

While Habana has increased his performances of late, Hougaard played a lot better. Habana does work a lot but as more of a supporting role (he is involved a lot at rucks) where Hougaard looks for work around the ball to create opportunities for himself or a teammate.


What was with the commentary? SS commentary was a few seconds ahead so we switched to NZ commentary - man they butchered our guys names You'd think after playing in the Tri Nations / Super Rugby for this long they'd know how to pronounce names better.

I watched it on Kyknet after I noticed the advance on the commentary.

That being said, any of you listened to that "Grootbek" commentator? Man I can see that dude doing pretty damn good at it given more practice. He did get a little tired on Saturday doing the 3rd game. He reminds me of Gerhard back in the day. He gets so excited when something is happening and he makes it a treat to watch.

 

[Niren_M]

People are going on about the penalty that went over but was adjudged not to. What about the forward pass leading up to the Welsh try?

You can watch that penalty on tv as much as you like but you never going to have a view of it like the touch judges did.

Maybe cameras facing towards the sky should be placed above the horizontal bar at the edge of each side.

 

[hungrybeaver]

People are going on about the penalty that went over but was adjudged not to. What about the forward pass leading up to the Welsh try?

You can watch that penalty on tv as much as you like but you never going to have a view of it like the touch judges did.

The ref said "is there any reason not to award the try" and the TMO replays are of the try scorer dotting the ball down, not a thing about the pass to him. I was hoping for a similar outcome to our last TMO decision when we played the AB.

 

[Pitbull]

Why are there no matches for 3 days?

I would not survive a 7 day rugby wold cup stretch. I'm still pretty under this morning due to lack of sleep and alcohol consumption.

 

[sand_man]

The ref said "is there any reason not to award the try" and the TMO replays are of the try scorer dotting the ball down, not a thing about the pass to him. I was hoping for a similar outcome to our last TMO decision when we played the AB.

The TMO's are under strict instructions not to comment on anything that happens before the try line...

 

[GreGorGy]

You can watch that penalty on tv as much as you like but you never going to have a view of it like the touch judges did.

...because of the ABSA logo obfuscating key moments.
I agree with you - this is the way of the game. That penalty was at 16". If it had in fact gone over and Wales got 3 more points, that would have changed the PROCESS of the game and not the OUTCOME. We may then have tried for more tries than penalties on kicks, for example. If it had been at 80", then sure, it affects the outcome. But, because it was early, its award or failure has no consequence.

 

[Alan]

At least they cited the one scum sucker. Pity they didn't cite the gay lord.

England will discover on Tuesday whether Courtney Lawes will pay a heavy price for kneeing Argentina's Mario Ledesma during their opening World Cup Pool B win on Saturday. Lawes has been officially cited and the case will be heard in Auckland by the Independent Judicial Officer, Australia's Terry Willis.

The maximum sanction for deliberate use of the knee is a one-year ban in the most extreme cases, while the entry point for lower-end offences is three weeks. Given the 22-year-old Northampton lock's inexperience at Test level, a suspension of between one and two weeks might be a possible outcome if he were to be found guilty. That would sideline Lawes from one or both of England's upcoming games against Georgia and Romania, although a lengthier ban cannot be entirely ruled out.

The incident occurred in the first-half when Lawes came charging across to try and stop Ledesma scoring in the right corner. The veteran hooker took a knee to the head and was left motionless on the turf before slowly responding to treatment. Lawes was also responsible for a ferocious hit on the Pumas centre Gonzalo Tiesi who was subsequently forced to leave the tournament with knee ligament damage.

Citing cases are only permissable for offences considered to be worthy of a red card. England are at least braced for such situations, having travelled to New Zealand with their own QC, Richard Smith. He has previously advised England on several occasions in the southern hemisphere, most notably during the tricky '16-man' episode during the 2003 World Cup. The basis of his defence will doubtless be that Lawes did not deliberately set out to injure Ledesma.

England, however, are taking nothing for granted. Lawes, currently in Queenstown in the far south of New Zealand's South Island, will be required to fly to Auckland to attend the hearing in person, along with Smith and other team officials. The team manager, Martin Johnson, issued a short statement, clarifying the squad had been officially advised of Lawes's citing. "We will of course provide Rugby World Cup with any information required and attend the hearing as requested. There will be no further comment until after the hearing."

Confirmation of the citing came after the 36-hour cut-off point but Rugby World Cup Ltd insisted it had been simply been caused by a procedural delay, with the selection of a judicial officer having put back the announcement. Lawes will be desperate to be available for his side's final Pool B match against Scotland at the start of October, but his team-mate Nick Easter stressed England cannot afford to *****foot around in their remaining group games if they intend to reach the quarter-finals.

"If you take a step backwards you've lost. That's it, the game's over," said Easter. "First and foremost it's a physical game. As much as you need pace and skill, if you're not up to it physically you'll get found out." England's players have also been putting their bravery to the test, several of them having used the squad's day off to go canyon swinging and bungee jumping near Queenstown.

How Ledesma got up from that and continued I don't know :wtf:

 

[Ou grote]

People are going on about the penalty that went over but was adjudged not to. What about the forward pass leading up to the Welsh try?

You can watch that penalty on tv as much as you like but you never going to have a view of it like the touch judges did.

At normal speed it looks like it missed. In slow mo it looks like its ok.

 

[hungrybeaver]

I think the ball may have gone directly over the pole.