Rugby World Cup 2015: No haters please, I've heard it all already

This thread will probably consist of Ronan and I and maybe the odd person really. I'm tipping Australia to win the tournament. They seem to be the form team and they won the 4 Nations. All Blacks always there too. Irish optimism kinda fading with recent performances. QF will be embarrasing but SF placing will be a triumph. I cant see further than that for us tbh. It all hinges on that France game and who knows how they will play. I read something recently that theyve their eye on it the big one, hence a shit Six Nations.

TV3 coverage is off to a shitty start. 3 commentators and then an ad break for the Fijian haka. Clowns.

hate rugby fyi. will check in if I can get a chance.

TV3 sounds better than ITV at least - I like Stuart Barnes, though I may be in the minority there. Also I heard TV3 have Murray Kinsella on - never heard him speak but his analysis is brilliant.

England pretty poor tonight. Wales and Australia will really fancy beating them after seeing that.

Tough luck Fiji. They played a good game. Lots of turnovers. Wales wont get it easy off em although they are alerted now

yeah they did some of the more difficult things so well, like turning the ball over, slowing opposition ball, and scrummaging.

but their basics were p awful. people used to say joe schmidt wanted to make his leinster team the best passing team in the world - that fiji team looked like the worst passing team in the world.

clicking into gear nicely now

Amazing win for Georgia earlier.

Yeah Ireland looking ruthless

10 mins to go and Japan are level with South Africa. Japan just scored the try of the tournament so far.

Unbelievable Jeff

ffs, couldn't get a stream for the last few minutes. Raging I missed it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?t=94&v=TBFup2hEcAo

that was so absolutely amazing. japan were brilliant. that try off the lineout was such a beautiful move - like something joe would have ireland do.

ireland looked good yesterday, good enough to make me think nobody was trying a damn in the warm-ups. sexton in particular looked like a different player. henderson could be the star of the tournament.

still dying of laughter here

great times

otm - couldn't have happened to a nicer team than south africa - such a lovely bunch.

Nobody is showing early matches in Boston. It is criminal.

(xp) apart from England, of course.

this is close.

Eng were pretty much coasting (apart from maybe the last 10 mins of the 1st half) but now boot on the other etc.

omg!!

what a reply from 25-18 down, great kick.

25-25, 9 mins left - awesomes

Holy shit Wales ahead, boot made of gold.

penalty to eng but this is tough

lineout instead, huge.

shoved into touch

Unbelievable - what a match. LOL Eng.

beautiful

How the fuck did Wales pull that out, really just watching Eng being in control for most of it.

only really saw the last 20 minutes, even from there this was a real turnaround

yeah wtf. I still think England will get through

do wales have any fit players left?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CP26QSPWgAAW6QP.jpg

i missed all of this cos i was on a flight. but LOLZ.

saw extended highlights now - great welsh try.

USA putting it up to Scotland although I think they're done now

Amazing try by Scotland a few minutes ago. Game on here

SA then went on to shut up shop, 10 mins left.

:-(

predictable, just gotta beat samoa to get through though

Aussies all over Eng.

3-0 down and now the first bit of possession eng.

3-3 and now p/even

1st try aus.

and one more.

Eng on their way out, a couple of turnovers and then aus cutting them open.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/oct/02/england-australia-rugby-world-cup-predictions

Gonna spend half-time watching Jose's monologue brb.

England being the first host nation ever to go out at the group stage is a prospect to delicious to contemplate.

13-20 w/15 mins, actually quite good as a match.

now.

But come on Aus, lets be professional about this.

There: 23-13, professional.

few sportsmen deserve to be England failure scapegoats but couldn't happen to a nicer cunt than Farrell imo

Chris Bertram ‏@crookedfootball

Prince Harry was part of the team meeting? We deserve all we get

Shit start to the Conservative party conference

Complete humiliation: another penalty.

Crowd silenced.

Beautiful.

stretch of about 40 mins where england literally didn't do one thing right

Aussies were very impressive. They totally bossed England.

yeah, that Guardian link above gets funnier by the min (apart from "More hope than expectation")

Don't watch/follow as much Rugby for years but the moment I heard Lancaster talking about this as a "Cup Final"...the start by Eng showed.

LOL did you know Eng will lose half a billion in our economy due to all this? More austerity for us all then.

Wales, Ireland & Scotland alcohol sales will shoot through the roof though

this whole england "project" has been a farcical bag of bullshit. they went from dwarf-throwing pisshead alleged shambles, in the last world cup, which really was a situation of a team of mostly crap players exiting with a coach who had no experience, to stu lancaster's four years of infuriating snake oil, during which it was all about respect and dignity and the young lads who are growing and learning, even two or three years in, at which point, relatively, joe schmidt won two six nations in a row, two more than stu has ever won.

the whole thing was just a conveyor belt of bullshit - lancaster spent two years doing press conferences about having gary neville in to speak to the lads, or dave brailsford, or chris hoy, or a soldier from afghanistan, then in time built to having an attacking side, about a year before this home world cup, which he bottled in the last few weeks.

there are more aggressive obnoxious failures than lancaster, but there are very few who are more full of shit, and a real unpleasant english brand of pious shit too. the team got so "humble" it was worse than when they were arrogant. and most of the arrogant english teams absolutely walloped their rivals on the pitch anyway - they should stick to the modus operandi that works.

i'm really into rugby that much but today...

lol. that's the word of the day. lol.

Bit of a slack first half from Ireland. Italy look well up for it

that was utter bollocks btw. worrying.

Maybe it's good to get a fright like that leading up to the France game

yeah and we have had a tendency to focus on a big game to the detriment of a previous match, eg that time we were hammered by australia before the narrow defeat to new zealand. maybe a lot of planning for france. i'd be concerned about sexton's kicking, among other things.

Teams that look best:
Australia - beat NZ comfortably recently, and thrashed England
New Zealand - not looking especially fluent, but are still winning games. No injury problems, which is good.

I'd be surprised if another team apart from those two wins, but I think Argentina aren't getting enough attention. They beat South Africa in South Africa this year. South Africa have been jittery but are still a force, and I guess Ireland are the Northern Hemisphere's best hope?

I read the other day that NZ are deliberately not playing to their game plan, and setting up obstacles for themselves, in order to keep a little bit of pressure on them during the pool games. Stuff like never kicking to the opposition in order to have to defend rushes more, etc. Given their relatively easy pool matches they didn't want to set themselves up to choke when they faced a proper challenging team in the quarter finals. It's an interesting tactic and I wonder if it'll work.

Also I may not get to see the finals games live and it's almost enough to make me shell out for TSN.

scotland - samoa is some kind of madness.

23-23 in just over 30 mins. prob jinxed it now and it'll turn to shit.

fantastic game

oh shit, it's ON now

that was an amazing game

looking forward to wales australia now - tho a little sting is gone from it with both qualified

brilliant defending there by the wallabies

Who needs England, eh?

It does seem more enjoyable without them Tom.

in all seriousness it hasn't damaged the atmosphere at all. Now they are neutrals they are getting to see some cracking rugby.

it's always better this way. Euro 2008 was infinitely superior as a viewing experience compared to yr average football tournament thanks to Steve McClaren's England failing to qualify

wrt to tonight's match, fuck wales, if you can't score with 2 men over then wtf can you do really

besides beating england at twicknham obv

one thing for sure is we wont be beating Australia next week.

Wales should have taken the 3 points the minute Genia got the yellow. Don't even mean that due to hindsight either, percentage-wise that was definitely the right call, with 22 minutes to go.

the intensity of this game is crazy

Sexton just got (legally) annihilated

^ it's brilliant.

O'Connell dead now too

amazing.

wowwowwow

always think it's one of the most impressive and exciting things in sport where deadlock intensity is turned into advantage. sheer spirit given the defensive solidity of France in the first 1/2.

damn, this is one for the ages

incredible. the number of players who have gone down for ireland, but they just got stronger and stronger.

What are the odds on all Southern Hemisphere semi-finals?

the intensity of this game is crazy

inhuman levels of intensity. ive never seen anything like it.

a victory that came with a heavy price tho

best irish performance ever? i can't get over how good we were today - brilliant. madigan has had a horrible time with that wanker coach leinster had all of last year slating him in the media and playing him out of position, loved seeing him in tears at the end, he deserves a big day.

i was at grand slam in 09, a few heineken cup finals, paris last year, but i've never seen anything like the atmosphere today. it was unreal - the singing and cheering was just astonishingly loud.

and going back next week for both quarter finals :)

The All Blacks are destroying France. They could put out 4 teams and 3 would probably make the semis

That was pretty insane. I caught the last half and was a bit tense at first when they were still within reach. Can't really believe how dominant they were, what a score, holy shit.

Ireland under the cosh till the try just now.

great since but I fear a strong Argentina finish tbh

that's two generous calls the ref has made for them now

yeah, still 15 mins left - plenty of time to turn this around.

breakdowns are intense

strong finish? yup

woof, good grounding

Northern Hemisphere, you're shite and you know you are.

now this is a game and a half

bloody hell.

wow

it is now

omg this tournament has gotten fucking ridic

jammy bastards

inevitable

robbed?

nah just unlucky

Fuck fuck fuck. Roll on the Six Nations though, England and Italy fighting it out for the wooden spoon.

nv was maybe right

Greig Laidlaw tells ITV Sport that the referee should have gone upstairs to review the final penalty decision.

And, by golly, he should have.

It looks clearly like Nick Phipps - the Australia scrum-half- got the final touch on the ball before offside Scotland prop Jon Welsh instinctively grabbed it.

That should have been an accidental offside and a scrum-down Australia.

that is an even bigger sickener

radio commentators were pretty livid, especially when Joubert hightailed it off the pitch at the final whistle

ireland deserved to lose. scotland so unlucky tho

So sad. We missed our most aggressive players, and their intensity. Still. Awful.

theres no discounting the importance of the missing players tbf, think any one of them could have made the difference today despite the large final deficit. was full sure that wed come back to win after narrowing it to three.

Sounds like Folau, Pocock, and Sio might all struggle to make the semi. Might make it a pretty tight game to call - Argentina looked good against Ireland. Solid forwards as always, but their backs are getting more creative and there's some real pace out wide.

All Blacks should beat South Africa if they play near their potential.

That game nearly gave me a heart attack. A deserved win though I think.

It was surprisingly close for a two tries to zero victory. That first NZ try was a forward pass, right? I instantly thought it was, like blatantly. Everyone seemed to agree this on Twitter but not one person on TV even raised the question.

TV3 pundits mentioned it but didn't make a big deal of it. It looked like a forward pass to me too. Obvious forward pass. More people seem to discussing this McCaw elbow rubbish today.

WHAT ABOUT THAT FINAL

great final, best world cup ever

Makes up for the cricket, I guess, and I'll be glad when I can get news from home that isn't 80% rugby or fretting over what the Aussie & UK papers are saying.

http://thespinoff.co.nz/29-10-2015/sports-a-patriotic-heros-quest-to-survive-a-day-on-only-official-all-blacks-products/

rugby is a niche sport, nobody cares guys

and I'll be glad when I can get news from home that isn't 80% rugby or fretting over what the Aussie & UK papers are saying.

i don't care about rugby but thursday i got a pang of ex-pat patriotism and decided to watch it. great game.

but i never want to hear or read sonny fucking bill fucking williams' name again. it seems like he's in stuff.co's news feed every day for the last several years at least. as well as a dozen other sports stories relating to rugby.

i missed the last 10, best, minutes though bc i got a phone call that my nana had passed away :(

That's horrible sorry to hear.

As for me I couldn't catch it but enjoyed the highlights.

Biggest disappointment was France. I very enjoyed watching them play over the years, haven't kept watching it so don't know why they've declined.

otoh it probably wouldn't have mattered if France were at their best or Wales had a fully fit squad as the All Blacks always seem to have had the answers to anything their opponents threw at them.

i have the height of respect for how rugby officiates vs other team sports generally but wayne barnes is a corrupt prick

Ireland are playing well despite being 6-0 down.

No excuses.

NZ are playing better now. Terrific try.

What a solo effort. Come on

Just toe to toe trading punches this half

nz being very very efficient with their effort

too easy

if we aren't going to perform in the breakdown or the lineout they will pick us apart

Losing it at the lineout xxp

Lineouts have been poor, but they struggled with that against SA for a good chunk of the match too

as SA did themselves that night i thonk i remember?

we turned them over a lot too which is being reversed tonight

10 minutes to exert some pressure now

barnes is an honourable man ans an excellent official always said it

lol

in fact hes also really handsome ive just noticed

but srsly i do think all blacks have been getting away with interference all game so hes just calling it straight now

great half but if we play like this in the second i think we'll be left well behind by the whistle

xp I get the feeling Sexton doesn't have the greatest faith in him either from earlier interactions, none of this "yes sir" shite

ireland has a rich and tragic history and wayne barnes is about 1% of it all by himself

been a fantastic battle and starting the same way this half

oh dear from a fuckin lineout

ball never looked straight mind

Brilliant kick too

yep nerveless

Ireland going too far too fast and losing nerve I think...

And Sexton misses it..

couple of poor decisions, trying to force the game far too early i thought

that was close to a turnover, which nz have done brilliantly all night

Good time to win a lineout

Ooh shit and a yellow for NZ

definitely Ireland need to put the squeeze on now rather than looking for those Hollywood passes

wéan na bearnaí

xp keenan and lowe not *quite* penetrating with their runs like in other games and i think it is showing that we dont quite have the backup plan we thought

Come on ffs

fuck tho another great game

two mins of that yellow killed already

sake the scrum again

Been doing that all night

NZ managing this so far

Fucking hell give him two bites

Ireland just cannot be ahead

Now this

Wow

doris having a very poor game

no need at all to rush for the line there eithere

right winner

we should have played that running pressure aftwr the second yellow

Just breaking

great match

agree NZ earned it but so close

What a start

Jesus this is incredible by both of them

This is shaping up to be even better than yesterdays game. I don't think I've ever seen a player block a conversion before.

No not have I

God this intensity, out of this world

Yeah, this is just insane. Can't see how they can keep this level up second half though

looks like bad news for sa here

the tackle into bundee's head yesterday not worth that attn i note

The cards seems to have been massivly inconsistent the last few weeks, especially after all the reds in the opening matches.

SA have seen the sin bin off..

these down to the wire finishes are brutal

So then, SA or NZ

ffs

Sensational

Southern Hemisphere teams on top this weekend

SA for me xps

Don't think the ABs will live with the Boks' pack

same i dont see nz running through against them for easy scores like they did against us

I don’t have much to say other than this has been the best tournament of my lifetime. Absolutely insane play.

its been unbelievable