Rugby World Cup 2011

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^Samo's ready

Pocock's biceps also ready

uhh

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HE'S HUNGOVER

may or may not be ready

hopefully ready for the battle between traditional rugby powerhouses, australia and the united states of hipster college rugger types

Swisse Vitamins must be stoked

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyBu0ANq5Yw

Cure for the morning after a mad drinking and eckie session.

It has begun. So stoked for the madness! NZ are already killing Tonga.

NZ have been a bit sloppy i think. Playing some amazing stuff and then not quite finishing it off.

ohshit, 5m scrum - go Tonga!!!

England AND Scotland both play shite, but get out of the jail and scrape through in the latter stages. Cunts, the pair o' them. Talking of which, choice bit of pre-watershed swearing from one of the gentlemanly England players, will this provoke a national debate on the poor example set to youngsters by our sporting heroes, a la Rooney? I'm not holding my breath on that one! At one point the Channel 4 commentator said, "Every England mistake is being cheered by the thousands of South Americans in the crowd" ... errrrrrr, wellllllll, pretty sure there weren't 'thousands of South Americans in the crowd, think that was more that any England mistake will be cheered by every life form in the known universe that isn't an England rugby fan.

the fact that i barely attention to Union is more or less solely down to the scummery that is England

I'm not exactly a fan of the Scotland team either

England were poor, Argentina blew it basically. But I never really doubted that England would win, you knew a try would settle it. Shame cos if Argentina had even got one of the endless skewed kicks they'd have still been ahead after the try.

Also that kick in the 79th min when they were making fantastic ground was just break your remote control annoying, if you're supporting Argentina.

ITV coverage predictable horrendous, Steve Ryder FFS, can they not do any better?

Really looking forward to watching this over the next few weeks though, weird times and all!

Is it ITV or Channel 4? Yes, it's horrendous, Phil Vickery... I mean, Brian Moore is every bit as patriotic but at least he's fair. And Steve Ryder, I'm not sure he's even humanoid.

You should see the RTE coverage xpost
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3cePrcHUFQ

Moore is an interesting dude, one of the few England players I've got any time for.

love moore

this clip is the "taffin" of rugby union, i find 50 times in a row is good for real laughing out loud.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTQWT-B0EBw

england wearing black is dumb and pointless but so far this is fun.

ireland's totally shit warm-up should have killed any optimism entirely but somehow it hasn't. we actually have an amazing team, our teams dominate in europe, it's a shame, and the coach's fault for me, that we've largely been playing shit for about 2 years.

(xp) Yeh, turning up in New Zealand dressed as the All Blacks that's, uh, not going to endear you to the natives... or anyone else

i think people in nz like and respect ireland a lot and view them as strong opponents. i'd love them to beat the wallabies next weekend.

xp i can't see the point, it's not even effectively provocative, it just seems weak and stupid.

ireland's totally shit warm-up should have killed any optimism entirely but somehow it hasn't.

All part of the plan...

the kick-offs are so weird. my friend rang the owner of the pub i watch ireland playing in over here and he said he'd open up at 0630am for the USA game tomorrow. love and also hate the idea of getting up at 6 to go drinking watching rugby.

QGP stepped into a pub last night and found a whole bunch of English lads who were sad, because they thought she was going to lose.

She thought that was pretty funny!

The plan isn't working

yes!

WTF is the with the kicking at this tournament?

That sums it up. Shite.

trap out

O'Sullivan in?

Christ this commentator. Good try for Wales though!

Ouch, that hurts. Pity about the missed drop goal, thought they had momentum then

a good performance though, should set them up nicely.

Christ this commentator

"Whenever Wales go forward they are opening up green holes."

The Sarf Ifrikans had a player called Bismarck. His parents christened him Bismarck.

RTE gone full Dunphy on a pretty rote, average Irish victory. We weren't awful by any means. Not least coming off the back of utterly shite defeats v the likes of Scotland. USA barely worse than them anyway.

Short interlude to say the worst part of commercial interests in sport is the utter fucking cunts who thought of the idea of inventing a new ball for every WC. Such a fucking joke that good kickers can't kick this thing, and good full backs can't catch it, it seems swerve weirdly in its final drop from a height.

Thought Ireland did what they had to, annoying interception at the end but George Hook actually said "a sad day for Irish rugby" (right here this morning, live on RTE Sport, hate the Dunphy trend of trying to make everything that happens a watershed)

Felt for Wales, they should have won that game. If they'd got that last pen they would have.

V weird morning in London, felt awful when my alarm went off at 0630, only 5 friends turned up to the pub but the landlord made a huge pile of bacon sandwiches. Then he kept bringing shots of jaeger and stuff out, about 4 shots each.

So strange being hammered by 9am.

Hook's little soliloquy was embarrassing. You could tell he'd been saving it up

Bigtime, Dunphy does that too, I really hate it. They are good at being "The Narky Bollocks TM" but when they roll it out for the cameras or overdo it they make fools of themselves. They should save those rants for truly bad times when the whole country will agree with them. Ireland were okay in crappy conditions, not impressive but I was more worried based on recent performances, I'll take that result.

do love RTE's use of "isi" by neu! as background music though

There's been some suspiciously trendy music choices from RTE's sports department in recent years

shiiit Ioane may be out for the rest of the Cup w/ broken hand. He was possibly the best of the wobblies yesterday

do love RTE's use of "isi" by neu! as background music though

Y'what??!?!?!

Damn, that run with the ball in one hand from Sonny Bill was pretty cool. Harsh on the Japanese though

Ireland in trouble without flannery, Rory Best is fucking desperate.

Amazing stuff from Ireland.

FUCKING YES

slept through it, that's astonishing

:) heroes.

this is in 3 hrs

to sleep or to try to better that poem

i don't know too many rugby players

i'll sleep

im still up...fuck it no point sleeping now

true
and i could find a squad list i suppose

but, should i start drinkin?

toughie, it's a toughie

no booze in the flat but would totally drink it up bow come match time

now not bow

anyway even if we lose today (which i dont think we will)....at least we beat the aussies

I'm drunk and and have stayed up. Hoping for a jolt of adrenaline when the match starts

In the pub, landlord opened specially, so excited. Amazing buzz here, about thirty friends here.

In my house with drunken bleary friends. Let's do this

playing golf at stupid o'clock this morning; might as well watch this while I get ready

good luck ireland!

Definitely looking like a bad ideas to drink through to this now. Difficult to put the disappointment into words, fully deserved for Wales

Gutted. Never have a better chance to do well at a wc. Wales fantastic in fairness but where was our defence.

Good luck Wales.

so so depressed. Like you say, this was our chance.

I'm at a wedding with an Irish groom, watching the game while the couple are getting photos taken.

Never before have I encountered a mass of such dejected, depressed humanity.

:(

I want to cry. We defended so badly. Nobody played well really but we had so much ball. They stood up at 10-10 and we wilted, hate that.

:(

Nobody played well really but we had so much ball

This is the thing. We basically let them score any time they had an attack. And when we had the ball there was just so much sloppiness. Dropped balls from lineouts, O'Gara having a mare etc. just looking forward to lapsing into a coma now

Terrible. Choking is part of our DNA. That's true, we can't be favourites. Let's just revert to fuck the English except France have some artless barbarian as manager who breaks their paintbrush.

noooooooooo

slept through it

Better off. Let's focus on England's awful crimes against sport. I want a total execution by France here.

Yeah, this is easing the pain

Wedding update: we got England vs France on the screen while waiting for the main course. People are enjoying this.

my father will be enjoying this.

it's great that all the "test playing" nations are playing at a v comparable level at this WC. Tomorrow will be v intersting.

isn't brendan cannon a great commentator, i <3 him.

I don't know about rugby but I watched England vs France and really quite enjoyed it!

posts very much in national character!

probly helps to enjoy england if you don't know about rugby

or, as an alternative to understanding the given event, to at least comprehend that they are losing

brightened my morning.

lol "conversion" in french is "transformation"

Lovely French play today, cleansed me a bit to see the fourth best NH team shown how dour and shit they are.

Ireland tho, bod, o'connell, o'gara, d'arcy, no more world cups.

Should also say defensively Wales were amazing. It was a brilliant match. I thought they couldn't hold out that defence for 80 mins but truth was we couldn't hold out our attack.

I don't understand the rules properly, but I did understand that England lost, and I was quite content with that, because I like France.

I felt fairly similar during the Euro 2004 ENG-FRA match, though perhaps such analogies are needless. I think I enjoyed this also because the sport is unknown to me and quite fresh and everything. You can hear people saying things that are analogous to the BS that footy pundit people say, and it highlights how much BS it is in both cases.

I know more about football but rugby generally makes me feel far happier as a sport spectacle.

maaan the wobblies should not be leading this game

anyone else watching this? france are gonna get pounded.

oh yeah, 62 mins in and France look favourites at the moment.

but hey winning ugly is still winning.

indeed

official motto of the Rugby Union World Cup iirc

what a horribly formed "sport"

haha you silly southerner

:D please no one call us chokers ever again.

but until NZ win outside of NZ there will still be accusations!

i don't believe we will care.

poor armand is confusing the rugby world cup with england's ability to play india at cricket.

it was a thrilling final imo. congrats to NZ overcoming massive pressure and wave after wave of injuries.

I watched it starting at 12:45 AM in a pub chock full of Kiwis and Frenchmen. It was pretty hard-fought and I rather enjoyed it.