Qualification isn't actually in Japanese hands, despite all the excitement. If Scotland and South Africa win their games to form they will go out in third.
Qualification isn't actually in Japanese hands, despite all the excitement. If Scotland and South Africa win their games to form they will go out in third.
Can't believe Japan didn't go for the bonus points there.
Also, getting a bit sick of the ITV commentator (the main one, not Shane Williams) being incredibly biased towards Japan. Sure, it's a nice story, but you don't have to put Samoa down at every opportunity as well.
Considering Japan to be beating Samoa an underdog triumph is slightly laughable in itself. How many resources must have been pumped into there in the last 20 years compared to Samoa?
Samoa, second seeds. It's mind bottling.
The jocks can almost put the saffas out here, can't they? Have they even bothered putting out a full strength side though?
Why do they do the draw 2-3 years before the actual tournament anyway?
It's not a bad XV - Finn Russel is the big absentee, but is injured for now, hopefully back for Samoa. Duncan Weir will probably make a hash of 10 - I'd have preferred Peter Horne in.
Vernon is a freight train on his day, but we've lost a little in terms of distribution in midfield. Oh if Alex Dunbar were fit for the WC.
Gordon Reid is probably a necessary LH addition just due to his size and the weight of the Bokke pack.
Also- boggling as opposed to bottling surely!? Samoa are a traditionally very successful team - yes, they've been shit this time around but when four Tuilagi's were running a mock alongside Brian Lima and Earl Va'a, they were a great side.
I half hope the jocks get shoed here and then done in by Samoa. Chance to win the group foregone in favour of being out.
Who are you calling antipodean?
*dusts off string vest*
You're in Australia right?
Naw me pal.
A much smaller island.
I don't want to be too hard on our porridge eating friends, but they really are shite.
Rubbish.
Might actually stick Chelsea/Southampton on which wasn't the plan at all.
Safferball exposes us like nothing else. Gatland ball too. Hence, modern international rugby is a complete cunt for a Scotland fan. I forgive Meyer and SAF for that, it's their game, I even forgive England stepping five years backwards.
Glasgow play in an adventurous league where we chuck the ball around and win the thing, against the Welsh and the Irish. Then those same Welsh and Irish players get together for their countries and spend all day with shitty maul after maul (something must be done for the good of the game - there's no legal antidote in the current game), up and unders that exploit the ridiculousness of the current rule around challenging off the ground and centres with no playmaking ability whatsoever that might as well have an 8 on their back.
Fuck it. Fuck Gatland, fuck that Schmidt has changed from taken everything he did at Leinster to revolutionise Irish defensive capabilities whilst narrowing the scope of their attack, that Heyneke Meyer continues the fine tradition of meathead Safferball and that Lancaster cannot hold a fucking candle to Ashton to the detriment of the whole NH game, never mind that France cannot field a single player with an iota of the flair that was a part of every member of their back 9-15 in the 80's and 90's.
Why the fuck are they kicking for the corner on 42 minutes with their jenga lineout?
That's better.
You're after league, mate. I think you know it deep down as well. You can still dress like a pleb at the grounds if that's what you're worried about.
Speaking of plebs, if we lose tonight than Stuart Lancaster should be sacked in the tunnel. No bullshit. No 'Ooh, well if Dylan Hartley wasn't a fat moron...' Sacked.
That's a try, that is.
If league actually had positions, a break down, srummaging, size differentials, bigger pitches, etc.
If anything league has helped kill a lot of Union leagues. Too much insistence on defensive structures that were imported from League and too much insistence on hitting man as opposed to space. The latter being the most frustrating.
Lovely try. This side always has a great counter in it at least.
Seymours in my ESPN team too
Really can't beat a good interception try. Mon you useless haggis bastards.
Is Nigel Owens actually the best ref by miles, or does he just seem it to my untrained eye?
No need for that at all.
Fucking Laidlaw. Pyrgos or Hidalgo Clyne are the better options in the squad and Cussiter, who didn't even make the squad is far superior (and a bloody Lion) but every Scotland coach for the last 5 years has wanked over his 'Rugby Brain'.
Pensive piece of shite. He's not even a real fucking Borderer, stylistically at least.
By quite a distance, not that many agree. He's often known as O'wens by Scots and Welsh Pro 12 fans due to perceived bias towards the Irish, in truth it's because he likes to see a game played the Irish way, and far fewer Glasgow complain now that we've moved from attritional 'on the edge' stuff under Lineen to several years of Townsend's Borders meet Super 14 stuff.
I'm a bit surprised by that. Is the rule open to interpretation or, letter-of-the-law, should it have been a yellow?
It should be a yellow via earlier directives, but I'm actually a fan of the call made there. Having said that - it's rarely malicious when I would call for a yellow, it's just that Pietersen looked to have executed it wrong, as opposed to making no effort to support the tackled players at all.
I like break downs, I like scrums. I like open play, my problem is when the open play becomes dominated by structure intended not to open up defences but rather to exploit rules and to pull penalties out of defences. Look at that midfield fielded by England against Wales.
Not a single playmaker in there. Burgess- Shit caveman, can only hit people, Barritt- Shit caveman, can only hit people, Farrel- one dimensional fly half, even if he's got better recently.
Abysmal.
Shouldn't this, much like the "wasn't malicious not that sort of player lovely lad" bullshit in football, be purely down to whether he was at risk of injuring the player though? I mean, in that particular case I think the tackle-ee could have supported himself with an arm anyway as he wasn't dropped that fast but the Saffer didn't really look in control of his descent to me.
I agree, but he made a lot more effort to try to recover it than on other occasions. He also didn't tip him as much.
Unfortunately there is no chance of Scotland losing to Samoa. The latter today were about as bad as you can possibly get. Fiji twenty times better and yet got lumped into the shit pool due to their form three years ago.
Samoa are on the wain a bit, but bear in mind that this Samoa team beat them in the PNC this year, last year to if I recall rightly.
Edit - @Jimmy Floyd
What happens if we lose tonight and win against Uruguay?
We get third I'm assuming barring Wales don't fuck up against the Aussies.
Don't you get enough of this from being an Arsenal fan?
Thing is, the world of Rugby is now perverse. Teams used to play structured games at International level because that was the culture in their leagues. So - Saffers and England played the shit stuff, most of the rest of us chucked it around.
Glasgow and Scotland used to be like that - I mean, I love Graeme Morrison but he was as much a poor man's crash ball 12 as you get, but that was because we had nothing else to play with, despite a tradition of smaller, flair guys.
England have a plethora of alternatives these days, their culture changed to allow for creatives. Wales to some have changed and moved towards the old English styles to some extent, but also have plenty of alternatives to some of Gats's favourites (many doing well now, to be fair). France have just seen their whole rugby culture change.
It's fucking sad.
But I still love the game emphatically.
Have they had WOMAN pundits in any of the other games?
She's been on the coverage a few times. She's actually pretty eloquent.
Rugby has changed, Merse, because the players are all much bigger than they used to be. Philippe Sella wouldn't play professionally now (or then, which is the difference of course).
Is it her with the permanently sore throat?
Tanya Arnold, F off.
I'm a twit
Mon then, you slaaaaags.
I'm quite excited about this.
You stupid twat.
We've already made three ridiculously shite decisions in the first three minutes.