[Closed] Rugby world cup

TOOFAHSAND!!!!!!!!!

(Is emotional)

[img] [/img]

2001!!! 😯

That's why I've been very puzzled about the English supporters on here and their strange attitudes (wrt Anybody But England). I've suspected that a lot of the people complaining about ABE have never been to a game in their life, never mind endured places like Sardis Road or Stradey. Or worse, had to put up with Ulster fans. Urrgh.

Well you appear to have forgotten that the biggest complainer on here about this is me (as in by my own evidence above I have been to at least one game). I expect you have never been an English man in Wales or Scotland after winning against Wales or Scotland. It can be a 'lovely' experience.

aracer - Member

3) The underdog (which does make Ireland v Wales tricky)

With Irish ancestry, and a Welsh neighbour, that one's not tricky at all!

So Ireland then? 😐

Or do you base your support on who lives around you?

My neighbour is Nigerian, but, nice guy as he is, I couldn't see myself supporting a Nigerian team in any sport.

I expect you have never been an English man in Wales ... after winning against Wales

I have bin.

It was ok.

I couldn't see myself supporting a Nigerian team in any sport.

I always have a happy smile when I see that London Nigerians RFC have won a game. 🙂

I have bin.

It was ok.

I have been and it has sometimes been ok.. But I lived in Wales for four years and had plenty of opportunity to come across Rugby fans who do not meet my high expectation.

toys19 - Member
I expect you have never been an English man in Wales or Scotland after winning against Wales or Scotland. It can be a 'lovely' experience.

I lived in England during the late 80s and 90s. You know, the period when Wales, Ireland and Scotland were all rubbish, and England wanted to move away from playing us and form a two tier championship.

If I wore a Welsh jersey it was usually greeted with patronising comments and sheep jokes that I'd only heard a few thousand times before.

Anyway, are you suggesting that you had bad time in Cardiff or Edinburgh? Fighting? Or just the odd glare?

Not meaning to offend all the Scots (or TJ) on here but I've seen a marked deterioration in the attitude of (some) Scottish fans over recent years.

I've been going to Murrayfield for over 35yrs - since I was a schoolboy - and always supported Scotland, unless they were playing England. There was always good natured banter and handshakes after the match. However, since the late 90s or early 2000s it hasn't been as friendly. The Scottish crowd is a lot more discontented and less friendly. They also display a diminished understanding of the game, much like an African football crowd, cheering madly just because the ball has moved near to the opposition goal-line even though there's no prospect of an advantage. I've also been sworn at by Scottish fans just for cheering England on. Booing the kicker, although prevalent everywhere, seems worst at Murrayfield.

I think it ties in with professionalism and the mess the SRU has made of the domestic game, leading to a hopelessly inept national side and disgruntled fans.

It used to be fun going to Murrayfield. Now it's not.

As I said, it's only a minority and there's still plenty of good banter in the pubs and online but that's my experience over the years.

toys19 - Member
But I lived in Wales for four years and had plenty of opportunity to come across Rugby fans who do not meet my high expectation.

Would you find similar types of fans in Gloucester, Bath, Leicester? Places with less of a middle class support base?

(I found Leicester to be quite a friendly ground as a fan, actually.)

The atmosphere at Glaws is lovely. It's like one big happy family.

Mainly because.......

😈

So, tomorrow. Two very interesting games, IMO.

Canada v Japan - Weather dependent, I think. Rain = Canada grind it out. Dry = Japanese flair edges it.
Italy v USA - Should be a fairly comfy Italian win. Shouldn't it?

Booing the kicker, although prevalent everywhere, seems worst at Murrayfield.

I would have to disagree and say that it's worst at the millennymum. I was there for the Wales Ireland game this year and lamented the attitude of the fans at the time. We were surrounded by a bunch of pissed up blokes who were quite abusive towards us, and became quite threatening when I asked them to tone down the swearing (liberal usage of phrases involving the two words "...Irish c***s...") in front of my mate's two young boys. As for the bunch of pre-loaded women of a certain age behind us, I'm not sure if they were sober enough to realise which team was which tbh.

I'm putting it down to just being in the wrong place at the wrong time...but it wasn't pleasant.

It could very well be Gatland's fault of course. 🙂

Hmm I have had a bad time in Swansea and Cardiff and some small towns in Wales. Lots of fighting (well I say fighting, more beating) and threats , nothing like sheep jokes.

When I went to Wales in 92 I was unaware of the ABE attitude, I supported Wales in every game except against England (home) or Ireland (parents). Now I like a bit of banter and as an English minority in Swansea this is all I ever though it was, much piss taking from the Welsh and generally good times. But this went sour when the first "incident" occurred after about a month of living there, followed by plenty of others.

I dunno anything about other towns rugby fans other than Exeter and the small Devon market town where I grew up and played Rugby, there was never any nastiness.

Would you find similar types of fans in Gloucester, Bath, Leicester? Places with less of a middle class support base?

how keenly observed, only oiks can be xenophobic or boorish

🙄

Or do you base your support on who lives around you?

Or worse, had to put up with Ulster fans. Urrgh.

Have you had a bad time at an Ulster game? Genuine question as most travelling fans seem to really enjoy our hospitality at Ravers

Its not the fans who you need to watch out for its the Irish players called Trevor 😉

I think you will find it was Trevor attacking the ulster fan, better than Cantona!

anyway the rugbt, just watched the match. What a legend Gethin Jenkins is good result. Felt sorry for Byrne who was making some excellent runs only to not get passed the ball. The thing that worries me though is that Lloyd Burns is second choice hooker, it takes something to stand out as being shite in a team that wins by 70 odd points, but everything he did turned to rubbish.

The thing that worries me though is that Lloyd Burns is second choice hooker, it takes something to stand out as being shite in a team that wins by 70 odd points, but everything he did turned to rubbish.

Without wishing to seem rude, I 'm asking a question not making a statement. Do you think games like this tell you much about the team? It's like the hype about england beating Romania, if they hadn't have put 10 tries on them then they might as well pack and go home. So do you think the Namibia game was even a test of Wales ability? Everyone stomped them and they must be knackered by now (as were the Romainians). I'm not trying to do down England or Wales but I'm struggling to find any significant evidence of a world beating side (like vs NZ, SA, Aus) from either game..

EDIT -I might be answering my own question here:
Scotland vs Romainia 34 -24
Arg vs Romainia 43-8
Eng vs Romainia 67-3

This is an interesting guage of who beat who as in we beat arg, and arg beat Scotland the vs romainia scores reflect the relative rank of the teams. It does not bode well for Scotland vs England.
If you do the same for Namibia in the Wales pool then the scores tell exactly the same story...

Do you think games like this tell you much about the team?

DS yeah when I looked a the relative scores it does show something.

It told me Lloyd Burns is a special kind of shite and here was me thinking Benett was a liability.

😀 AA do you have a scriptwriter?

Thing is, Romania effectively put out a 2nd XV on Saturday in order to preserve their 1st team for the clash with Georgia. Romania knew they weren't really in with a shout against England but if they beat Georgia they are assured of an entry into the next World Cup - can't fault their logic can you?

The one thing that is telling from this weekends Group B games is that the English defence is better than Scotlands it seems.

Apart from Georgia scored a try against England and did not against Scotland?

TandemJeremy - Member
Apart from Georgia scored a try against England and did not against Scotland?

[img] http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcThB4_FZ9Y9DjdN52TL3nHZjJsq02QhVL9xd11_98OlIeIyGIphSLz3jfw7Zw [/img]

Are they plastic straws?

Yep, from Brizzle. 😉

LOLZ at CFH and DD

Scotland 15 Georgia 6
England 41 Georgia 10

You cant get a 31 point advantage without taking a little risk teej.
And romania score 2 tries against you and none agaisnt us..

Scotland now my number three.

Scotland are often a number two for me. 😉

So - help me out here. Why are scotland so shite?

It used to be that Scotland rugby teams were more than the sum of their parts. 1990 and 1999 being two examples.

Now with better players and full time they seem to be less that the sum of the parts.

Look at the stats for the Argentina / Scotland game - Scotland had so much territory and possession and made so many yards they should have won easily. Didn't really look like scoring a try. WHY?

I think the diagram earlier highlighting how few senior players Scotland are working with is key. We lack talent, we then probably don't nurture the talent that shows flair or ability by training in set ways and playing to win even at a young age.

Ideally we need to expand the base beyond the private schools and clubs and place more emphasis on skill development, ie passing, runnning, ball release from tackles etc.Lets face it Edinburgh and Glasgow don't do that well. Change their ethos to 1 of attacking rugby, accept we will lose more games for several years until we develop the players skills and that can pass on to the Senior team.

Easy to say, but difficult to do.

Morning all!

Early start on the way to the airport. Good close game Canada v Japan at the moment!

Am hoping they're showing the rugby in the lounges at T5!

Scotland just seem to lack any really stand out players at the moment who can elevate the team to the next level by doing something special. Wales as a unit are not a lot better but they do have a few players who on their day are approaching world class, same can be said for Ireland.

AA what are your parameters for world class? Gethin is world class IMHO

That Alan Hansen soccer commentator has just sat down next to me. Looks like he had a hard night!

What a result, though - 23 all! Anyone watch it?

C'mon A-A, Wales are in a different (much better) place than Scotland! Wales can play with vision and purpose, ok it may not always come off but you can see the intent. Scotland (and sometimes England) don't seem to know where they want the ball to be through the phases so it often just meanders into mediocrity and a turnover or knock-on.

morning all
just caught last half jap v can very tight game 🙂
only 3 ever draws in world cup and 2 by these teams
think italy will walk this one

TJ - the Scottish Rugby Union seem to be a bit bonkers. I won't comment on the technical stuff on the field - but they have an odd strategy for managing Murrayfield.

Last time I was there they delayed the KO for 20 mins, as there were loads of folk still waiting outside for day tickets.

Seems they don't normally sell day tickets, so were not adequately staffed so delays. Hence they have decided it was a failed experiment and will continue to not sell day tickets.

Insanity. The best way to make money from an event is to deny people entry to a half empty stadium, of course. It's almost as if they don't want people coming in, cheering at the wrong time or something.

Adn all that snobbery that came out when there was talk of sharing a stadium with the Hearts team while theirs was being refurbished a few years ago.

With thinking like that in the board room no wonder they can't muster a decent team on the pitch.

deadlydarcy - Member

Booing the kicker, although prevalent everywhere, seems worst at Murrayfield.

I would have to disagree and say that it's worst at the millennymum. ... We were surrounded by a bunch of pissed up blokes who were quite abusive towards us, .... pre-loaded women of a certain age behind us, I'm not sure if they were sober enough to realise which team was which tbh.

Sums up the Millenium stadium fairly well these days. It's turned into a day out on the pop. Too many people who know nothing about rugby and are just interested in the next beer. Last time I was there, the people behind me didn't know who Habana was. 🙄

toys19 - Member
Hmm I have had a bad time in Swansea and Cardiff and some small towns in Wales. Lots of fighting (well I say fighting, more beating) and threats , nothing like sheep jokes.

When I went to Wales in 92 ..... But this went sour when the first "incident" occurred after about a month of living there, followed by plenty of others.

Lots of English people live in Wales. Why do only a few seem to notice this anti-Englishness. In fact, a quick count gives me about a dozen English people who I have contact with on a weekly basis ('married in' family members, friends, work colleagues, etc). Are they all getting abused on a regular basis?

trailmonkey - Member

Would you find similar types of fans in Gloucester, Bath, Leicester? Places with less of a middle class support base?

how keenly observed, only oiks can be xenophobic or boorish

I meant it the other way around, Trailmonkey. Ime, the more working class the club, the more of a football style fan they produce, especially when there isn't a decent football club to siphon off the worst of the hooligan element.

BlindMelon - Member

Or worse, had to put up with Ulster fans. Urrgh.

Have you had a bad time at an Ulster game? Genuine question as most travelling fans seem to really enjoy our hospitality at Ravers

idle Jon TBH I'm not bothered, I like Wales and the Welsh. I'm married to a swansea born girl who doles out the ty de geg tupsins like water. I go back there all the time, love all my welsh inlaws. I made my point on here about some peoples bias being boring, especially if they deny it. As most here have admitted it, then that makes the discussion about rugby more open, as in you can take an comment on the welsh team/player from a frothing leek hating englishman with a pinch of salt and vice versa. Conversely there are some on here who can genuinely analyse the game objectively, which is way more interesting than just trading insults. (to be fair to AA whilst he has admitted being welsh biased, but his analysis is sometimes good as actually he is pretty scathing about pretty much everyone...)

Lots of English people live in Wales. Why do only a few seem to notice this anti-Englishness. In fact, a quick count gives me about a dozen English people who I have contact with on a weekly basis ('married in' family members, friends, work colleagues, etc). Are they all getting abused on a regular basis?

I'm not sure what you are implying here? I lived there, I and my mates were often on the receiving end of it, it isn't sporting. Are you accusing me of either lying or hating for the sake of it? I'm happy to receive banter, I just think the ABE attitude sucks, and it's unedifying but then I will go on and support Wales and Scotland despite their hatred of us.You and they can do what you like.

But TBH idlejon you have displayed ABE so I don't see how you can deny it. I feel that the ABE attitude in the end leads to poor behaviour at the millenium, and nastiness between fans that isn't a part of Rugby I want to see.

Why don't we put this to bed, I've been trying not to mention it. I discussed the aus thing in defence of them as they proved to be very sporting.It was not meant to to be a resurrection of points I made clearly 5 pages ago. You might disagree but until you get your nation to dump ABE I won't be able to agree, it exists, I don't like it but you embrace it. How can we ever be chums over it? Not going to happen, so drop it.

Blimey the Italians have put the pressure on now. 10 Points now so with Ireland on 13 and Aus on 10 this pool is interesting. Can't see Aus losing to the Bears but Italy vs Ireland will be very interesting! (Although based on form Ireland will stomp them...)

Am i reading this right Jon - are you saying Kingsholm, produces more of a footy style or hooligan supporter? 😯 Compared to almost any other Club vocal and pashionate on match day yes, but hardly football or hooligan stylee fans.

With average gates week in week out of 14k, i doubt footy fans turn up every week. However, with crowds that big, compared to most of the premiership, you are always going to get a few idiots, mind.

I am off to Kingsholm this weekend to watch tham beat the not nots, never seen any grief there and had some great banter. Some of the shedheads could cause offence if you let them but no malice involved.

I'll be on the West Terrace as usual to welcome our `favourite' team. 8)

World class I would say is the top couple of players in that position in the world.

Not I said Wales have a few players who on their day are approaching world class such as Shane, Phillips, Gethin, Adam Jones, Roberts.

Has anyone mentioned that the youngest ever try scorer in a world cup is now Welsh? He will be worldclass if he keeps improving (and retains his pace).

Is that Scott Williams?

*gets even more worried about Sunday morning*

Big George 😀 does look very promising doesn't he.

Is it North? Blimey didn't realise he was so young.

From Wikipedia:

making him the youngest ever try scorer at a Rugby World Cup competition aged 19 years and 166 days and beating the record set by Australian Joe Roff

Big George does look very promising doesn't he.

So - help me out here. Why are scotland so shite?

It's a tough one.

I think having only two professional sides can't help. In a way, it's like Scottish Football. They've effectively got a two team league and they're shite too.

The Irish pulled out all the stops to prevent the disbanding of Connacht whereas the SRU meekly allowed the Border Reivers to fold. Leaving the traditional heartland of Scottish rugby without a top side.

I thought regular Magner's League exposure would improve the playing standards but abysmal Heineken Cup records would seem to rule that out. In the last 5 6N Championships Scotland have won the wooden spoon once and been 5th on the other occasions. They've managed less than one try per game and been the lowest try scorers over that period.

Big George in the centre for the next game, I believe!

north and Roberts running at the legendary tackling of ROG in a later game? 🙂

I've had loads of abuse at Kingsholm....but then I was a travelling Bristol fan. It's all them Forest Dwellers with 6 fingers on each hand, you know.

to be fair to AA whilst he has admitted being welsh biased, but his analysis is sometimes good as actually he is pretty scathing about pretty much everyone...)

except the great one who can do no wrong 😀

INWAOT...

Poor Scotland, I notice they have slipped to 9th in the IRB world [url= http://www.irb.com/rankings/full.html ]rankings[/url].

toys - been 9th before - thats why the were 3rd pick in the WC draw.

As to why Scotland are so shite - its not simply the players are not good enough - they made enough yards and territory, beat enough defenders etc against argentina they should have won easily. Look at the stats on scrum.com.

There is a core of good players who while struggling to get into a world 15 for sure are the equal of many of the players in the rest of the 6N and teams ranked around them. Decent pack of forwards with some great athletes and ball players and steady if unspectacular backs. We now have the biggest pack in teh 6N FFS - thats a rare luxury

The inability to convert opportunities into scores its what losing the games - but why? Is it as simple as the lack of a finisher like Ashton?

Look at teh close games scotland have lost the last couple of years? Its a recurring theme - control a game, be unable to score tries, lose the game

Teh SRU are a bunch of idiots for sure but are being reformed and are now financially stable which they were not. I don't know how much influence that has on this team

I thin Coaching is a big issue. Townsend and Robinson had everything they wanted for preparation and the team has not played to its potential. They must surely take the blame for that.

"sulks"

As to why Scotland are so shite - its not simply the players are not good enough - they made enough yards and territory, beat enough defenders etc against argentina they should have won easily. Look at the stats on scrum.com

I kind of agree and dont agree, Scotland looked much better organised than Argentina and the Scottish pack is strong, but half backs are weak and the midfield very one dimensional especially without Ansboro, the wings are ok but having Paterson at 15 is a complete waste of time. In general I would say Argentina had the better players but Scotland were, up to a point, better coached. We should also not underestimate the lack of confidence the Scotland team have, its been expressed by Sean Lamont for example. Get a couple of good wins under their belt and they would improve by a lot.

Don't Argentina get only a handful of training days together during the year or something?

Scamper - Member

Don't Argentina get only a handful of training days together during the year or something?

I thnk they had quite a lot this year but not many competitive games

As to why Scotland are so shite

The lack of a good quality No.10 must have a lot to do with it - Parks has a reasonably dependable boot, but his distribution by hand is pretty uninspiring. Ruaridh Jackson looked a bit more creative, but still didn't seem to be able to generate line-breaking moves by the backs.

I was surprised at how poor Scotland were at shifting the ball in the tackle - they all seem too concerned with going to ground and avoiding being held up in a maul, rather than committing the tackler and releasing the ball. That seems to suggest a coaching issue, rather than one of player quality per se. It was very obvious watching the USA this morning, where they demonstrated a much higher degree of competence in this area against the Italians, who are not dissimilar to Argentina, but the US players had far more success in breaking through the defensive line than Scotland did against Argentina.

http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Sports/Story/A1Story20110928-301894.html

Hmm.

Watched the highlights of the Italy USA game last night. I'm a little less worried now 🙂

Oh, and Mallett's up there with Gatling for cock-ness.

Next game is a big one. Come on SAMOA!

Cool vid:

@CFH

Interesting link, that one. Don't think NZ have thought that one through properly, if South Africa and Australia decide to compete in the World Cup then who are NZ going to play in their full length tri nations? How are they going to show off their sponsors with all other teams they could play involved with the world cup? Pretty empty threat, I reckon.

More likely if they don't win this year. If they don't play in the RWC they can't choke in the knock out stages.

😉

The Aus were behind this as well apparently. The whole IRB/RWC balckout thing is insane here - we tried to have a rugby world cup 'event' - 50 people for beers and the game. Got a nice letter from the IRB saying we couldn't refer to the RWC at all - WTF. Heard lots of stories about exactly the same things here - utter bolax. Scots were planning to use the Basin for training which was about 800m up the road from the hotel - oh no you don't, hasn;t been sterilised and all other advertisers hoardings etc removed so no chance. For training. Again, W T F. They had to dismantle the 'Westpac' name off the Cake Tin in Wellington. It's bonkers.
And I sincerely hope NZ don;t choke, they seem to be playing some nice rugby. A few good games coming up - esp looking forward to Ire v Wales if that comes to pass ...

CHEATS 😉

What happens to Wales if Samoa win?

How are they going to show off their sponsors with all other teams they could play involved with the world cup? Pretty empty threat, I reckon.

[Whining accent]
But we're the All Blacks, we're more important than rugby itself. Didn't you know?
[/Whining accent]

Flash why the strong dislike of NZ rugby, did a wild colonial boy give you a thumping at school or something 😉

dirty cheating English they should have banned Wilkinson too!!!!! 😈

O'Flashearty's not sure who to dislike - comes from being a plastic - just generally confused.

16 men last world cup and now cheating to get past the minnows, shame on england 😆 foreingn players pretending to be english is there no depth they will not sink to 😉

Now I know England are my second team, and Wales are my nineteenth. But the irony (or hypocrisy, use whichever word you like) of Wales fans slagging the England team off for using a different ball is not entirely lost on me. I don't think the change of ball won them the game did it? 🙂

😆 oh yes I forgot about that stroke of genius/skulduggery.

You cant prove it didnt win them the game 😉