Thread: The Rugby World Cup 2015

The Worlds Best Waterboy*



*Or not, Dan Carter says that he's crap.

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

When it comes to the All Blacks, the English press are obsessed with three things: the haka, Richie McCaw's tactics at the breakdown, and the team's "aura"

The haka: It was clearly a mistake to tell them they could not perform the haka. I'm pretty sure that choosing to do it in the dressing room before coming on was quite motivational. Next time let them do the haka on condition that they sing Advance Australia fair as their national anthem. That might work.
I like the haka and it is mostly cheered for the emotional scene setting entertainment that it is. Gives both sides a lift.

McCaw: It's taken a while but his effectiveness at reading the referee and how far he can go, is obviously slipping given his recent time in the sin bin.

The aura: In an attempt to avoid the humiliation of the boks, they are simply trying too hard against weaker teams. They feel duty bound to put on a show of imperious rugby, when all that is needed is to play there own game. It's been pretty good up to the RWC. Yes they had a stern reminder against the Wallabies, but responded just the way you would expect. They have an armoury to respond to any current tier 1 side, the rest should just be warm up games.
A tad sensitive to critics, the management have the right to use their status as favourites, rather than be humble, they have earned the right to be arrogant.

Originally Posted by prawnograph

No coach

Eddie Jones is at the helm as it stands. That might change though ....

The bulk of the team are centrally contracted now and will play for Sunwolves.

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

The Worlds Best Waterboy*



*Or not, Dan Carter says that he's crap.

The reason he is a shit water boy is that he is always 2 meters in front of where he should be. The other reason is that when he lifts the water bottle up to a players mouth, instead of going where it should into the mouth, he first comes in from the side and then round to the back of the head, offside in water parlance, and then acts as guard in that offside position whilst other have to administer the water.

Jones remains contracted to coach the Stormers in SA. he was never going to be involved with this Super side

Japan head coach Eddie Jones was in a mischievous mood at Kingsholm on Sunday night when asked about speculation linking him to a possible role with World Cup flops England.

Jones, who coached Australia when they lost to England in the 2003 World Cup final, heads to a new job with Cape Town-based Super Rugby franchise the Stormers after Japan concluded their Pool B campaign through a 28-18 victory over the United States.

https://nz.sports.yahoo.com/rugby/a/...-england-keen/

Originally Posted by chassamui

they have earned the right to be arrogant.

. . . words destined to be shoved down their throats . . .

Originally Posted by pseudolus

Originally Posted by Troy

^ Of course it is...that's why England and Japan are both out of the cup!

Silly Billy!...as Denis Healey would have said before explaining capitalism to you in a little more detail

Financial impact to the competition itself will have very few implications to the WORLD RUGBY's coffers with England not making the play offs. The bulk of the money in comes from the pool stages, and the seating for the rest will be at near capacity no matter who plays in the matches.

The award of the competition rotates between Cash Cow locations and developing rugby nations. So once every 8 years it will always go to a country with the 70-80++ capacity stadiums that know will get filled, and on alternate years it will increasingly go to a place where the focus is on covering costs or making a loss, but developing the brands. Like Japan.

Japan will be a loss making competition for World Rugby. The Stadiums they are using have capacities in the 30k-45k range with one at 70k. Critically, will they fill them with the seat holders paying full ticket price? Well, they a so distant from the Rugby Catchment areas, that they will really need to rely on the locals to fill the bulk of the seats which I actually think will happen.... but not at the prices they charge for a ticket in the UK or Australia. The attendance so far for the England 2015 has been 1,881,023. NZ 2011 the total was 1,477,294.

Japan 2019 is about broadening the games appeal to new areas and supporting new countries who have set out to make an impact in the sport - It's not about greed or generating money. Having the competition in England was all about making money.

JApan 2019 will be fantastic and I hope everyone tries to go there to support it.

Tickets don't cost as much as you presumably think they do, I've been to 2 group games for Scotland/USA at Elland Road my tickets cost £35 for adults and £15 for my daughter and we were right behind the goal, for Scotland/Samoa at St James Park was £50 a ticket for me and the misses and again only £15 for the daughter. The Scotland/USA match I booked the tickets over a year ago on the premise that it was travelling distance ( 1 1/2 hour drive) and unlikely to sell out so I'd be guaranteed to see a game live, then the matches that weren't sold out the tickets came back on sale a couple of months before the WC kicked off so I picked up the Scotland/Samoa ones again at what I thought were fukin cheap when you compare it to where I have the misfortune to live (Crewe) where watching third tier football would cost you £25 a ticket for a home match.

Watching rugby live is fukin cheap compared to other sports, I normally go to Murrayfield once a year for a 6N match and I buy cat B tickets and they only cost me £50 a pop and for that i'll be sat right at the front. So in conclusion Japan will have no trouble selling out their stadiums especially when you think 25 million Japs were watching their own matches on TV in this WC and when the football world cup was held in Japan/Korea that was a success. I'll definitely be up for a couple of Scotland games in Japan, will just need someone to take care of my daughter for a few weeks as presumably will be in term time if holding it in Sept/Oct 2019.

Anyway looking forward to Sunday the only way I think Scotland have a chance of giving Australia a game is if they adopt the attitude Samoa did against Scotland and just go out and enjoy it and throw the ball about, it could end disastrously if goes wrong and we get 50 points against us but better to try and fail than not give it a go. Bookies are giving Scotland a 15 point head start in the handicap betting, personally I think that's a bit tight and 20-25 would be needed to tempt me to have a wedge on Scotland. Oh yeah and Ford and Jonny Gray have been cited by an Aussie for whatever reason during the Samoa game, lose either of them and we're fuked as our other hookers are nothing to write home about and without Jonny Gray we have no one to call the lineout that was what cost Richie Gray a starting place in the Lions, inability to call the lineout.

Gray and Ford get 3 weeks each basically putting them out of the tournament for dangerous tackles in the heat of a game......

Sean O'Brien gets one week for unprovoked punching 'one week less than the minimum ban of two weeks'.......

Once again World Rugby looks after it's hosts.....

Originally Posted by Bobcock

Gray and Ford get 3 weeks each basically putting them out of the tournament for dangerous tackles in the heat of a game......

Sean O'Brien gets one week for unprovoked punching 'one week less than the minimum ban of two weeks'.......

Once again World Rugby looks after it's hosts.....

Yes clearly a conspiracy.....

Australian citing commissioner....Pocock has no case to answer, Australia's next opponents gets two players suspended for incidents nobody even noticed during the game......

I hear Scotland forwards coach and clearly stated that his neutrality should be unquestioned so we won't.

The judiciary decisions during this WC have been nothing short of an utter joke.

Anyway the match officials have been appointed for the Q/F's:

The match officials:

South Africa vs. Wales, Twickenham:
Referee: Wayne Barnes (England). Assistants: George Clancy (Ireland), JP Doyle (England). TMO: Graham Hughes (England).

New Zealand vs. France, Millennium Stadium:
Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales). Assistants: Jaco Peyper (South Africa), John Lacey (Ireland). TMO: Shaun Veldsman (South Africa).

Ireland vs. Argentina, Millennium Stadium:
Referee: Jerome Garces (France). Assistants: Romain Poite (France), Chris Pollock (New Zealand). TMO: George Ayoub (Australia).

Australia vs. Scotland, Twickenham:
Referee: Craig Joubert (South Africa). Assistants: Glen Jackson (New Zealand), Pascal Gauzere (France). TMO: Ben Skeen (New Zealand).



Just as happy with the appointment of the world's best ref for the AB's game as I am in dodging the bullet of George Ayoub being TMO.

I don't know how he keeps getting appointments, much less is even at the WC, but I assume he gives awesome blow-jobs to someone.

Those cases are easy to explain....

One country is always shafted by WR because they are takers not givers.

WR has based in the other country and most of it's staff are from that country. Gotta have a feel good factor in the office.

Of course the CEO of WR is an Australian another country that has benefitted rather well from this round of citations, citations recommended by........ an Australian.

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

George Ayoub being TMO.

I don't know how he keeps getting appointments,

Simple. Australia needs to have representation in the Refs, but alas all of their refs are useless. So as a last resort, they put Georgie Boy with a TV and hope he does not mess it up ... which alas he has and does all the time.

Originally Posted by pseudolus

Simple. Australia needs to have representation in the Refs, but alas all of their refs are useless. So as a last resort, they put Georgie Boy with a TV and hope he does not mess it up ... which alas he has and does all the time.

That makes sense, but surely they could have trained a koala or something??

The koala would at least be more consistent.

Australia's lack of representation was the reason that Steve Walsh thought he was untouchable when he tendered his faux resignation.....

.... he didn't for one second think it would be accepted but WR had had enough and called his bluff......

Ahhh Steve Walsh - the reason he had the hump with England was that a certain scrum half banged his girlfriend. She's a bit of a slut by all accounts, and a few other players have pleasured her whilst he was smashed out of his face in a bar somewhere.

Nice urban myth that one..... never happened.

Indeed, it didn't.

Anyway for what little it counts I have been told by more than one* player that Walsh was actually pretty good to be reffed by.










*It was two. Two players.

Walsh was an excellent ref. He had his problems that affected a time in his career, but after that he returned to being one of the best.

Off the field he's a total cock by all accounts and that is what WR had had enough of, so when he tried to hold them to ransom by tendering his resignation it was gleefully accepted.

I bet walsh is stewing in his own juices watching the RWC.

This is pretty interesting, a quick look at the rising injury tolls at the WC:

Rugby World Cup: How rugby is destroying bodies


Finn Russell of Scotland leaves the field injured during the 2015 Rugby World Cup Pool B match between Scotland and USA. Photo / Getty Images.


With the 40 pool matches completed, 21 players have already withdrawn through injury, nearly double the amount sidelined at the same stage of the 2011 tournament.

Professor John Fairclough, a renowned orthopaedic surgeon who has a 30-year association with the Welsh Rugby Union, believes action needs to be taken to stop the rise of injuries.

"When you have injury rates of that nature then somebody needs to be brought to investigate," Fairclough told the London Daily Telegraph.

"It needs to be led by people without vested interests in rugby union, but looking at it purely from a point of view of personal injury."

Since the first tournament in 1987, the size of players has increased - forwards by 8.9kg (20lb) and backs by 8.5kg (18lb) - which has in turn led to an increase in players getting injured.

While players are getting bigger, their joints are not getting stronger, according to Fairclough.

"The physics of it are fairly simple," he added.

"A heavy weight travelling at speed versus another heavy weight travelling at speed will create an impact collision force that is very high. Players have got bigger but joints have not got stronger.

"The body is not built to withstand those types of collisions so you will have more injuries."

WORLD CUP WITHDRAWALS

2007 World Cup
All teams - 25
Home nations - 2
Quarter finalists - 12

2011 World Cup
All teams - 16
Home nations - 2
Quarter finalists - 10

2015 World Cup
All teams - 34
Home Nations - 13
Quarter finalists - 17

Players withdrawn due to injury from 2015 World Cup:

New Zealand
Tony Woodcock (hamstring)

Wales
Cory Allen (hamstring)
Scott Williams (knee)
Hallam Amos (shoulder)

Italy
Andrea Masi (Achilles)
Martin Castrogiovanni (knee tumour)
Michele Rizzo (knee)
Gonzalo Garcia (knee)

Ireland
Paul O'Connell (hamstring)
Peter O'Mahony (knee)
Jared Payne (foot)

Canada
Connor Braid (jaw)
Liam Underwood (knee)

Australia
Will Skelton (pectoral muscle)
Wycliff Palu (hamstring)

Fiji
Isei Colati (knee)
Waisea Nayacalevu (knee)

England
Billy Vunipola (knee)

France
Yoann Huget (knee)

Scotland
Grant Gilchrist (groin)

South Africa
Jean de Villiers (jaw)

They are missing Liam Williams from that list

and of course the people too injured to be selected.... Cruden, 1/2p etc...

Originally Posted by Bobcock

Nice urban myth that one..... never happened.

Came from the mouth of Dean Richards who disciplined said player for it.... so if it is an urban myth...