Semi Finals

[StephenZA]

Are the lineouts being watched, nearly every throw looked skew

No... the off side line is also not being policed very well. One of the reasons rush defence is so good at the moment. Also its very different from superugby/championship where the reffing is very hot on not slowing the ball down in any way. One of the reasons SA tend to do better during the WC when our bigger forwards get to dominate and get away with a bit more.

 

[D/L]

Two very different semi-finals, the first full of high quality rugby and very few mistakes by either side, the second rather dull and strewn with unforced errors and no sign of a try until mid way in the second half.

England's victory was emphatic with New Zealand's only points being gifted to them at a line-out. I thought our back row was superb, putting me in mind of Hill, Back and Dallaglio all those years ago and starting with Ford turned out to be the right choice for Jones to make.

Hope the final is both entertaining and produces the right result!

 

[andruid]

Man that South Africa v. Wales semifinal gave me more stress than a fair few final exams I have faced in my day. That considering I really wouldn't have minded either or the other making the final to play England. Be that as it may, South Africa really putting the man in man handle to get past Wales, and hardly much actual rugby actually taking place until Pollard decided to manufacture a try in the fifty something minute, then the game came to life.

 

[Heboric]

Two very different semi-finals, the first full of high quality rugby and very few mistakes by either side, the second rather dull and strewn with unforced errors and no sign of a try until mid way in the second half.

England's victory was emphatic with New Zealand's only points being gifted to them at a line-out. I thought our back row was superb, putting me in mind of Hill, Back and Dallaglio all those years ago and starting with Ford turned out to be the right choice for Jones to make.

Hope the final is both entertaining and produces the right result!

End of the day England still only scored one try

 

[marc71178]

End of the day England still only scored one try

End of the day SA only ever threatened the Wales try line once.

 

[Heboric]

End of the day SA only ever threatened the Wales try line once.

End of the day the Boks have scored the most tries and points (granted All Blacks could have caught with the missing game - they were only 2 behind I think. Highly unlikely England would score 11 tries against the French). This overanalysis of style of play is getting ridiculous what next are they going to use judges like they do in gymnastics giving marks out of 10

 

[Howe_zat]

Point of order: These matches are happening at the beginning of the day

 

[Burgey]

Kudos to the Poms and Kiwis for the semi final, as good a game of rugby (or any code of footy for that matter) I’ve seen in years. Well deserved win for the Poms too, who must go in heavy favourites vs the Saffas.

 

[Howe_zat]

England 1.44 to SA's 2.75 so yeah, but it's not as strong favourites as NZ were for the semi final. Before the tournament you'd have said England-SA is 50/50 so it's only because of what the sides looked like in the semis.

 

[Howe_zat]

England could face fine following their response to New Zealand’s haka


A lot of 'could' in that article so it's not really news. But this made me laugh.

“[Joe Marler] said he got confused,” Mako Vunipola said. “He thought he was supposed to go all the way around it and go to their 10. But because of that, he’s the one who has to pay the fine. He dishes it out a lot so the boys would be more than happy if he has to pay it.”

 

[Flem274*]

nz seems to be taking this loss quite well. i remember 2007 vividly, and a bit of 2003. the national butt hurt was nuclear.

now for the most part we were a bit bummed on the night but the sun still rises. the herald tried to stir the pot with that black page headline thing and i heard a great crusaders fan whining about too many aucklanders in the team on the radio yesterday but hopefully we'll never see a 2007 again because that was pretty immature.

 

[Meridio]

Yeah I think it's because a) we've won the last two, so there was less pressure; and b) we just got beaten fair and square. The game wasn't close, it didn't hinge on one mistake, or missed penalty, or bad refereeing decision, or unlucky bounce of the ball, or England getting a runaway try and then hanging on, or anything like that. The team we were playing against simply played a lot better than us, that's sport.

 

[Flem274*]

nah in 07 even if the pass hadn't been forward the boot still would have been in because, well, it was going into henry and the team more than barnes (and barnes was copping it too).

i think we're all just a bit more grown up as a country. this has been the decade of realising people are human and not automatons. john kirwan reached a lot of boomers on one issue but it has helped some related fields as well, like the 'there's more to life than a game of rugby' field.

 

[Meridio]

In 07 the boot would have gone in anyway though because we hadn't won the thing for 20 years. There was so much pressure from basically always being the best team in the world between World Cups, but not actually winning one. And the fact that Barnes had a shocker meant people went nuclear at it. Thankfully though the team actually learned the lessons from that tournament and won the next one, but if we hadn't, 2011 would have been a repeat of 07 in the national mourning. Especially since it was at home. And then winning the next one away meant we'd proved we could do that, so that was that monkey off the back too.

We probably have grown up a bit as a country though too. And there's been a lot of things to be genuinely upset about in the last ten years or so instead of games that ultimately don't really matter. But yeah, people seem fine with it.

 

[Bahnz]

Things have generally got better over time. The reaction after 1999 was disgusting, people were going up to John Hart and spitting on him. The reaction after 2003 was more like stunned shock. After we'd won the tri-nations and reclaimed the Bledisloe Cup, every rugby pundit in the country was 100% certain that the only team that could beat us was England, and even then the All Blacks should be heavy favourites (for some reason). After Australia won, there was a lot of discontent and mockery aimed at Mitchell and his comment that we didn't need a specialist goal-kicker because we'd score so many tries, and the move to boot him immediately was indicative of that. But overall the public behaved themselves.

nah in 07 even if the pass hadn't been forward the boot still would have been in because, well, it was going into henry and the team more than barnes (and barnes was copping it too).

Don't really agree with this, Barnes from my memory was public enemy no 1 after the game. I remember a hilarious pair of columns from that moron Chris Rattue. In the first one he tried to put on a brave face, congratulate the French and say the All Blacks weren't good enough. And then a couple of days letter his lizard-brained instincts got the better of him and he turned around and had an atg flounce about Barnes' reffing. Having said that, overall things were still getting better in 2007. Yes there was a lot of (understandable) whinging about Barnes missing that forward pass, but the public actually turned up to the airport to welcome the AB's home, and a snap decision to dump the coaching team was averted (which would eventually lead to the founding of the greatest rugby side ever).

I also agree that the fact that the AB's won the last 2 world cups has meant that people just don't care about it as much this time. If we don't win the next won though, get ready for the public pressure to start mounting up.

 

[Burgey]

Could it be the country is still understandably reeling from being robbed in the Cricket WC, rather than focusing on this which was more conclusive and, as has been noted, softened byt he fact you've won the last two?

 

[Meridio]

Things have generally got better over time. The reaction after 1999 was disgusting, people were going up to John Hart and spitting on him. The reaction after 2003 was more like stunned shock. After we'd won the tri-nations and reclaimed the Bledisloe Cup, every rugby pundit in the country was 100% certain that the only team that could beat us was England, and even then the All Blacks should be heavy favourites (for some reason). After Australia won, there was a lot of discontent and mockery aimed at Mitchell and his comment that we didn't need a specialist goal-kicker because we'd score so many tries, and the move to boot him immediately was indicative of that. But overall the public behaved themselves.

And then things became even more mature in 2007. Yes there was a lot of (understandable) whinging about Barnes missing that forward pass, but the public actually turned up to the airport to welcome the AB's home, and a snap decision to dump the coaching team was averted (which would eventually lead to the founding of the greatest rugby side ever).

I also agree that the fact that the AB's won the last 2 world cups has meant that people just don't care about it as much this time. If we don't win the next won though, get ready for the public pressure to start mounting up.

Yeah that was key. After every previous WC that I could remember we'd done the classic knee-jerk and sacked the coach and captain. And I remember a lot of howling that Henry should get the sack, but thankfully they actually learned that lesson and didn't.

 

[Meridio]

Could it be the country is still understandably reeling from being robbed in the Cricket WC, rather than focusing on this which was more conclusive and, as has been noted, softened byt he fact you've won the last two?

Don't know really. In some ways that could have made it worse, since people could have hitched themselves to winning the rugby as some kind of bollocks 'revenge' narrative. But on the other hand maybe you just have a certain reserve of ****s to give, and we spent it all on the cricket, so when the rugby happened we're just kind of running empty. Personally I care far more about cricket anyway, so can't really judge the mood of the rugby nuts too accurately.

 

[Howe_zat]

 

[Howe_zat]