Official Rugby Thread

[ripper868]

Ibe sadly not seen any of the weekend matches in full, were England good or Wales bad?

South Africa may well be fair bets for the cup, have won the rugby championship. First time NZ have finished 3rd in a long time, especially with a negative PD. Helps it's not home and away for the fixtures this year.

Next week is the real litmus for Australia, will show if it was a flash in the pan or if they have actually got their **** together at the right time.

 

[social]

Wallabies being Wallabies

Better team for 20 minutes and then errors

 

[Grasshopper]

I love Aussie donuts.

 

[the big bambino]

The Lord has spoken. Find something else to do Israel.

Well not so fast ...

 

[GotSpin]

Wallabies being Wallabies

Better team for 20 minutes and then errors

And then they gave up

 

[MrPrez]

Random question but is rugby at all popular in India?

Naas Botha is coaching the national teams and it looks like they're training on a rural field in the middle of nowhere.

 

[King Pietersen]

James Haskell has signed with Bellator MMA and is debuting as a Heavyweight next year. Has apparently trained at London Shootfighters with guys like Michael Page for a while, so interested to see how he goes.

 

[Flem274*]

sick day so naturally working on the greatest taranaki xv i have seen

1. bull allen
2. andrew hore
3. gordon slater
4. scott barrett
5. jason eaton
6. blade thomson
7. scott waldrom
8. chris masoe
9. te toiroa tahuriorangi
10. beaudy
11. shayne austin
12. charlie ngatai
13. seta tamanivalu
14. waisake naholo
15. jayden hayward

austin was my favourite player as a kid. lol at 2 six nations players in this team. the arrangement of the loose forwards was tricky.

 

[D/L]

Hugely looking forward to the Superleague final at Old Trafford on Saturday.

St. Helens must be red hot favourites but the novelty of seeing a side that isn't called Wigan, Leeds or Warrington competing for the title is something to be savoured.

I'd prefer it to be Wakefield but good luck, Salford!

 

[BoyBrumby]

Awful news that Tom Smith, the bantamweight Scottish loosehead who scrummaged well above his relatively slight stature & kept both Jason Leonard and Graham Rowntree out of the starting XV during all three tests of the victorious British Lions tour of RSA in 1997, has been diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer.

Metastasis in his liver and brain too. Bless his heart, he really looks hellish.

47, with 3 kids. ****ing hell.

 

[D/L]

That's very sad to hear. He was a player who put me in mind of "Mighty Mouse" Ian McLauchlan, an earlier Lions hero from Scotland, who showed that bulk and weight in the scrum could often be countered by technique and that a nippy prop in the loose could be very useful.

I wish Tom Smith all the best.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Mtawarira moves to US rugby

Sounds like a nice pre-retirement choice. Good luck

 

[Flem274*]

i don't know how fletcher smith gets a contract, nor riccitelli

probably the weakest hurricanes side on paper i've seen in my life.

 

[ripper868]

I cant beleive Super Rugby has kicked off already. Mental.

In other news, Italy suck.

 

[BoyBrumby]

The conditions at Murrayfield are very stiff, but Heinz's kicking from hand has been absolutely atrocious.

Not often one sees a 3-3 scoreline after 55 minutes nowadays.

Eddie's weird obsession with not picking any specialist #8s except Billy V looking increasingly quixotic too.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

proper Scots weather

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Hogg

actually fair enough, good call by the ref even

 

[Furball]

We've ****ed it.

 

[D/L]

I thought the Scots played well and we were a bit fortunate to get the points. However, I think we're the only team to have registered an away victory so far. Puzzled too about not picking a regular #8.

 

[Spark]

Aus' teams inability to close out games is so frustrating