Rugby - See You In Ten!

[st_swithin]

At least it's not the knapsack on my back song. That was much worse.

The guy who wants to do it with Madonna shouldn't be allowed to have an opinion on music in general, seeing that he wouldn't know a complete lack of talent if he slept with it.

[Tamerlin]

Believe me St_swithin Finbar is not the kind of guy that listens Madonna. Someone who knows Grand Funk Railroad can't be that bad.

[st_swithin]

Play that funny music, white boy.

[Caligastia]

Wellington 46 - Auckland 42

What an action-packed game! Many great tries scored, and a great attempt at a comeback by Auckland towards the end. Wellington deserved to win, however, as they consistently dominated throughout the game.

[LDiCesare]

France - England half time: 14 -13.
The fun thing here is that the English coaches have license to run in front of the payer who is kicking a conversion. Odious lack of sportsmanship here. The referee should have asked to retry the conversion IMO.

For the moment, the French pack looks good, particularly the front row and in lineouts. They are not able to prevent the mobile English back row to play very well, though. The English backs are very dangerous, but so is Dominici in particular. French defense, and protection of the 10 when kicking is a bit weak.

With their usual forwads, the English would be terrifying.

[LDiCesare]

France England 17 - 16
Wheeew...
It was close. The English suffered more in the second half than the first, but their defense was very strong.
There were many knocks on, because of the weather (hot, heavy, sweating).

Overall:
The English lineout was catastrophic.
The French kicker missed 2 penalties and one conversion (but this one would allow us to spend several days speaking about it - let's hear what Havak thinks of it), whereas Grayson was very good at kicking (except the last second drop-goal, but given the pressure, it was extremely hard). Overall, Michalak suffered a lot from the pressure.
Any mistake in defense is extraordinarily dangerous.
Most importantly for the French, Galthie played well.
The French scrum was stronger than the English. They took one ball if I'm not mistaken, and generally proved stronger. However, they were penalized because the English managed to trick them a bit. In particular, the English turned (wheeled?) every scrum they had before the scrum half inroduced the ball. To counter that (?), the French put some pressure, resulting in their pushing before the introduction, and a kick for the whites.

Now, with Johnson and Wilkinson, that would have been different. Till next week in Twickenham. I'm afraid the English may have a big win there, considering they should have a stronger pack. It will depend on who Woodwards wants to see play.

[spartak]

Bah!

England were pants and I'm surprised that France didn't do better than that. Is that really the best number 10 France have? Some of his decisions were really dubious.

As for England, rubbish discipline and we would have won if there had been less penalties against us. Healy didn't look match sharpe and the line out throwing was utterly awful. can someone explain to me why English hookers can't throw?

Overall this was a poor England side and Franch struggled to put them away at home. I'm not sure that augers well for France in the WC.

I wonder whether losing the winning streak will take a monkey off the teams back.

Final point, can't agree more about the interferance on the kick. Its not as if he needed any help missing the target anyway. Very poor show and I hope England apologise.

[spartak]

"We can only apologise to the French. It wasn't meant, and I apologise profusely," Woodward said.

[st_swithin]

mercy buckets.

[Frozzy]

Originally posted by Caligastia
Wellington 46 - Auckland 42

What an action-packed game! Many great tries scored, and a great attempt at a comeback by Auckland towards the end. Wellington deserved to win, however, as they consistently dominated throughout the game.

Where are the night rugby critics?

[st_swithin]

Rugby, American football - it's too obtuse for me.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by st_swithin
Rugby, American football - it's too obtuse for me.

You can't compare Rugby to American Football but I must admit you somehow have to grow up with it to appreciate it.

IMO the French performance was weak and I am afraid this is almost the best they can do. Struggling to win by one point against an English B-team is far from a performance. Poor France...

Frédéric Michalack has certainly played his worst game of the year (really far from his real level) and Fabien Galthié really started playing in the second half (he was even a bit slow and hesitating in the first half). All in all the game was poor, not really constructed and no player stood out from the others. The game looked like a kind of amorphous pudding... really poor. The only good point came from the lineouts and Yannick Bru's throws.

The referee was not very consistent and did not applied some parts of the laws, as always, but at least he has not interrupted a game that was already poor in itself.

Very disappointing... I even regret that the English have interrupted their victory record on such a game.

[st_swithin]

English sminglish - it's all greek to me.

[Tamerlin]

And BTW... welcome Spartak!

[Alexander's Horse]

who let the mad woman in here?