Rugby - Hands Off Green!

[Solly]

Not particularly looking forward to the ref's performance on Friday after last weekend's disgraces. The shout's gone out: Wigan must stay up!

[finbar]

I figured ravagon would be back after an appropriate break. Long enough for us all to have forgotten his S14 franchise's contribution to the season anyway.

[ravagon]

A month goes by and people have forgotten about the exploits of the magnificent Western Force?

Would've thought that sort of timeframe might be measured in more appropriate units - the lifetime of a meson in a quark-quark interaction springs to mind.

Thankfully Ch7 seems to be covering the rugby now so I'll get to see Aus-SA this weekend.
Would've seen Aus-NZ last week but there was a little matter of Germany-Portugal at the time.

[Havak]

Good grief - League was bad enough but now we have a Soccer fan on our hands too?

[ravagon]

I'm back on the wagon now though - and I shouldn't be falling off again until sometime in 2010 ...

[finbar]

Of course you can imagine how berserk our little town went the other night. We were out. Coming home, couldn't get the car anywhere near the house. Hard to park a mile away and walk. The celebration was, um, excessive.

[Havak]

You couldn't write a better script than to have a country win where four of the top clubs were about to be punished for match fixing.

I never got on this wagon - so found the whole tournament an annoying disruption to the TV schedules. I did find it amusing to see that kissballers still fall over without any contact at all - and roll in agony at the slightest touch. In fact the Portugese have made an art form of both.

[finbar]

I watched a couple of England's games out at the farm on the big screen with the Brit owner of said farm. I quietly prayed for an England loss both times. I was rewarded the second time.

Oh, and is this why you went into IT?

[Havak]

Darn it someone stole my idea!

Whilst I am by no means a soccer fan I did enjoy watching Portugal lose their next game too - the unsporting way they played their games left a bad taste in the mouth.

In rugger I see Gibbes is now threatening not to honour his contract with Ospreys?

[finbar]

Cripes. The Boks must have had an absolute Barry Crocker.

[ravagon]

White seems to be trying to lay most of the blame on the NZ ref.
While the guy may not have had his best game it really looked as though most of the problems came from Bok (mis)handling errors.
Everytime they threatened they just seemed to cough it up or knock it on.
Those on the Wallaby side who're now decrying the blame attributed to the scrum from the previous match though aren't on very solid ground. The Waballies still looked very shaky on a number of occasions.

Originally posted by Havak
Whilst I am by no means a soccer fan I did enjoy watching Portugal lose their next game too - the unsporting way they played their games left a bad taste in the mouth.

While I wasn't exactly a Portugese fan after they came away with the penalty shootout win against England, they'd had their own issues with sportsmanship and whatnot in their previous game. The dutchmen were pulling one unbecoming trick after another to try and equalize.

[LDiCesare]

I read the boks were smashed. Impressive scoreline. I can't say I'm surprised they didn't manage to score a point considering what they showed against France, though.

[Havak]

The ref was Honiss so whilst what Jake White is doing in blaming him smacks of desperation the allegation is more credible that it would be with almost any other referee.

I did see him make two howlers – he pinged the Boks at an offensive scrum when the Aussie loose head had clearly collapsed it and he missed a blatant forward pass in the lead up to one of the aussie tries in the first half.

What he did well however, and he should be applauded for it, is ping the Boks Rush defence (or ‘Blitz’ as you SH types are want to call it?) for being constantly offside. If only more refs – NH and SH – had the courage to do that!

Personally I thought the Boks looked a shambles – I lasted until about the 55th minute when it became crystal clear the Boks could have played all year without scoring (at which point I switched to the cricket).

And the Aussies managed that victory without having a first class hooker too – injury has hit them so hard they had to play Jeremy Paul. Best name of the match goes to the replacement hooker they had to drag into the squad though – I believe his name was ‘Hardman’ – quite apt for the number 2 shirt.

Elsom and Chisolm seems to have added some power and aggression to the Aussie pack – it’s a nice compliment to the art of Smithy et al.

That said I don’t think the Aussies can trouble the ABs hugely – the Boks made life very easy for them.

Tempted to adopt the 6N system now boys?

The dutchmen were pulling one unbecoming trick after another to try and equalize.

There are times when I wonder if we see the same matches in any sport – in that game I saw Dutch frustration grow as the Portuguese kept falling over within two metres of a Dutch player and engaging in play acting and histrionics that were better suited to Hollywood. The Dutch got dragged into a situation they should have avoided – but the Portuguese wore the bigger black hats. I dislike soccer generally – and the hype around overpaid England players in particular – but when those Portuguese cry babies got eliminated I laughed myself silly.

[finbar]

Hardman - despite the appropriate name - would be about eighth choice as hooker. Most of those in front of him are currently injured. Rocky Elsom has certainly added something on the side. He's a big unit, pretty quick, and maturing nicely.

I didn't see the match and couldn't even find an online broadcast. But it sounds like the Boks were so bad that the result was inconsequential. Although, as you say, nice to see a ref finally ping the Bok rush defence. I've never seen it not offside.

So Leicester isn't throwing C. Charvis a lifelife?

[Havak]

The Aussie commentators made great play of the lad being "way down the pecking order".

The Boks were very poor - and were not helped by their fly half having a nightmare game.

No Tigers won't throw Charvis a lifeline - we have too much competition amongst the loose forwards as it is (we actually released Will Skinner this summer not least because we signed Jordan Crane from Leeds).

Plus Charvis has been plagued by injury recently and looks a shadow of what he once was. I wonder if he is also pricing himself out of a job perhaps?