Rugby World Cup 2007 - Twiddling Our Thumbs!

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It is a vicious circle. T. Blair's chickens coming home to roost and he's just flown the coop.

[Havak]

Not only that - but in a supreme irony he seems to either want to become a 'peace envoy' or possibly even the pope!

You cannot accuse Tony of a lack of ego.

[Havak]

I see the circle has now encompassed Queensland?

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Staffordshire and Queensland both make it onto the world stage. Where next?

[Havak]

Rotorua?

I see Mr Tuqiri and his self destructive streak are still alive and well?

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Rotorua is a WMD in itself.

I have no idea what goes on inside Lote's head.

[Havak]

Best wishes to Skintad and the boys for the weekend.

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Best wishes to Nose in the World Cup. B. Ashton is talking him up to the extent that it's fairly obvious he'll be selected.

Absolutely incredible.

[Havak]

Would you care to guess if I have reached a verdict on our new coach - and what that verdict might be?

I saw the old Knighted one Woodward describe Dayglo's European Cup Final performance as 'superb'. It was not such thing - I was there and whilst certainly his best game of the year (as he lasted 60 whole mins!)he trailed way behind his young colleagues Rees, Haskell and even the cart horse like Worseley in the impact he had on that game.

Incredible is the word. Dayglo - and his ego - are the bigest threat to our getting out the pool at the RWC.
Ashton will have to make him skipper or he will undermine whoever else is chosen. It takes a really strong character like my old mate Martin to skipper and keep Dayglo in check.

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Wallabies aren't going to get much past their pool if they continue giving away starts. It was a B-grade Bok outfit whose main attribute was endeavour. The comeback was nice, but they shouldn't have been down 17-0. Then, when the Wallabies had the game under control, they fiddled around.

[Havak]

But look on the bright side – the standard of Aussie commentary is as high as ever.

I muted my TV just before half time, with the Wallabies still trailing, when Muppet A and Muppet B were laying into the Boks for being ‘lazy’ and ‘cheating’ and generally not being in the same class as the ‘magnificient’ Wallabies who would run riot in the second half. The fact they had a fairly valid point on some of that is neither here nor there – if I wanted Aussie Propaganda instead of commentary I’d call up the all yellow fascists rather than watch Sky.

Once I had silenced the commentary the game became much more enjoyable.

It is a shame the Boks couldn’t hold out for the win – that would have been the perfect answer to the ARU whining of the preceding week for me.

And congratulations on the new Wallaby shirts – every bit as stupid as the new England one. George and Stephen looked embarrassed to be in them (and Dunning looked like the proverbial quart stuffed into a pint pot!)

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Havak
Um, all I was actually saying was that their losing a game makes me more hopeful for a competitive World Cup. Not that I would shed a tear for their failure of course.

Huh! Just as I thought! You're merely a fair-weather fan.

England went smoke free yesterday by the way - in no way pertinent to this thread but it's something I've been waiting for for years so I'm mentioning it anyway.

Bah, if you don't want smoke don't go to the pub!

Weren't Wetherspoons pubs already smoke-free?

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Who designs them? Sight-impaired people? No. Marketing people! The new Wallaby outfit is plug ugly. They're being called "man boob" jerseys in Australia.

Sky Sports Italy is showing old World Cup matches in the lead up to the World Cup. T'other night it was Wallabies -v- Boks from 1995. How much the game has changed. And not necessarily for the better. Apart from the occasional slip, there were no scrum re-sets. None of the ridiculous "crouch, touch, etc" mantra that hasn't done a single thing towards successful scrums. And the no-lift line outs were much more of a contest than today's (mostly) predictable affairs. Somehow, too, the breakdowns seemed to make more sense than these days. The game really has been legislated into a state of torpor.

And B. James is off to Bath. More reason for you to hate them. If you needed another reason.

[Havak]

I didn't - but thanks for the added reason.

So at the risk of setting the cat amongst the pigeons who have we let drive the game into a stupor?

Who has driven the prescribed scrumming, lifting at line outs and the elimination of rucking as part of the game? Who set 5m limits on line outs and scrum advances. Did we actually want any of that or were they part of what we loved about Union in the first place?

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All good questions. There was almost an innocence about the 1995 match. Obviously, it wasn't innocent on the field, but, compared to today's rugby it was almost naive (in the artistic sense). Get the ball, run with it, or kick it - I'd forgotten that Campo had a pretty good boot - and get over the oppo's line.

It was so much less calculated and artificially controlled. Professionalism has a lot to answer for.