Rugby World Cup 2007 - Twiddling Our Thumbs!

[Havak]

And that might be the most exciting thing that happens involving any of those shirts whilst you are there.

[finbar]

The interesting thing, though, is that the England outfit continues to make the players look fat. Every England outfit in my memory makes them look fat. Or, perhaps, they are, and have always been, simply, porkers.

Did I read this morning that Gav d'Oro is calling G. Jenkins' selection bluff?

[Havak]

He certainly is. Jenkins is a stubborn mule though so I doubt it will work.

With the shirts it's the colour - white makes big men look fat (I should know as I wear the replicas and they make me look HUGE).

To be fair the Adidas ones do the same - the All Blacks shirts don't flatter guys like Collins but black is a much more forgiving colour.

Still its fair to say that whatever colour the shirt is that a certain Mr Dunning always looks like he has been shoe horned into it.

[Caligastia]

Bring back the old loose collared jerseys I say. They'll be putting them in spandex next.

Oh, and I wish they would sell more jerseys without huge ads on them. The All Blacks are the only team whose regular jersey doesn't have a massive corporate logo splashed over it.

[Havak]

And thats only because the All Blacks are in fact a marketed 'brand' in themselves. I am sure that I read somewhere that it was a conscious decision not to detract from that with a shirt sponsor.

Then again the identity of the manufacturer on AB shirts is far more prominent than with England or South African shirts for example. The commercial interests do still get their slice...

[Caligastia]

Yes, but at least the players and fans don't have to feel like they're doing their best impression of a billboard.

I was just checking out the 2007 RWC jerseys on worldrugbyshop.com and it appears that the England jersey still has the big O2 on it, while none of the other teams have big ads...?

[Caligastia]

Never mind...I looked on another site and it is gone.

[Caligastia]

NZ, Argentina, and Wales are the only top-tier teams who don't have the ridiculously tight jerseys. I'd be interested to see the stats on whether fans actually buy any of those. Who wants to buy their team's jersey if it makes them look a right nancy?

[Havak]

The England Replica shirts are actually still a traditional cut - you can buy the playing style but why would you?

The RWC doesn't allow shirt sponsors logos as far as I know - no teams should sport them during the tournament.

And Adidas brought in a shirt just as tight as the Nike ones in 2003 - they haven't yet matched the even more extreme fit of the 2007 Nike shirts but they may well do so. AB playing jerseys are not a loose fit - I know because I have the 2005 home shirt.

[finbar]

No shirt sponsors in the World Cup. Except, I suppose, if the shirt sponsor happens to be one of the World Cup sponsors. The whole issue was, after all, what caused NZ to lose co-hosting of the 2003 affair. The NZRU refused to ban ground advertising when one of the World Cup demands was that the grounds be advertising-free. Except, of course, for the World Cup sponsors.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Havak
The England Replica shirts are actually still a traditional cut - you can buy the playing style but why would you?

The RWC doesn't allow shirt sponsors logos as far as I know - no teams should sport them during the tournament.

And Adidas brought in a shirt just as tight as the Nike ones in 2003 - they haven't yet matched the even more extreme fit of the 2007 Nike shirts but they may well do so. AB playing jerseys are not a loose fit - I know because I have the 2005 home shirt.

Well, I'm only going by the pictures at online stores...I have the only AB jersey I need anyway - the old Canterbury one with the white collar.

I also have the England one from the last RWC, which has a collar.

[finbar]

Good to see England on top again at the Oval. Augers well for France tomorrow.

[finbar]

Couple of entertaining matches yesterday. Scotland surprised me - as they did the Paddys - with forward power and some fluency to match it. Not sure that the Paddys really turned up, the forwards in particular.

France proved to England that you need more than a big strong pack to win Test matches. Though I'm not sure anyone in the England hierarchy will take the point. The talk, again, is of missed opportunities - well, yes, they flubbed a scoring chance, but they were lumbering forwards trying to play volleyball. Problem is, too few opportunities were created. There's an absolute disconnect between forwards and backs. When the backs finish up with the ball it's generally in broken play and everyone runs in circles.

Not helped by O. Barkley, a terribly one-dimensional player who doesn't have a clue about marshalling the troops. It seemed not to occur to him that a drop goal was the only solution to an endless siege of the French line later in the second half. Finally, thankfully, B. Gomersall did the job off his own bat.

M. Catt is a better bet at #12 than A. Farrell because at least he's mobile. Even if some of his decision-making is odd.

I also have an awful feeling that J. Noon might have played his way into B. Ashton's heart. A #13 needs to be able to tackle, certainly, but you'd also hope that he'd be able to link to those outside him. Noon doesn't. I'd pair Catt - in the absence of a better #12 - with M. Tait.

I don't think it will happen. It has taken me this long to realise that B. Ashton's strategy to defend the Cup is a massive pack and hard-hitting defence. The backline is there to make up the numbers. It's an essentially negative strategy, and hugely fallible - as the French proved.

And the French were far from the top of their game.

[LDiCesare]

The French we"re really poor indeed. They struggled in the forwards and should have lost to any decent team dominating the way the English pack did. But the English couldn't attack. It's terrible to witness such bad judgment:
The English players always attacked in the center, never sending the ball wide (well, no they did it once in the match). So predictable it's easy to defend against.
And then their ball handling was appalling. Maybe they should buy some hands? When they didn't drop the ball, they kept it rather than pass it.
The last try also showed poor intelligence of the game. What do you think they brought Chabal in for? It was obvious the French'd be trying to send him charging, so the English let him alone with his winger and only a winger to guard them both. Silly.
Looking at that match, I'm still more confident for the English than the French. The English should have won this match had they varied their game even a little bit and shown at least a spark of intelligence. If Wilko plays, they should have that. The French, on the other hand, were poor in lineouts, in scrums, and their attacks were not always well thouight out. Against a good pack like Ireland with backs that can play, it will be much harder.

[finbar]

Not the Irish pack that fronted up on Saturday.

I'd prefer France, even as they played on Saturday, to England. You're right - with forward dominance, England only have to vary their game, introducing the backline into the equation. The point is, they can't. Even with J. Wilkinson playing. For one thing, they don't - at this point - have a centre pairing that facilitates it, and M. Perry, as busy as he is, seems to prefer to play as a forward instead of setting up anything out wide.

The French have the elements in place. They just have to come together. England are lacking a couple of vital elements.