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A lot can change in 8 years. In 2007 Portugal qualified and Morocco were pretty close to making it. Now those teams have fallen away. I think Brazil will be one of the countries to really develop. Rugby's had good growth at the grassroots there which should start to pay off in the next decade...

That'd be a lot of pool games though. It'd drag on like the cricket world cup. And the tournament would take an extra week to complete. Can't see that happening. 2/3rds would progress past the pool stage but that means most teams would play at least 4 matches. The pool stage would...

A few months ago Brett Gosper flagged the possibility of expanding the world cup to 24 teams and I think the Japan v Scotland match showed why this would be a good thing. With 6 pools of 4 you'd avoid teams having to back up after short turnarounds against fresh opponents. Scheduling shouldn't...

The best thing about this performance was our defence. If it had been 10% worse Fiji would have been right in that. I guess the biggest difference was the rolling maul. We stopped theirs, they couldn't stop ours. It was a pretty even match in every other facet of play. So the mauling world...

Yep, exactly right. France just play as well as they need to. Romania with the 44.5 start was the biggest certainty of the world cup. Romania's forwards are pretty good. I was thinking while watching the replay that a combined tier 2 rep team would be competitive with any side.

I thought Japan were the better team for 50 minutes but they failed to take chances and all the refs calls were going against them. Why the neck roll cleanout wasn't picked up by the TMO is beyond me as it came up in the replay. In other games the TMO's have been all over any hint of foul play...

If Fiji were to win there'd be no way of avoiding it unless you had no contact with anyone. It'd be a shock result so people would talk about it. I had recorded the Japan v South Africa match and planned to watch it on Sunday morning without knowing the result (I didn't think Japan would win...

Not sure what the ref was penalising Uruguay for there. Seemed 100% legitimate to me and a great tactic to counter a dominant maul. Last I heard you were allowed to tackle someone around the legs. As they stood back a maul had not been formed. Teams like Uruguay should do this every single time.

According to Craig Wing from an interview in the SMH: "We've been in camp since April because the Japanese competition doesn't start until after the World Cup and I've never had such a fully booked out training schedule. There were times when we train three or four times a day and on some days...

Well Eddie Jones doesn't seem to think the short turnaround will effect their ability to play 80 minutes. He sees it the other way round: http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/rugby-union/34319315 "If you look at Scotland's scoring profile they are very heavily a first-half scoring team. They get...

Japan had their better props on at the end of the match. Out of the tier 2 nations they'd be 3rd after Georgia and Romania at the scrum from what I've seen, but not too far behind. It'll be really interesting to see how those 3 go this week against Scotland, Argentina and France. I think this...

Fiji: 1. Campese Ma’afu 2. Tuapati Talemaitoga 3. Manasa Saulo 4. Tevita Cavubati 5. Leone Nakarawa 6. Peceli Yato 7. Akapusi Qera (captain) 8. Netani Talei 9. Nikola Matawalu 10. Ben Volavola 11. Nemani Nadolo 12. Gabiriele Lovobalavu 13. Vereniki Goneva 14. Waisea Nayacalevu 15. Metuisela...

The team against South Africa was pretty much their strongest. With the possible exception of the props. Everything I've heard from Jones in the lead up is that he wants to play his best team every game. He did against South Africa to build confidence. He didn't really expect to win but he...

Wales are so boring.

Uruguay seem to be a team of pretty decent rugby players to me. Good basics and well organised. They're just not the same size as professional players!

I wish the officials would crack down on the maul. They're blowing all these pedantic penalties for players not keeping their feet at the ruck but players joining the maul ahead of the ball is never penalised and it has a much bigger effect on the game. We don't want this to be the mauling...

They were technically correct but for at least a couple of them Samoa weren't even looking to compete for the ball and it was being recycled quickly. It's just unnecessary to blow a penalty when it doesn't effect the play. You could blow a penalty at half the rucks in every game for something...

I think if teams are tied on points the position is decided by the head to head. For and against only comes into it if 3 teams are tied and A beat B, B beat C, C beat A. That said, if South Africa did get 3 bonus point victories and Japan won all their games without a bonus point they would...

Yeah I don't think this US team can play as well as Japan did, but Japan don't always play that well. If Samoa aren't at their best today and the US is then I think they'll have a chance. The margins really aren't that big.

How strong are the Georgians! The Tongans are massive, physical humans and they kept getting driven back. Over 200 tackles from Georgia! Doubt they'll beat Argentina but wouldn't say it's impossible. There'll be a lot to play for. They surely won't have a chance against the All Blacks, but...