Halfway in the most boring week in rugby history, the week before the Rugby World Cup. Nothing happening that anyone cares about and we’re all just counting down until the best tournament in the world starts. Not sure about you, but I’m getting really excited about the RWC. I think that we’re starting to get to the stage where many teams have the ability to win much more so than in the past and I fully expect to see a few results that will shake things up. The Pacific Island teams, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga are all stepping up in a way they haven’t in the past and I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to see one or two of them in the quarter finals and maybe one in the semis. Watching the warm up matches and teams like Portugal and Georgia are displaying a level of skill that we haven’t always seen in the past and for me this is awesome. I guess as both a Kiwi and an Australian I really support the under dog and while I don’t want to see it against either the ABs or Wallabies, these teams winning against some of the other Tier 1 teams would be fantastic.
‘We didn’t want to show too much’: Wallabies were foxing against France, says Tupou
As mentioned here in SMH, the Wallabies’ game plan for the upcoming World Cup remains a mystery after prop Taniela Tupou revealed Eddie Jones had instructed players to roll out an entirely different strategy in their warm-up match against France.
“We didn’t want to show too much before the World Cup,” Tupou said. “We came into this game against France with a different game plan, just for this game.” Adding to this story he further explained that the different strategy they had been asked to play was something they trained for leading up to the game. As Tupou explained when asked about how this was managed he said “We only had a week to look at it. At training, we’ve been working on our game plan for the World Cup. It’ll be interesting coming out against Georgia with a different game plan.”
Zero wins this year is far from an ideal preparation for the game’s centrepiece event, but Tupou is adamant the Wallabies will embrace their status as underdogs. “We’re definitely the underdog,” Tupou said. “Coming into the World Cup, we’ve had five losses. We like it. We’re going to keep working hard. We won’t say much. We’ll let our actions do the talking.”
Now personally I don’t hold too much into this statement. With the games that Eddie Jones tries to play you never know if a statement like this is the real deal, or is it a furphy Jones has built up with the team. Or is it even something that he has led the team to believe even though he knows it’s nonsense. Now to a certain extent I get what he’s doing but I’m just not confident and to be truthfully honest, I’m over his talk and his games – I want to see positive results.
I may be proved wrong, and I hope I am, but I just don’t see him taking the Wallabies forward. There’s been nothing in the last 5 games with Australia, or the last 9 before that with England that has demonstrated to me that he is this genius that RA have made him out to be. I love his talk and the way he has got rugby in the media like no one else has for years but at the end of the day results count more than talk and lets face it we heard the same stuff about a new plan for the 6N/RWC/6N that we’re hearing now and not a lot came of that. Good luck to the Wallabies and I really hope they play well. I’m hoping I’m surprised.
Five things we learnt from the final weekend of Rugby World Cup warm-ups
Planet Rugby reported here the five things that they thought we learnt from the warmup games.
1. The Pacific Islanders will not be pushovers! Coming up against the far more fancied Tier One nations, Fiji and Samoa really impressed, if anyone thought that the Pacific Islanders would be whipping boys in France this year, think again. Not only have they been boosted by World Rugby’s eligibility law change, but in the case of Fiji and Samoa, they look well-coached and primed to claim an upset or two.
2. Expect shock results in France! Fiji and South Africa proved that this weekend for different reasons. Also, Georgia threatened another after an excellent first 40 minutes and quite simply, there will be no gimmes at the World Cup. Every team will be going out to make a bit of history of their own, and there are certainly some hot contenders to do so.
3. Cards and kicking will be crucial! The All Blacks will have learnt this lesson better than most this weekend unable to force their way back into the game, being a man down against one of the top teams in the world. It was much the same for Eddie Jones’ Wallabies side, who lost momentum when Suliasi Vunivalu was yellow carded, and France also capitalised, scoring 10 points during that period.
4.France and South Africa looking like the teams to beat! Both teams look like the real deal and while both have weaknesses that can be exploited they will both also punish any team that is not on top of their game.
5. The hosts will have their own unique challenges! Not only will they have to live up to the high expectations of winning the tournament for the first time, but every single stadium will be jam packed with passionate fans. We saw how Julien Marchand struggled to hear his own teammates, resulting in two botched lineouts against Australia, and they are bound to face similar difficulties during the tournament.
ABs relishing the double standards. Why a RC wasn’t.
In a move designed purely to upset so many Australians, and some other countries, the judiciary has determined that Scott Barrett’s 2nd Yellow Card did not meet the Red Card threshold and he will not receive any further sanction for the cleanout on Malcolm Marx in the match last weekend.
As reported here in Stuff, the judiciary panel noted Barrett entered the ruck at “reasonable speed” as he went to clear the tackler, and made contact with Marx who was lying on the ground to the side of the tackle.
The summary of the evidence from Barrett was that there was initial contact with Marx’s arm, and he didn’t accept he entered the breakdown late or that he was joining at high speed. The judiciary agreed with this and further, while noting Barrett ended up making contact with Marx’s neck, deemed there “was not a high degree of danger because the first contact was with the arm” and that he hadn’t entered the ruck late because the ball was still present. The red card was deemed sufficient punishment.
I’ve got to admit I was surprised with this ruling. Extremely happy with it, but surprised. For me there were two issues that I didn’t like about the incident.
Firstly, while the clean out was not a direct contact to the head, it was a dumb move and completely unnecessary. Regardless of what eventuated in this action, there was no way that anything Barrett did was going to affect the ruck or the ball coming out to the 9.
Secondly, I personally think that the laws of rugby need to change so that once a maul or ruck has become stationary then players are not allowed to join it. We’ve seen time after time how a player will go charging into a stalled ruck at full speed with no effect whatsoever, except endangering the players in the ruck who are bound and just have to take the contact.
Now I get rugby is a contact sport, and I love the contact. But, it has to be for something that will change the situation. I love the counter rucking and there’s almost nothing better than seeing a team stuff up their support and the defenders getting the advantage and winning the ball because their counter ruck pushed the supporting players away. (a good hard legal tackle that leaves the opposition on the floor with no breath is better) But counter rucking only works if timed right. Once the ruck is set and two or three players are in position and settled there is no way that anyone, even a big guy like Tupou, will change the outcome by smashing into the ruck. All they will do is potentially injure the players who are there.
I think Barrett was extremely lucky. Yes he drove into the contact while the ball was still there, and yes he targeted the shoulder of Marx, not the head. However, the ruck had stopped. The ball was well protected and there was never any way that he would have been able to move Marx out of the ruck. Even if he had, there were at least three other players protecting the ball and they would still have been there so NZ could never win the ball from his actions.
It was a pointless action that was never going to enable the ABs to win possession and the only outcome from what was ever going to be the chance of a sanction that would hurt him and the team. Now I really rate Barrett. I think he has been the form lock in the RC and has demonstrated that, at his best, he is one of the best locks in World Rugby. However, this incident demonstrated that he still has a way to go before he can take over the mantle that Whitelock will leave when he departs after the RWC.
How things change: Fiji ranked ahead of England, Wales and Wallabies
So after this weekend we have seen a massive movement of the world rankings in rugby. Ireland lead the latest rankings, followed by France and South Africa, with the All Blacks in fourth place. Fiji jumped ahead of England and who are down from sixth place to eighth while Australia drop one slot to ninth and Wales remain 10th.
Now while all of this has little meaning in the grand scheme of things it does place a little bit more emphasis on Australia in their pool. With Fiji at 7, Australia at 9, Wales at 10 and Georgia at 11, the only real rest team is Portugal at 15. This means that all of the teams will need to play their 1st team in all of the games except Portugal, and need to be worried that this won’t bite them.
No rest games means that they need to be very careful about who they target and when and may lead to some upsets. It’s certainly interesting times
