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Rugby World Cup 2015 |OT|
- Thread starter phisheep
- Start date
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Australia mate. Injures will kill Wales.
Looks short.
Maybe not on that reverse shot. Not definitive on that shot, but looks short on every other angle.
Of course he gives it. Why change the story of the evening?
A one sided refereeing performance that Owens would have been proud of.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
The commentators do - they called out every Fiji put in and not one of England's
Don't think they played any since the Bledisoe Cup.
Fiji have some exciting players but they played poorly as a team tonight. So many basic errors in possession. England deserved the win but we're a bit of a miss themselves. I suppose it can be put down to nerves and it being the first proper game of the new, but they've a worrying amount of things that need drastic improvement.
Key points:
-5 points for England, could be vital in the final table.
-England will need to be better, scrum a major weakness it appears. Need to improve by next weekend.
-Fiji have spirit and some exceptional individuals but are not good enough to challenge for top two.
-Nadolo OP pls nerf.
-5 points for England, could be vital in the final table.
-England will need to be better, scrum a major weakness it appears. Need to improve by next weekend.
-Fiji have spirit and some exceptional individuals but are not good enough to challenge for top two.
-Nadolo OP pls nerf.
LabouredSubterfuge
Member
Not perfect but good to get the bonus point.
Can see others not managing it against Fiji.
Can see others not managing it against Fiji.
Musha_Soturi
Member
Overall I enjoyed that game. England deserved the win. A good opening game.
Still not sure why England weren't down to 10 men for the neck roll at least for 10 minutes. It's not as if they didn't say beforehand they'd been severely punishing it*
*except for the home team of course.
And for the final try, the question sent up was 'Try, Yes or No'. Not is there any reason why I can't award this, I'm not sure the evidence was definitive enough to answer the former especially with camera foreshortening. You had 6 shots where it looked short, and one shot where it looked like it brushed the line.
*except for the home team of course.
And for the final try, the question sent up was 'Try, Yes or No'. Not is there any reason why I can't award this, I'm not sure the evidence was definitive enough to answer the former especially with camera foreshortening. You had 6 shots where it looked short, and one shot where it looked like it brushed the line.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Too early to tell. I want to see all five teams play first. (On this showing, probably not England though - too many errors, penalties, turnovers that better teams will punish.)
Edit: I rarely agree with Clive Woodward, but he's right in saying that Fiji try should have stood because the referee had already awarded it.
LiquidSolid
Member
Nah, each country has three teams (international, sevens and one more team of their choosing, could be their U20 or B team if they want) and any player that plays for those teams is from then on qualified only to play for them. So as soon as he first played for Fiji in 2010, he couldn't play for any other international team.
Sevens making it into the Olympics did create a loophole that can allow players to change qualifications but they have to play a certain number of Sevens tournaments to do so. That's how Tim Nanai-Williams qualified for Samoa, even though he played for the NZ sevens team a few years ago.
Anyway, based on that performance, Australia are going to crush this English team. Wales should be competitive too, even without Halfpenny and Webb.
You wanted to eject 5 players for that? Damn, you're really strict
I knew I'd fucked that. Got football on the brain atm. The point is if the refereeing is going to be this one sided for the big teams, it's going to make the first 3 weeks of this tournament fucking unbearable to watch. Perhaps it's just home team advantage but it's annoying, Rugby is probably the easiest sport for a ref to weight in one teams favour because so many of the rules are a) very technical and b) reliant on the refs interpretation.
Aside from a couple of times at the breakdown, England got pretty much every 50/50 and most of the 60/40 decisions tonight. That's going to get tedious quickly.
LabouredSubterfuge
Member
Well yeah but that's not really how it works though.
Macadinho94
Member
Yeah I remember Isa Nacewa played like 2 minutes in a World Cup game in 2003 for Fiji and that ruled him out for declaring for the AB's and Ireland later on.
LiquidSolid
Member
I'm not really sure. On the one hand, I'm not a fan of the way some countries (especially Ireland) have taken advantage of it to encourage their teams to sign players they can poach. On the other, I think players should be allowed to play for their naturalised home if they've really moved there, especially players who relocate to Tier 2 countries (Japan has a number of NZ born players, for example).
Maybe an idea is to create stricter laws just for Tier 1 teams? So Tier 2 keep the current rules, where they can sign foreign players if they've live there for 3 years or if their parents or grandparents came from there. Whereas Tier 1 teams can only sign foreign players if they've lived there for 5 years or if their parents came from there.
Hence the "based on that performance" part.
I'm not really sure. On the one hand, I'm not a fan of the way some countries (especially Ireland) have taken advantage of it to encourage their teams to sign players they can poach. On the other, I think players should be allowed to play for their naturalised home if they've really moved there, especially players who relocate to Tier 2 countries (Japan has a number of NZ born players, for example).
Maybe an idea is to create stricter laws just for Tier 1 teams? So Tier 2 keep the current rules, where they can sign foreign players if they've live there for 3 years or if their parents or grandparents came from there. Whereas Tier 1 teams can only sign foreign players if they've lived there for 5 years or if their parents came from there.
Hence the "based on that performance" part.
That's an interesting suggestion, not a bad way of resolving it.
Happy with that win. I only managed to watch the second half as I was at lunch with a client for the first but I was happy to see the dangerous running we had in the last 20 minutes.
I'm not sure I see the negative reaction. We got bullied a bit at the breakdown during specific periods but that was because we were attacking so much that we left ourselves vulnerable against a bunch of big Fijians in defence.
They're ranked 9th in the world and we just beat them and got five points.
Not sure what more we needed to do in a hugely nerve wracking opening game.
I'm not sure I see the negative reaction. We got bullied a bit at the breakdown during specific periods but that was because we were attacking so much that we left ourselves vulnerable against a bunch of big Fijians in defence.
They're ranked 9th in the world and we just beat them and got five points.
Not sure what more we needed to do in a hugely nerve wracking opening game.
Drop him for who? Tuilagi's banned, Burrell's been gash, Twelvetrees' is a complete bottler, Burgess is only good for 10-15 minute impacts and Lancaster hates Eastmond for some reason. Barritt is our only option at this stage; which is pretty damning.
As an aside our pack looks woefully underpowered at the moment, reminds of a boxer who's cut to much weight to make the limit. Not sure what regime the coaches have had them on to trying and get them more mobile but they'll struggle against even the Aussie's at this rate.
Yeah, but could be a few reasons for that. Fiji have a lot of power in that pack and we started really putting some shove on in that last 20 minutes.
Our starting pack has been struggling through the warm up games as well so it's not just the Fijian's size. The scrum improved around the 60 mark when some bigger lumps like Launchbury, Brookes the Vunipola's go subbed on.
Not that I think all those guys should should be starting but the forwards definitely need some extra ballast for the sake of balance.
tattooed_dwarf
Member
Any good streaming sites to watch games?
affleck1981
Member
Good match - love seeing some of the 'other' teams at world cups!
affleck1981
Member
Looked like that here as well - shame, was a great move!
TheSecondSpitter
Member
Wales should have some players back before they play the Wannabees, right?
Argentina are like a scratch lottery ticket -- they often disappoint but every now then they provide something pleasantly surprising.
Will still be missing Halfpenny and Webb.
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