Rugby World Cup general discussion

Machpants

Entirely dependant on stats, and which stats you choose to compare but

https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/67263233?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

Billy Tell

BB has made every team of the tournament I have seen but never found universal favour on this forum.

Nepia

@Billy-Tell said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:

BB has made every team of the tournament I have seen but never found universal favour on this forum.

Overseas judges are weirdly enthralled with him based on his breakout season in 2016, which even carried him to a second world player of the year award that really was undeserved. He wasn't the best 15 in the RWC.

Billy Tell

People ignore the minnows a bit but from memory the Georgian 15 was pretty good or was it Portugal? Ramos and Keenan are very good. Keenan’s kicking would have been mighty handy at times.

taniwharugby

@mariner4life yeah I do think for whatever reason, Fozzie had a plan, and it was centered on the RWC, but wonder if some of the changes were made too late for them to bed in as instinct when under pressure.

Too often under Fozzies reign we have panicked when the heat came on, and this happened on the weekend.

This year has been a mixed bag of performances from us, and there have been subtle improvements, but not enough time for whatbthey were trying to achieve to bed in.

But then you wonder how much impact Schmidt and Ryan have had on things too.

Duluth

@Billy-Tell said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:

BB has made every team of the tournament I have seen but never found universal favour on this forum.

He's better than he's been rated on here. I think it's mix of comparing him to his previous highs, him being blamed for obvious team tactics and a few posters seem to really dislike him

Like RM he had too many error's offsetting the good stuff in the final. Thought he played well in QF & SF.
Somewhere between OK and goodish for the tournament. Not worthy of the negativity or a place in the team of the tournament

canefan

@taniwharugby said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:

@mariner4life yeah I do think for whatever reason, Fozzie had a plan, and it was centered on the RWC, but wonder if some of the changes were made too late for them to bed in as instinct when under pressure.

Too often under Fozzies reign we have panicked when the heat came on, and this happened on the weekend.

This year has been a mixed bag of performances from us, and there have been subtle improvements, but not enough time for whatbthey were trying to achieve to bed in.

But then you wonder how much impact Schmidt and Ryan have had on things too.

We never really settled on a consistent playing style. I don't know why that is but as HC Foster should have set that

voodoo

@Dodge said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:

https://twitter.com/maanomadima/status/1718578252187365686

Well this is a perfect fucking summary of what happened in this tournament. Flats is a top journalist / pundit. I hated thinking he was right the first time I saw this, I wanted France or Ireland to go all the way (I never thought we had a chance), but fuck me the simplicity of this message is perfect

@mariner4life

It’s funny though eh?

I also picked SA to win the whole thing a couple of months ago. For all the same reasons, knockout rugby, kick goals from 60m, solid defense blah blah blah

And yet, we were a solitary point off them in a game where absolutely nothing went right for us. We dropped ball stone cold (Jordan, ALB, Richie), threw a bunch of sloppy passes, inexplicably stopped contesting line outs, had a try disallowed, got the short-end of the stick from the officials (most believe) but either way had to play with 14 for 60mins, and we missed 2 kicks to give us a lead that we could potentially have defended

It kind of raises 2 questions/observations.

Were SA actually as good as we are all making out?

And

Ireland must have watched that performance from both SA and NZ thought “what if”

nostrildamus

@Dodge said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:

https://twitter.com/maanomadima/status/1718578252187365686

Well this is a perfect fucking summary of what happened in this tournament. Flats is a top journalist / pundit. I hated thinking he was right the first time I saw this, I wanted France or Ireland to go all the way (I never thought we had a chance), but fuck me the simplicity of this message is perfect

Maybe, but I loved the twitter replies

1 guy who has never been afraid to speak against the noise. He openly said in January already that Sputh Africa has such a dangerously good talent pipeline, if we retain Rassie then we will dominate for years.
Only IRB changing rules to rugby league will stop our dominance

nostrildamus

Um if SA coaches were so brilliant tactically, shouldn't they have picked Pollard at the start? (Yeah, yeah, Rassie points to trophies on the wall as answer)...

mariner4life

@voodoo we're better than some want to admit

Ireland have no idea what the pressure of a RWC final does. They had their shot and we beat them

The final rammed home that there is absolutely nothing between the top 4 sides,

canefan

@mariner4life said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:

@voodoo we're better than some want to admit

Ireland have no idea what the pressure of a RWC final does. They had their shot and we beat them

The final rammed home that there is absolutely nothing between the top 4 sides,

I'm increasingly convinced that our tactics on the day were a significant contributor to us not winning. If Razor can fix that, we will be dangerous

MiketheSnow

@Dodge said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:

https://twitter.com/maanomadima/status/1718578252187365686

Well this is a perfect fucking summary of what happened in this tournament. Flats is a top journalist / pundit. I hated thinking he was right the first time I saw this, I wanted France or Ireland to go all the way (I never thought we had a chance), but fuck me the simplicity of this message is perfect

Hopefully by the next RWC cycle Pougach will be fucking put out to pasture and Flats will be running the show

He's brilliant

And funny as fuck too

If you have a chance to see him live, do it

Billy Webb

@nostrildamus said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:

Um if SA coaches were so brilliant tactically, shouldn't they have picked Pollard at the start? (Yeah, yeah, Rassie points to trophies on the wall as answer)...

Pollard wasn't originally picked in the squad because at the time of selection he was out injured and had been for some time. And the Boks have a policy* of not picking injured players

Same went for Am and Lood de Jager.
They were though all placed on the standby list.

You could argue Kolisi was the exception. But by some miracle, he came back from knee surgery and was able to play a bit just before squad selection.

*Note: the actual policy I know of is that if you are not fit enough to train on the Monday, you don't get picked for the weekend.
Cases in point would be Vincent Koch not making it to this final, and in the 2019 edition, Cheslin Kolbe not playing in the Semi-final.

Billy Webb

@Machpants said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:

We've had 9 10 world cups, but only 8 captains, has someone died? Nope, it's just the 2 x double Captain power!

https://twitter.com/vdelailovu/status/1717299193428296133

Freshened up your post for you.
Nice thing is that photo will last until 2027 too.

nostrildamus

@Billy-Webb said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:

@Machpants said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:

We've had 9 10 world cups, but only 8 captains, has someone died? Nope, it's just the 2 x double Captain power!

https://twitter.com/vdelailovu/status/1717299193428296133

Freshened up your post for you.
Nice thing is that photo will last until 2027 too.

How thoughtful and generous of you! Try not to dwell on the new potential horror that Tom Foley the TMO can call back a play no matter how many phases (days ago) it was!

Bones

Smuts

@nostrildamus said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:

@Billy-Webb said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:

@Machpants said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:

We've had 9 10 world cups, but only 8 captains, has someone died? Nope, it's just the 2 x double Captain power!

https://twitter.com/vdelailovu/status/1717299193428296133

Freshened up your post for you.
Nice thing is that photo will last until 2027 too.

How thoughtful and generous of you! Try not to dwell on the new potential horror that Tom Foley the TMO can call back a play no matter how many phases (days ago) it was!

TMO’s are a blight on the game.

Imagine having that power and not going back to penalize the 97 Lions’ scrum right off Newlands in the first test and award both Russell Bennett’s tries that were wrongly called back for forward passes.

Sort Bill Youngs out while you’re at it. Cowards.

Catogrande

@Bones

It would be good to see stats for the number of shit kicks per game. Pretty sure England would top that list too

Smuts

@Catogrande said in Rugby World Cup general discussion:

@Bones

It would be good to see stats for the number of shit kicks per game. Pretty sure England would top that list too

On an absolute basis, maybe.

But plenty of supposedly attacking teams put up a huge number of ale-house balls. back & midBarrett, Mounga and Jordan all hoofed and hoped with overlaps in the final.

And Kriel’s worst play of the RWC was his shocking effort after Kwagga’s turnover.

I was many beers in but I also vaguely recall one of the Irish players putting up a nothing kick right at the death when he had space to exploit. You could almost see his gears stripping as he tried and failed to come up with anything better to do. Pressure’s a bastard.

It’s a long while ago now but Scotland probably were the worst wasters of good attacking ball with low percentage kicks.

The Silver Fern

Rugby World Cup general discussion