The Ruggers

[jasonu]

Like all pro sportspersons??

Mostly yes.
But not Mick Doohan or Wayne Gardener.

[oldrider]

The AB's under current regime have always simply applied pressure and then capitalised on opposition errors at speed and efficiency.

To the Pom's credit - they only really made one error and the AB's took 7 points from it.

The Pom's played pressure rugby for almost the full 80 minutes (previously unheard of?) and were quite unfortunate not to have accumulated more (14?) points.

The reason for the turn around in the English sides performance was a "pair of rejected former Aussie and NZ coaches" Jones and Mitchell and both had a point to prove.

The AB's can still save face and the rugby high ground by clearly defeating Wales with a high scoring display of "entertaining performance filled rugby" for 3rd place.

The rugby world will then be forgiving, especially if the final is as boring a performance as was the S'th Africa Wales display last night!

The loss to England might then simply become an unfortunate glitch like the one when France broke the mould in Wales? -

Best England performance that I have personally ever seen, hope they can carry it through to the final and clearly win the World Rugby Cup.

[austingtir]

The AB's under current regime have always simply applied pressure and then capitalised on opposition errors at speed and efficiency.

To the Pom's credit - they only really made one error and the AB's took 7 points from it.

The Pom's played pressure rugby for almost the full 80 minutes (previously unheard of?) and were quite unfortunate not to have accumulated more (14?) points.

The reason for the turn around in the English sides performance was a "pair of rejected former Aussie and NZ coaches" Jones and Mitchell and both had a point to prove.

The AB's can still save face and the rugby high ground by clearly defeating Wales with a high scoring display of "entertaining performance filled rugby" for 3rd place.

The rugby world will then be forgiving, especially if the final is as boring a performance as was the S'th Africa Wales display last night!

The loss to England might then simply become an unfortunate glitch like the one when France broke the mould in Wales? -

Best England performance that I have personally ever seen, hope they can carry it through to the final and clearly win the World Rugby Cup.

Not to take away anything from England performance because it was pretty much perfect. But we will see how good they actually are this weekend. Im picking the AB's fucked up tactically and personal wise more so than they were that great. SA will go into the game on the weekend looking to do to England what they did to us. That said I think England clearly has a better all round game than SA as all SA seems intent on doing atm is box kicking everyone to sleep.


The AB's made some incredible tactical and selection errors in this game and I think that is where it begins and ends. We could of beaten England if our tactics and selections were correct. The fact of the matter is they were WAY off!!

A couple of things out of Hansens hands. Liam Squire ruling himself out and Frank's slightly early demise I think contributed a great deal. If those two alone were fit and on form I think this game could of been quite different than it was.

The biggest error of all for me was tactics closely followed by not selecting Ben Smith and Ryan Crotty aswell as selecting Tall barrett at 6 which did nothing.

But tactically Hansen just got it way wrong and its hard to understand given his past direct experience of this happening before.

How do we go into a semi or even a quarter for that matter thinking we are just going to blow teams off the park in knock out rugby?? AB's coaches need to realize we cant go into big games in knock out rugby like this with the idea of just blowing teams like Eng and SA off the park as it usually doesnt work like that. Those tactics might work against Australia and Ireland but not those other two teams.


The thing that's most concerning about England win over us is that is an incredibly young squad. What happened should not of happened given the experience throughout the AB's.

[Berries]

We could of beaten England if our tactics and selections were correct.

Might as well call it a win then eh?

[Berries]

Congrats on the three-peat.

[oldrider]

- Thankfully that tournament is done and dusted - very boring and disappointing final to watch - how did that England team ever beat the AB's so convincingly? -

[austingtir]

- Thankfully that tournament is done and dusted - very boring and disappointing final to watch - how did that England team ever beat the AB's so convincingly? -

Just proves Hansen got it wrong and has been getting it wrong for about 2 years. (its just that many international teams werent good enough to fully expose us)
The only mistake the AB's made was not getting rid of him 2 years prior to this cup.
It boggles the mind what in the hell he was thinking playing england with that gameplan and selections.

SA exposed the inexperience at the core of that England team just like England exposed incredibly poor coaching and decision making by AB leadership.
Hansen has been going through the motions since the last worldcup and Tew and co should of realized this and moved him along.


I actually quite enjoyed that final. It was good to see England get smashed after smashing us and by a team we beat earlier in the tournament....

Faith in the rugby gods restored.

[Katman]

At least it put paid to a certain someone's 'swing loooooow' crooning.

[Woodman]

At least it put paid to a certain someone's 'swing loooooow' crooning.

Shit yeah. To be fair I tried supporting England on the strength of the abs game alone, but just couldn't do it. Well done S.A..

[ellipsis]

Shit yeah. To be fair I tried supporting England on the strength of the abs game alone, but just couldn't do it. Well done S.A..

...being impressed with the boring, hard man approach that finally worked for them would suffice, wouldn't it...supporting England...supporting soft cock NH rugby, fuck no...love the fact that their stranglehold on rugby rules and protocol have been questioned deeply, yet again...long live SH domination...

[Laava]

The great shame tho is some of the bad loser attitudes that are in the media spotlight, some players, some journos...they couldn't just suck it up and be proud of what they had achieved.

[Woodman]

The great shame tho is some of the bad loser attitudes that are in the media spotlight, some players, some journos...they couldn't just suck it up and be proud of what they had achieved.

England aren't just bad losers, but bad winners too, in fact they are even bad draw_ers and bad "almost" bet the All Blacks ers.

[TheDemonLord]

At least it put paid to a certain someone's 'swing loooooow' crooning.

Well, England played their Final against the ABs, SA played their final against us.

Everything that had 'worked' when we played the ABs, simply didn't when we played SA, they did to us what we did to the ABs.

They played out of their skin and deservedly won.

However, on the subject of World Rugby - isn't it wonderful:

NZ Beat SA convincingly in the Pool matches.
England beat NZ convincingly in the Semis.
SA beat England convincingly in the Final.

[Viking01]

I had to drop my Subaru into the garage this morning, to get a new power
steering pump fitted. The Service Manager is South African, and I know him
quite well, having talked plenty about South Africa.

After the usual salutations, and discussion of the game on Saturday night,
he asked me "what do you call an Englishman with a bottle of champagne
in his hand? "

Apparently the answer is "a waiter".... 8-)

[oldrider]

All Blacks are still the benchmark of the game and as ever - the team to beat. - South Africa didn't do that at the RWC 2019! -