Who are your favourites for the Semi Finals of the RWC at the moment...?

The start of the Tri-Nations and an Ozzie loss to Samoa have added a few interesting permutations into the mix. ABs are still favourites by a country mile on current form.

Some people base their theories on History though and there are a few teams that have made semis and finals more often than others, will it all just be a little bit of history repeating?

The PI teams look stronger than ever, can they do it?

Is there an unexpected Dark Horse out there who could surprise us all...?

Pick Four Teams from the POLL of who you think will be the Semi Finalists.

Samoa could really wreak havoc here IMO and get to the semi's

NZ and Australia plus 2 from
France, England, SA and Ireland

Forget the rest

Here is the RWC 2011 format

Pool A

Canada
France
Japan
New Zealand
Tonga

Pool B

Argentina
England
Georgia
Romania
Scotland

Pool C

Australia
Ireland
Italy
Russia
United States

Pool D

Fiji
Namibia
Samoa
South Africa
Wales

Quarter Finals Knock out stages...!

QF1
Winner Pool C
Runner-up Pool D

QF2
Winner Pool B
Runner-up Pool A

QF3
Winner Pool D
Runner-up Pool C

QF4
Winner Pool A
Runner-up Pool B


Semis

Winner QF1
Winner QF2

Winner QF3
Winner QF4

Winners of the two Semis play the Final

New Zealand for sure. After that I've gone for Australia, England and Ireland.

I think England will top their group and beat France in the quarters and I'm hopeful that Ireland will get their too either by upsetting either Australia or more likely South Africa.

I pretty much agree with Geoff except I wouldn't totally rule out Somoa, Argentina or Wales.

NZ (after beating Sco/Arg in the Qtr)
Aus (after beating Wales/Samoa in tht Qtr)
SA (will be favourites to beat Ireland in the Qtr)
Eng/France (tough call in the Qtr)

Image of Rugby World Cup

Spoiler:

NZ, Aus, SA and England.

I don't see any major surprises at all about the last 4.

Kiwireddevil wrote:NZ (after beating Sco/Arg in the Qtr)
Aus (after beating Wales/Samoa in tht Qtr)
SA (will be favourites to beat Ireland in the Qtr)
Eng/France (tough call in the Qtr)

I concur, Sir.

Any posts disagreeing with that, delete them.

NZ, Aus, SA and France for me.

I agree with the consensus, NZ, SA, Aus and Eng.

Not a particular adventurous selection - NZ,SA,AUS and ENG.

Of course France could make it but in a Eng vs FR game I would always go for England.

biltongbek wrote:

Kiwireddevil wrote:NZ (after beating Sco/Arg in the Qtr)
Aus (after beating Wales/Samoa in tht Qtr)
SA (will be favourites to beat Ireland in the Qtr)
Eng/France (tough call in the Qtr)

I concur, Sir.

Any posts disagreeing with that, delete them.

I think this pretty much goes on form with the higher ranking team winning each encounter in the group stage and quarters. I'd like there to be some form of 'upset' to really set up good buzz about the competition and draw in the neutrals. So with that in mind, I'm hoping France produce one great performance. Either beating NZ in the group, then leading to NZ destroying england in the quarters in ruthless flowing rugby fashion. Or France beating England in the quarters (I can't see how they can achieve this without it being an entertaining game for a neutral). But these aren't really upsets (if France beat NZ they will still be in the competition). Upsets will really appear if Australia and SA don't make the semi finals. Which means Ireland-Wales-Samoa upsetting the progression at some stage. Ideally defeating either SA or Oz in the pool stage (only 1 upset though) giving us a great QF in SA v Australia. I'm backing Ireland (as I am Irish) to pull out a win against a SH team in this rwc so my Semi finalists are predicted as;
NZ
France
Ireland
South Africa

Kiwireddevil wrote:NZ (after beating Sco/Arg in the Qtr)
Aus (after beating Wales/Samoa in tht Qtr)
SA (will be favourites to beat Ireland in the Qtr)
Eng/France (tough call in the Qtr)

While I would hope Ireland will beat either Aus or SA, I still must admit that we will never be favourites to do so.

In an ideal world Ireland would beat Aus and Italy, then Wales/Samoa, then England/France. Aus will knock out SA and NZ before getting beaten by us for the second time in the Final.

In the Real world I would agree with the Kiwi.

Actually.... While we are dreaming, Ireland to beat NZ for the 1st time in history....In the WC final.

I went for New Zealand, Australia, Scotland and Wales. Just coz I can

I'm gonna say Ireland, Australia, France, New Zealand.

Just out of interest, has anyone except Irish posters voted for Ireland to reach thte semis? Are Irish posters seeing something that the rest of us are simply missing?

[quote="AsLongAsBut100ofUs"]Just out of interest, has anyone except Irish posters voted for Ireland to reach thte semis? Are Irish posters seeing something that the rest of us are simply missing? X





Yes - It just might be the fact that they tore England to shreds in the last game yet England appear to feature quite a lot in the "guess" semi-finals.

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:Just out of interest, has anyone except Irish posters voted for Ireland to reach thte semis? Are Irish posters seeing something that the rest of us are simply missing?

I think we all see the same thing, it just depends how you chose to interpret it...

From an Irish perspective the thought of failing to reach at least the SF just doesn't bear thinking about, regardless of how tough our draw is.

[quote="RubyGuby"]

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:Just out of interest, has anyone except Irish posters voted for Ireland to reach thte semis? Are Irish posters seeing something that the rest of us are simply missing? X





Yes - It just might be the fact that they tore England to shreds in the last game yet England appear to feature quite a lot in the "guess" semi-finals.

Ruby, that's true, but would one game alone lead to such a large divergence in views?

[quote="RubyGuby"]

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:Just out of interest, has anyone except Irish posters voted for Ireland to reach thte semis? Are Irish posters seeing something that the rest of us are simply missing? X





Yes - It just might be the fact that they tore England to shreds in the last game yet England appear to feature quite a lot in the "guess" semi-finals.

Do I really need to explain why so many people have gone for England?

roddersm wrote:

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:Just out of interest, has anyone except Irish posters voted for Ireland to reach thte semis? Are Irish posters seeing something that the rest of us are simply missing?

I think we all see the same thing, it just depends how you chose to interpret it...

From an Irish perspective the thought of failing to reach at least the SF just doesn't bear thinking about, regardless of how tough our draw is.

rodders, very true Just out of interest, from an Irish perspective, why is it that 'failing to reach at least the SF just doesn't bear thinking about'? Is it the wait of expectation that comes from being at the top/near the top of NH rugby for the last X years?

Beshocked

yes

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:Just out of interest, from an Irish perspective, why is it that 'failing to reach at least the SF just doesn't bear thinking about'? Is it the wait of expectation that comes from being at the top/near the top of NH rugby for the last X years?

Yes that plus the talent we have in our squad is far beyond what we've had before. This is the last chance for world class stalwarts like O'Driscoll, POC, DOC, D'arcy, Wallace, ROG etc. to mount a serious WC challenge. We also have a number of top players in their primes like Bowe, Heaslip, Ferris and potential world class guys like O'Brien, Sexton, Earls etc. there is a very good mix of youth and experience there.

I don't think there's any doubt we didn't perform in 2007 so it's unthinkable that we don't perform a lot better this time. I'm confident that if we do play well then we'll have a good chance of getting into the latter stages.

If we play our best stuff and go out in the QF I can live with that but I believe we have the players and potential to go a wee bit further but we'll have to see.

rodders, pretty much the same squad that delivered 3rd in the 6Ns, albeit you're ranked 4th in the world?

I don't see why England are ahead of France in this poll. France will only have to play england, scotland or argentina to get through to the semi's. Whereas England might not even get out of their group and might have to play NZ to get through to the semi's.

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:rodders, pretty much the same squad that delivered 3rd in the 6Ns, albeit you're ranked 4th in the world?

The 6N table doesn't lie so I'm not going to make excuses or debate what went on in each game. I'm confident in the squad of players we have to deliver the goods, albeit I have some concerns about the judgement of our management.

I should add though that I had similar feelings of excitment and expectation going into the last WC so I won't be counting my chickens! This squad is much better though even if a couple of the players aren't as good as they were in 2007.

I do genuinely believe we are good enough to reach the latter stages if we play close to our potential though.

Its about the big picture Asbo. Ireland is a leading rugby nation. We don't really do soccer. GAA are summer sports. We are producing world class players like clockwork since the IRFU embraced professionalism. We've delivered multiple Heineken Cups, Magners Leagues, won the Grandslam, put the likes of Australia and South Africa in their place on a number of occasions etc.

Compare that to the likes of England, Wales, Italy or Scotland. Footballing nations who can claim occasion scalps.

The large divergence in views just might be related to the nationality of those voting. I know that's a long shot but I'm sure it plays a part - And whilst we are talking about accuracy Wales should be represented by .84% and not 0% as illustrated - Of course all that will change after this weekend as Wales see themselves elevated to joint 2nd favourites

red_stag wrote:Its about the big picture Asbo. Ireland is a leading rugby nation. We don't really do soccer. GAA are summer sports. We are producing world class players like clockwork since the IRFU embraced professionalism. We've delivered multiple Heineken Cups, Magners Leagues, won the Grandslam, put the likes of Australia and South Africa in their place on a number of occasions etc.

Compare that to the likes of England, Wales, Italy or Scotland. Footballing nations who can claim occasion scalps.

Just remember when the backlash against the Irish fans starts, it was stag who posted this, not me.....

Red Stag: Wales a footballing nation!!! Since when??????? , we're in with the Faroe Islands and Luxembourg

red_stag wrote: put the likes of Australia and South Africa in their place on a number of occasions etc.

Redstag, how I enjoy reading your comments. No one will ever doubt your allegiance to Ireland.

Whilst, I would have to agree that Ireland are probably on paper the best team in the northern hemisphere, and perhaps only just losing out to England and France in terms of depth, i really find it hard to understand how there is such masive confidence in the Irish Rugby team from it's own fans when the International team had a poor 6N.

Ok you slaughtered England in the last game, but struggled against Scotland and Italy and were beaten at home by a shaky France who were managed by a madman and lost to Wales who themselves were poor by their own standards.

Sure your teams have won a grand Slam and a few Heineken Cups, but I'm with Asbo on this one. I must be missing something because I can't see you guys in the Semis.......

hope you do well though.... fellow NH and Celtic nation but I just can't see it.

Ah look I know we're not world beaters. France, NZ and Australia reign supreme really. SA are a traditionally great rugby nation but their power is waning greatly as the need for an enforcer dies and race issues are still not resolved.

RubyGuby wrote:Red Stag: Wales a footballing nation!!! Since when???????

See the crowds Swansea and Cardiff City get compared to their football counterparts.

Rugger - I take it you forgot your performance against Scotland at HQ - Ireland fans have at least as much right as England fans going into this RWC based on recent results - They were also not humiliated against the touring SA team.

Stag - See the international crowds for rugby and football in Wales

The Faroe Islands are actually a seed above ye RubyGuby! (http://www.uefa.com/worldcup/news/newsid=1654197.html) Couldn't believe that when I saw it. How can a country that produced Giggs and now have Gareth Bale be behind a Brian Kerr led bunch of tiny islands that have semi-professional players at best.

That's my football rant of the day anyway. On the lovely article, my favourites are NZ, Australia, SA and France but I genuinely believe we (Ireland) have a strong and realistic chance of getting to the semi and England should also be confident about beating France in the 1/4's too (just my gut feeling that I'm going for France at the minute - they always play amazing one game)

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:Sure your teams have won a grand Slam and a few Heineken Cups, but I'm with Asbo on this one. I must be missing something because I can't see you guys in the Semis.......

Radge no offence but for a Scotsman to be so dismissive of the significance of the Grandslam and Heineken cup is pretty ironic. Maybe when Scotland and it's team starting winning silverware you can start dismissing other people achievements. If you don't like or rate our team and players then fine but there's no need to be patronising, especially considering how little success scotland has had in recent times.

red_stag wrote:Its about the big picture Asbo. Ireland is a leading rugby nation. We don't really do soccer. GAA are summer sports. We are producing world class players like clockwork since the IRFU embraced professionalism. We've delivered multiple Heineken Cups, Magners Leagues, won the Grandslam, put the likes of Australia and South Africa in their place on a number of occasions etc.

Compare that to the likes of England, Wales, Italy or Scotland. Footballing nations who can claim occasion scalps.

Interesting descirption, Staggy, not one that would have sprung to my mind! Don't disagree re quality of a number of your players, nor your successes in NH club competition, but you've one a single grandslam, so at international level, all I see is inconsistency? Your win/loss ratios against Aus and SA are ok at home recently, but no great shakes abroad? I genuinely think I must be missing something

RubyGuby wrote:Rugger - I take it you forgot your performance against Scotland at HQ - Ireland fans have at least as much right as England fans going into this RWC based on recent results - They were also not humiliated against the touring SA team.

Neither was mine! We beat them too!

I'd back up Roddersm there. I don't want to sound too mean but our 4th inadequately financed and backward province managed to finish ahead of Glasgow and a couple of points behind Edinburgh last season. Our other three finished 1, 2, and 3 in the league - one of which won it, another won the HC, while the other got to the 1/4 final in the HC. Our six nations was certainly a mixed bag but there's plenty of valid reasons for Irish fans to be optimistic.

RubyGuby wrote:Stag - See the international crowds for rugby and football in Wales

Ah yes the fair weather fans. No Wales is a footballing nation that will draw out the daffodil suit and cowboy hat wearing brigade when the cameras are out at the Millenium. But it is football at the heart of Wales. A tiny little square from Newport to Swansea to Cardiff to Llanelli is all the rugby in Wales. Wales have about as much interest in rugby as Italy which also is only played really in one region.

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote: but you've one a single grandslam, so at international level, all I see is inconsistency?

NZ have only won 1 World Cup. However they are still the best in the world.

We have an amazing 6 Nations record second only to an amazing French team spurred on by a passion for the game and who embrace not just French culture but the players play for the pride of Cataluyna and Basque regions. A very proud people - being 2nd to them is no shame.

roddersm wrote:Radge no offence but for a Scotsman to be so dismissive of the significance of the Grandslam and Heineken cup is pretty ironic. Maybe when Scotland and it's team starting winning silverware you can start dismissing other people achievements. If you don't like or rate our team and players then fine but there's no need to be patronising, especially considering how little success scotland has had in recent times.

Ok, first things first. I like Ireland as a team and your players. I also rate you very highly as a team. However recently you have been inconsistent, a lot like the French. The team that played England in the 6N for instance is not the same team I watched against Wales for instance, or Italy or Scotland. So by that logic you played 1 good game and 3 poorer games.

Secondly, I would love for Scotland to win a 6N grandslam, probably more so than winning a world cup.

Thirdly winning European championships is a massive acheivement for any team.

I think you have just got me all wrong. I just feel that Ireland as a team have had a poor season by your standards and even you must admit could have done better. It's based on that theory that I can't understand where the confidence is coming from. I mean no offense, just trying to figure out why you guys have such unwavering confidence in your team.

red_stag wrote:Its about the big picture Asbo. Ireland is a leading rugby nation. We don't really do soccer. GAA are summer sports. We are producing world class players like clockwork since the IRFU embraced professionalism. We've delivered multiple Heineken Cups, Magners Leagues, won the Grandslam, put the likes of Australia and South Africa in their place on a number of occasions etc.

Compare that to the likes of England, Wales, Italy or Scotland. Footballing nations who can claim occasion scalps.

All these "world class players" and they still finished 3rd in the 6N this year, almost losing to Italy and losing to Wales. Well done on beating Australia and South Africa 5 times in total since professionalism started,, but you've not beaten them away.

I'm sure England have managed more HEC winners than Ireland since professionalism started and their clubs didn't compete in two of the competitions and I'm sure that they've beaten SA and Australia as well, home AND away.

Where are all the football fans for a Welsh football international ?

Nottins - re: England yes traditionally they were very strong. But like SA they are a team on the decline and really rugby fights too many battles in England. There are signs that they are rebuilding well but controversay off pitch may dampen those dreams.

With regards to 3rd it happens sometimes. Cheating from Welsh was reason for defeat. France are inconsistent champions who were on song against us. In typical French fashion they went from hot to not against Italy.

red_stag wrote:
We have an amazing 6 Nations record second only to an amazing French team spurred on by a passion for the game and who embrace not just French culture but the players play for the pride of Cataluyna and Basque regions. A very proud people - being 2nd to them is no shame.

Amazing is a bit over the top but lets face it much of the optimism in the English camp comes from winning 4 from 5 in the 6N, something we have done numerous times in the past decade. It's interesting how we were percieved as chokers and underachievers for failing to nail that elusive 5th victory but England are seen as World beaters. I'm not dismissing Englands 6N title but I think there's a bit of double standards as to how both teams are percieved.

It's easy too to dismiss the HEC as insignificant when you're not winning it but lets face it Munster and Leinsters record is exceptional.

The WC is a different animal but the fact that we have been pretty successful at European level for a while now and have fairly recent wins against the two SH teams we are most likely to face en route to the latter stages is a reason to be confident, if not overly so.

red_stag wrote:

We have an amazing 6 Nations record second only to an amazing French team spurred on by a passion for the game and who embrace not just French culture but the players play for the pride of Cataluyna and Basque regions. A very proud people - being 2nd to them is no shame.

What's amazing about it ? You've only won it once, or do you mean you have an amazing record of not winning it and mostly being the bridesmaid ?

Sadly I think it will most likely be the three 3 Nations teams and whoever wins out of France and England in the quarter final.

No bother radge. Sorry for the tirade, I just think people are too quick to ignore or belittle the hard earned success that the Irish teams have had in the past decade. You are entitled to your view.