A Golfer's view of the Rugby World Cup

First topic message reminder :

With the group stages of the Rugby world cup drawing to a close and we approach the sharp end of the tournament, I wonder how many people here are avidly following it

I know we have a rugby section here on V2 and it's pretty lively at the moment but I've noticed many golfers also seem to be keen on Rugby. I know at my club there are an awful lot of rugby fans and the big games get a large crowd to watch at the club - we even have a four nations weekend with matches between England Ireland Scotland and Wales

So who here is watching the RWC and who are we supporting?

I'm trying to work out my schedule for Saturday morning with the England/Scotland group decider at 8:30am and a tee-time at 11:10 - debating with myself whether I should watch the game at home, down the pub for breakfast or even have the (superior) breakfast at the club but then have perhaps an hour to kill before my tee-time!

Maybe, but if I use it to describe myself (as do most people I know TBH) then I'm not going to worry about other people using it. You're getting sensitive in your old age Kwini.

That's OK by me.
So long as I keep getting old.

kwinigolfer wrote:So long as I keep getting old.

It beats the alternative, Kwini

Doon, can't help but notice the last time you were trying to goad the English among us was a Saturday night.
May I suggest laying off the evening brandy at the weekends?? You jocks obviously can't handle a drink

Naw you guys are just a wee bit sensitive because your rugger boys got pasted and the fitba team drew with the mighty......sorry can't remember there name.
With Oor Andy beating Nadal it is probably just too much.

Brandy, how very dare you.

Ah.....the old 'menage a trois' eh?

oldshanker wrote:Ah.....the old 'menage a trois' eh?

Whoops that was aimed at Davie's last comment, but I slipped into a time portal methinks.

Doon I think you'd like us to be a wee bit sensitive but the truth is I couldn't care less about the rugger, didnt know Murray had beaten Nadal and the football team well, it's the Scots who keep telling us how good we should be whilst we put ourselves down. Us drawing with Montenegro (small country formerly part of Yugoslavia) was certainly no shock to me.

You're not a brandy man? Buckfast??

Button won the Japanese GP as a GB so we can all be happy.

Round about the exact same time as Murray won in Japan. Suits everyone!

Yes I will give you that one.
English motor engineering is definately the best in the world.('')

Buckfast.
Made by English Monks for Scottish Neds.
If I had my way it would be a banned substance. 15% alcohol, 15% caffine.
Drunk, wired neds, that's all we need.
Fortunately it is becoming too expensive for the unwashed now.

Just noticed tonights Jocko game is on BBC2 live.........why would they think anyone in England would want to watch it ? Id like to see the highlights of the 5 or 6 Spanish goals but a full match is a bit much surely. Its lucky the Great British Bake Off has already finished or I'd be truly outraged.

Ah Diggers you forget that the Scots are at their most dangerous when everyone writes them off.

Personally I think they should be able to keep it to 4 goals.
If they win they are in the play offs. Chech away game done for us. Four defenders and six midfielders, that was a bit dirrerent!
Decent young team coming through though.

Good rugby joke on the jokes thread.

Ill check it out Doon, the England rugger tream have certainly set themselves up as a laughing stock.
Spain in Spain is a tough ask for anyone but you never know....

Diggers, I can't imagine why any English people would want to each Scotland either, but then I don't know why the English would want to watch their own team. Hopeless.

The only slight difference is that the England team have already qualified for the Euros next year, despite being vastly overrated

Davie, I really dont think anyone rates the England football team right now.

Given the population, clubs and resources it would be amazing if they didn't qualify, its incredible that they can be that bad, but when you pick on name rather than what a person can contribute to the team it isn't surprising.

For a nation of 5 million I bet Scotland outperforms many nations in sporting success per capita.

For example we must be one of the most successful nations in f1 history per capita with 66 wins and 5 world championships.

When was the last of those 5 Mac? 1973?

What recent sporting successes can you name?

you can add snooker to that list as well.

John Higgins
Stephen Hendry
Graeme Dott

All world champs - the Scots love their indoor sports!

I remember in the 93 final match stage of the world cup, if Wales beat Romania, they would have qualified for the USA. England needed to beat San Marino by 8 and holland lose to qualify. When Wales went to 1-1 and got awarded a penalty, the BBC switched the game it was broadcasting.

They received over 100,000 complaints apparently from English viewers, even though England were already dead and buried.

Paul Bodin missed the penalty and the rest is history.

Bloody Paul Bodin.

For a nation of 5 million just having competitors at the highest level counts as a success.

Mac, i'm no flag waver for Scotland despite being Scottish but you have to admit we are pretty hopeless at sport. Think of all the other small countries who out perform us, e.g. Norway, Sweden, Croatia, Holland etc and you can't really say we punch above our weight.
England per capita, are not really much better. I think it's a UK problem, rather than bickering which part of the union is better than any other we should probably look at why we are so poor on the world stage.
I can only think of Andy Murray and Mark Cavendish who are truly World Class individuals, certainly no footballers or rugby players fit into that bracket, you can probably add a couple of cricketers but it's a bit sedate like golf to be called a sport in the athletic sense.

Snooker , please, it's just the symptom of a mis-spent youth.

what about Pal di resta? Probably rookie of the year and destined for a big team at some point.

Snooker doesn't count as a world sport Hobo. The 2011 'World Championship' featured players from all of 6 countries - and 3 of those were England, Scotland and Wales!

I remember the Bodin penalty. Nearly broke the crossbar!

Mac, no one but you considers F1 to be a proper sport. (we all admit the need for supreme athleticism) but it's not a true head to head or even a level playing field, so give it a rest.

Mac, so that's a 'none' to recent success then?

If the Scots want to talk about a motorsport hero then shouldnt it be Dario Franchitti, about to win his 4th Indycar series. Big star in the States.

McLaren wrote:For a nation of 5 million just having competitors at the highest level counts as a success.

What has population got to do with it...very very little in my opinion and I cringe when fellow Jocks trot that out as the excuse for mediocrity. If population were the be all and end all the world cup final would be contested between India and china every 4 years and Uruguay (pop 3 million!!) would never have won it twice.

Success in sport is down to determination and will to win. As a sporting nation the Scots at the moment (with one or 2 notable exceptions) are struggling with that concept. I don't know what the solution is but I don't think it's breed like rabbits until we outnumber everybody else!!

I think population size does have some bearing, if there is a real history for the game in that country. I mean there are 200 million Brazillians and they are all football mad and they have had a lot of success. I think the numbers make up for the lack of facilities that the European nations have.
But countries like Holland show you can have success without huge populations of everything else is ait should be, scouting, coaching, facilities etc. Though whether the Dutch will ever hit the heights of the 70's and 80's again Im not so sure.

super_realist wrote:Mac, no one but you considers F1 to be a proper sport. (we all admit the need for supreme athleticism) but it's not a true head to head or even a level playing field, so give it a rest.

You can add me to that list of F1 fans as well. I have been following Paul di Resta's season with interest and look foward to him being snapped up by one of the big teams. When he gets a really good car under his bum he should become a force to be reckoned with.

Yep, add me to the list as well. I certainly believe its a sport, not one I love, but its a sport.

They contested last years final, which is as good as they ever did in the 70s (admittedly they were very cynically un-Dutch like in the final but that aside I do agree with your point, facilities and coaching structures can go a long way to providing the basis for success. Ok larger population will have a bigger pool from which to pick/develop talent too but at the end of the day, the final differentiator is will and determination.

JAS wrote:

McLaren wrote:For a nation of 5 million just having competitors at the highest level counts as a success.

What has population got to do with it...very very little in my opinion and I cringe when fellow Jocks trot that out as the excuse for mediocrity. If population were the be all and end all the world cup final would be contested between India and china every 4 years and Uruguay (pop 3 million!!) would never have won it twice.

Success in sport is down to determination and will to win. As a sporting nation the Scots at the moment (with one or 2 notable exceptions) are struggling with that concept. I don't know what the solution is but I don't think it's breed like rabbits until we outnumber everybody else!!

I could counter that with an argument that they probably would dominate IF those countries were as focussed on football (or whatever sport) as England were.

Split up the demographics of a country and a country with a larger population will have a greater number of people within top class sporting age, IF that country has a good development system and spends lots of money on development, has top coaches etc, then they will have a lot more players of a higher skill to choose from.
India and China do not have that development going on, as they concentrate on other sports, not to mention the effect of poverty in India and communism in China.

However, if you have a small country with good development, they can be successful , but if you have a small country with poor development, they will be rubbish like Scotland, likewise if you have a large country with poor development and laughable management and big time charlie players you will also be rubbish (England) but by virtue of being a footballing nation, and therefore likely to have more players of a higher standard you will be marginally less rubbish by having a little more strength in depth, hence why England qualify but not much else.

Using Uruguay though is a cheap example because it was in the days when only 8 teams competed for the world cup, and teams like England thought it beneath them.

Strewth they did as well, how forgettable was that world cup....well to me obviously anyway. The Aussies are a good example that a small population can go a long way, but I do think a great climate helps as well. You dont get that in Scotland (waits for lots of comments about how really its a virtually mediterranean micro climate in some parts....)

Diggers, I don't think the weather is an excuse for Scots or the UK as Sweden, Norway, Germany, Holland, Denmark etc are hardly any better in winter and they do alright, it could be Bermudan weather year round and the majority would still be a bunch of fat lazy wasters whose first thought is to reach for the "excuse" pills.

We are Poopie because we live of chippies and iceland, hardly the fuel of sporting champions.

McLaren wrote:We are Poopie because we live of chippies and iceland, hardly the fuel of sporting champions.

.....and because we are a bitter, chippy, negative country with small man syndrome who would rather criticise others than get of our backsides and improve our own lot.

I shall get my retaliation in first. In the unlikley event of Scotland beating the Spanish 'B' team please remember that England would also struggle to win.

I have played golf a couple of times with Paul Bodin, decent player, good guy.
Jonny Moncur was his team mate for a while, he played off 2. His brother was a pro. He was a class football player always thought that he should have done better.

SR. A bit tough that, there is an element that think that way but I also think a lot of folk put in the effort to improve. Lots of volunteer coaches at football, golf etc.

Well you can say Uruguay is a cheap example but again....they got to the semis last year.

Don't disagree with much of what you state SR and I'd also add. Kids in the 60's craved a ball and played fitba in the street or park until it got dark & used jackets/pullovers as goalposts. Nowadays you're more likely to see a "no ball games here" sign and kids that crave either a wrap of smack or the latest playstation game. Obviously it's not just the likes of football, all sports suffer when the pool of available potential talent is depleted by a heady mixture of poor diet, substance abuse and vegetation in front of console games.

Yes, they may be a small country, but like brazil (and Rugby in NZ) they live and breathe football to the exclusion of virtually everything else. They show what yo ucan do with a good infrastructure and development program, can you imagine how good they'd be if they had more depth in who they could pick from?

If England had as small a population as Scotland they'd be just as bad, likewise if Scotland had a population the size of England they'd probably reach the finals just as easily as England but would struggle just as badly because both have poorly organised Associations who don't understand international football.

Population size is only half the issue, but you're right, even in summer you barely see or hear kids out playing anything, it's as if Mac has been round and hoovered them all up.

I believe England would have won at least one international tournament over the last 10 or 15 years were it not for the view that the Premier League is more important than international football, meaning half of the team don't turn up for get togethers etc. They've certainly had good enough players but unfortunately coupled with poor preparation and big egoes.

Many of Scotland's internationals do/have played in the PL and i therefore suspect they suffer from the same problem

MPB, I think they might have done better, but I still think there are too many big time charlies and poor international organisation.
I actually think England would do no worse in international football by having a team selected from The Championship as despite all the so called top players they have in the premiership, virtually none can claim to have had a good internaitonal career.
I also think that english (and UK) players are made to look better by the quality of the foreigners around them. Pick the best (or most rated) English players, stick them in a Finland or Egypt shirt, still think they are World Class?

England have some great players the manager just wont pick them

for example this would be a great team

hart
Kyle Walker
Smalling
Jones
Cole
Cleverly
Wilshire
walcott
Young
Welbeck
Rooney

But for some reason the FA insist on sticking with the older players past their best.

Super, England do play against team from the Championship.....the other Home Nations.
I think there are a lot of reasons why England havent done well, I dont actually fully agree with the reasons you mention to be honest. I think when push comes to shove most teams that have played in tournaments have been the teams the majority of the media and the public would also have started, they just havent performed. They also havent performed quite as badly as you say, I was reading the other day that taken as an average over big events in the last 12 years very few countries have actually done better than England. Sven for instance took us to three QF's I think, we just looked so awful doing it that nobody cared.
But to be honest right now unless you were Spanish I doubt anyone is that wowed by their national side, I think international football could well be going into a big decline in the next 10 years or so.

Mac, not sure about Walker, think thats way too early. Would have Micah Richards myself. Am also not at all sold on Walcott, or Cleverly and both Jones and Smalling have a ways to go.
But a lot of those guys are in the squad, but lets also remember a few of them were at the U21's last summer and were rubbish.

Agreed SR, that's what I mean by poor preparation and big egoes.
Like Digs, Lampard aside, I don't think the current England team is too far off it's best and I think we have a few players that would get in for anyone. I just don't think any of the players' focus is on playing for England or winning a world cup. For Brazillians etc, it is

Has anyone else noticed that when Rooney is surrounded by great players, ie at man utd, he does not suffer the indiscipline which people claim he has with England?

Diggers, Jones will be first choice utd centre back by the end of the season.

Diggers, you misunderstand, I mean they could select a team from The Championship to represent them, and I actually think they'd do no worse, probably even better.
Part of the problem is seeing a QF as a success. I remember Frank Rijkaard failing to get his team to the final of whatever tournament it was and he instantly resigned, Sven barely even apologised.
I also think you could have had a tailors dummy in charge of England for the last decade and you wouldn't do any worse than Sven.
Englands big problem is that they pick on reputation, rather than who fits in with formations.