Rugby World Cup - other team/games and general chat

First topic message reminder :

I couldn't see a topic to discuss general WC stuff and non home nations games.......

Now we do...

Collapse2005 wrote:Id say Dupont might wear face protection and play in the quarters even if he has a broken jaw. The guy is such a machine I wouldnt be surprised.

I am not sure face protection is permitted in rugby - I certainly can't remember anyone wearing the kind of protection they wear in football for broken cheekbones, or the sort of facemasks that hockey players wear.

WR is very cautious about permitting any kit that might cause an injury in another player, which is why headguards were so rubbish until modern material science got involved - there was actually a restriction on how much impact a headguard could absorb because at the time the rules were written they felt that anything more would require a hard shell. It's hard to see how there could be protection that would both actually support his jaw in contact and be soft enough not to be perceived as a risk to other players.

But I guess we will see.

And then there is Shaun Edwards who played most of a match with a fractured cheekbone..

Poorfour wrote:I am not sure face protection is permitted in rugby - I certainly can't remember anyone wearing the kind of protection they wear in football for broken cheekbones, or the sort of facemasks that hockey players wear.

Harinordoquy wore an elaborate jerry-rigged facial protection

https://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/the-man-behind-the-mask/26657368.html

As a very occasional rugby watcher, a couple of issues jump out at me as we reach roughly the halfway point of pool stage.

Too many mismatches:
The average winning margin after 18 games is 33.44 points! I'm not sure the pointless hammerings dotted amongst the competive meaningful games help grow the viewership outside rugby countries.

A lack of momentum:
The tournament seems to drift through the week with long fallow periods before reaching saturation point at weekends when it's competing for eyes with a multitude of other sports, including global behemoths such as European football leagues, F1 and the NFL. I think the organisers should trust their product a bit more and spread the games more evenly. It's doable even with the recovery time needed for rugby.

I have an idea (might be rubbish but just my opinion). Taking the plus points from UEFA's nations league and the Cricket World cup.

Expand it to 25 teams:
More mismatches you say but bear wth me.The USA and Canada missed out, they could be here. Make the qualifying less euro-centric. I'd go with the 8 previous Quarter finalists, then the next 5 highest ranked teams  the year before the competition when the draw would be made. These 13 teams go straight into the group stage.
Pre-Group stage:
The other 12 qualifiers (based on regional comps) go into 3 groups of 4 with the winners joining the other 13 This should provide more competive games with real jeopardy for the minnows and they would be the sole focus of attention.
I know it would add 3 more weeks but you get a week back with a streamlined group stage so only 2 more weeks
Also the big teams already play lots of warm ups. So it could happen alongside those.

16 team group stage:
Would be more competitive with less cricket scores and battle hardened teams from pre-groups (hoping they aren't ravaged by injuries). Also gets rid of the problem of teams not playing for a fortnight.


Just an idea (probably with lots of flaws which other posters can point out :-) ) but my 2pennath.

An interesting perspective andyl.

A couple of points:

From a rugby fan's perspective, this is already the closest RWC there has ever been:
- We've seen some notable upsets. Wales beating Fiji and England beating Argentina were wins against teams that were higher in the world rankings, but Fiji beating Australia was a Tier 2 team beating a Tier 1 nation and France beating NZ was the first time NZ ever that had lost a pool game
- Even several of the expected wins have seen Tier 1 sides pushed far closer than they would have liked by Tier 2 teams.

The challenge for rugby here is that the Tier 1 nations (those in the 6N or Rugby Championship) get far more matches against top quality competition than the Tier2 ones, and that gap is hard to bridge. But the new match calendar will start to rectify that over the next RWC cycle.

In terms of spacing of games, the big difficulty for rugby is that unlike soccer it's almost impossible for a player to play two international matches in a week, certainly not without risk of injury. That drives the weekend logjam, and it's hard to avoid.

In previous RWCs, the solution was usually to make the weaker Tier 2 nations play more of their matches midweek, and then play again at the weekend. That made sense from a tv perspective, because the games with Tier 1 teams tend to draw the views - even at the weekends - but was very unfair on the Tier 2 teams.

In Japan 2019, the Tier 1 teams were required to each play a midweek game, which improved things a bit.

This time, I think they've been very clever with the schedule, and no team has less than a 6 day turnaround for any one game, which are spread out over Wednesday to Sunday. Most teams also have a week off, which allows for scope to manage injuries. It's the best one I've seen.

I'm not sure that there's room in the schedule for another 2 weeks, or that it's fair on the non-pre-qualified teams to make them play more competitive matches before being thrown in with hte big guys.

I think the new global schedule, which gives the Tier 2 teams guaranteed regular games against Tier 1 teams, will reduce the mismatches over the next cycle, and that the scheduling approach taken this time shows the direction of travel in terms of getting the best spread of games. I'm expecting RWC 2027 to be even more competitive than 2023 (though shown at a less convenient time for most of the rugby watching world)

Just caught on that Argentina/Samoa is on now, not this evening. Seems odd scheduling, with no game tonight.

Expect Argentina to come through this one, but they are under big pressure after that loss to England. Interestingly, Samoa have a 3-1 record over Argentina in the H2H.

Unfortunate start but that is a bollox card

I think it should stay as YC

Fortunately he landed on his back

Looked like a forearm to an Argentine head during a clearout, but not spotted by the TMO.

It's all a bit turgid

I think a bit of an arm wrestle on a wet day probably suits Argentina

They are certainly keeping the scoreboard ticking along

That's 6 points CL has left out there, both very kickable

Argentina haven't played particularly well, but Samoa are very much their own worst enemies. England won't be too worried about Samoa - and the teams in contrention in Pool C will be hoping for Argentina as their opponents.

Yeah, couple of costly misses off the kicking tee, compounded by the failed gamble for 7 points.

Argentina look fairly comfortable, but neither team doing anything of note.

Samoa not helping themselves at all. Argentina still seem a bit off form but doing enough to be ahead.
Argentina just need to not do anything daft and they should win this

Has the ball actually been buttered?

Argentina squeezing the life out of Samoa atm

Try looks inevitable

There was a high shot there, that will be reviewed

Penalties mounting and a warning now

You feel a YC is coming

Very drab stuff. Samoa as bad as I've ever seen them, and little to suggest Argentina will go further than the Quarters (that's if they beat Japan).

Well maybe a win will settle Argentina, on paper they are a decent team. The weather today did not do them any favours.

Samoa looked pretty poor in truth and not kicking their goals kept them out of the game.

Argentina v Haoan may give us a better idea of where the pumas are at.

Japan will feel they have a chance to qualify in second after that display.

I thought Argentina were badly missing some leadership in that side. I presume Jeronimo de la Fuente is injured such a classy player and a leader is exactly what the Pumas are missing. They looked to always be a phase to late going to the backs who then lost the collisions and never really got their wings into space.

Not sure what Chieka was trying to achieve with Argentina but it isn't working so far.

Poorfour wrote:

neilthom7 wrote:With all due respect to Matthew Carley, if you are playing an advantage and the team are roughly 10-15 metres behind where the knock on happened, there is no advantage there

The advantage rule for knock ons and technical infringements is "did the team get clean ball to play?". If they have a clean ruck and can play it away, that is usually enough to satisfy the advantage, even if they then get battered backwards. The logic is that the restart would be via a scrum, which will generally give the scrum half a clean pass away but what happens after that is past the restart point.

For penalty offences, now that teams get the throw in from a penalty kicked to touch, they generally need to get significant territorial advantage AND retain possession to satisfy the advantage, which is why we see much longer advantages for penalties.

That's interesting cos Carley didn't immediately call advantage over when they were able to get the pass away, he only called advantage over just before Namibia themselves knocked it on, between maybe a 1-2 mins after the the knock on from France occurred and after Namibia had retreated significantly. Wonder why he didn't call it over immediately and if he was still playing advantage at that stage when he called it over then I wonder why he thought they got an advantage being so far back.

First time Argentina and Samoa have played each other in nearly 20 years. That’s completely bonkers and no wonder Samoa and Tonga/Fiji come into world cups so underprepared

The southern hemisphere have a duty to play tests against these guys to give them game time and grow the sport.

It’s actually quite embarrassing how poorly the “big” teams regard the tier 2/3 nations.

Looks to me like the French team is already preparing the way to get Dupont back in the game asap:

From today's Telegraph:
Jean-Baptiste Grisoli, the former France team doctor, discussed Dupont’s potential recovery timeline and believes the France captain could return for the quarter-finals.

“He will even try to play the quarter-final, I tell you. The player can take the risk, it’s him who decides,” Grisoli told RMC Sport.

Hmmm.

He had surgery on the fracture last night, presumably he has a bit of titanium in his cheek now. Presumably they think thst is the wuickest and safest way to get him back.

He put out a tweet post op

'I am holed, but not sunk, the show must go on'

Does not sound like he thinks he is done yet either!

I just hope the French team is not thinking of taking risks with Dupont.

doctor_grey wrote:I just hope the French team is not thinking of taking risks with Dupont.

The coach has said decisions will be made by Dupont and his doctor.

He will be desperate to play though and you do wonder if that might cloud his judgement

BigGee wrote:

doctor_grey wrote:I just hope the French team is not thinking of taking risks with Dupont.

The coach has said decisions will be made by Dupont and his doctor.

He will be desperate to play though and you do wonder if that might cloud his judgement

Agree. It feels like we have seen this story hundreds of times. Players want to play, especially on the biggest stage. And teams want their best players playing in tournaments like this. And this tournament might be the one opportunity for both Dupont and France. Judgement does get influenced by events. I hope everyone makes the right decisions.

Very good arm wrestle between Georgia and Portugal. Georgia leading 13-11, but Portugal winning a lot of turnover ball.

And Portugal hit the front after a superb break!

Portugal are playing out of their skin and have all the momentum now

Georgia rumble over for 18-18. Would like to see the kick to touch again...

Minute left, very tough kick to take the lead...misses!

18-18 with a minute left.

And Portugal win a penalty from the restart. More strong breakdown work.

Kick to win it...no another miss! Agony.

18-18. Only saw the second half, but a great second half. Full credit to both. First draw in a while at the RWC.

What a game. Feel for Portugal. Real shame missed that penalty at the death.

Made a name for themselves and good luck to them for the remainder of the tournament.

Georgia had the better of the first half, but gof spooked in the second when the gane stayed tight

Got to love the way Portugal play though and in truth they should have won, they certainly left a few tries out there

Does not look like Georgia are quite ready for the 6N yet unfortunately

Hopefully Portugal push on and become more competitive in the next 4 years.

Shame not to see USA and Canada not at this World Cup.
For the size of the country , shame they are not more competitive, despite obviously having other sports way ahead.

Think was mentioned some time ago, if you had a tier 2 tournament.
Every 2 years maybe. The calendar maybe against the idea though, or just maybe a bad idea

Portugal, Georgia, Romania, Russia.
USA, Canada, Uruguay, chile.
Namibia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Zimbabwe.

Be good to see more teams in the World Cup, but as mentioned not enough time.

4 groups of 3. Top 2 into quarters.

Ah who knows.

westisbest wrote:Hopefully Portugal push on and become more competitive in the next 4 years.

Shame not to see USA and Canada not at this World Cup.
For the size of the country , shame they are not more competitive, despite obviously having other sports way ahead.

Think was mentioned some time ago, if you had a tier 2 tournament.
Every 2 years maybe. The calendar maybe against the idea though, or just maybe a bad idea

Portugal, Georgia, Romania, Russia.
USA, Canada, Uruguay, chile.
Namibia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Zimbabwe.

Be good to see more teams in the World Cup, but as mentioned not enough time.

First off, no doubts this RWC clearly highlights the potential in the Tier 2 nations, which I take as you main point!  As you say, hopefully Portugal can push on.  Going further, USA just nudged out Canada in qualification, and they were in turn nudged out by Chile with a last minute (last second really) penalty kick.  Not much between any of the three.  

I think a tier 2 competition in non-RWC years is a great idea.  And I like the way you laid it out:  A European pool (of course we would have to discuss what to do with Russia, but that is another discussion), an N/S American pool, and an African pool.  You didn't mention Spain, but aren't they usually just on the fringe of RWC qualification?

Forgot about Spain in place of russia.

Just something to get these tier 2 teams playing more compatibly and then playing the tier 1 teams in autumn internationals, then onto world cups.

Has potential for these teams to play more, hence (hopefully) improving.

Be a long while till some/most of the teams mentioned challenge some of the 6 nations teams, but think it would be a step in the right direction.

Spain has missed thw last two world cups for violating eligibility rules....the first one was legit...the last one was for fielding a bench player who was ineligible in one fame I believe...the governing body shpuld be shot for letting it happen twice in a row

They'll be in the next world Cup

Australian press reporting Jones has been interviewing for the Japan job.

Rugby Fan wrote:Australian press reporting Jones has been interviewing for the Japan job.

Running out of landing spots?

Jac Morgan is such a special player. Being as good as he is at that age is remarkable.

Is Biggar in trouble here

Biggar comes off

That is not good for Wales

Biggar off after that shoulder knock. A big loss for Wales.

Scrum trouble early as well without the strongest props on the bench in Domachowski and Thomas. A tough run of play for Wales after that lightning start.

Wales 7 - 6 Oz

Australia's centres and wings are making good yards on most carries so far.

That was very casual from Kellaway after a quality kick from Adams though!

Yep Oz looking like they could be a handful if they can cut out the silly mistakes ...

Momemtum with Australia atm

Anscombe knows he is in a game as well, he might have a few extra ribs when he counts them later