[cbloom]

The every-four-years Rugby World Cup starts Sept 7

I'm guessing not many people on 2+2 care, but it's a huge big deal for the south half of the world (well the Caucasian part of the south anyway). The theme this year is "will New Zealand destroy the way they're expected to". In the warmup matches they've completely outclassed all the competition; their seconds squad has beat the first teams of their major rivals, which is pretty unheard of in any sport.

The format is really similar to the soccer/futbol World Cup, four pools play round robin, then the top two of each pool advance and those eight teams play a single elimination tournament.


Pool A
England (ENG)
South Africa (RSA)
Samoa (SAM)
United States (USA)
Tonga (TGA)

Pool B
Australia (AUS)
Wales (WAL)
Fiji (FIJ)
Canada (CAN)
Japan (JPN)

Pool C
New Zealand (NZL)
Scotland (SCO)
Italy (ITA)
Romania (ROM)
Portugal (POR)

Pool D
France (FRA)
Ireland (IRE)
Argentina (ARG)
Georgia (GEO)
Namibia (NAM)




The first match is Sept 7 ; France vs. Argentina.

It'll be hard to find on American TV but it seems there may be some games on Fox Sports World.

A Rugby game can really be a great thing to watch if it's being played clean and the referees allow so flow. On the other hand, if both sides are playing sloppy and/or the referees are being sticklers, it can turn into one of the worst spectator sports with constant stoppage and no really nice plays, so be warned; if you catch a bad game don't think they're all like that.