*** Official 2007 Rugby World Cup

[cbloom]

There's a proposal floating around to cut the entrants to 16 nations instead of 20, which would make all the games more competitive. Obviously the idea of letting the weaker nations in is to hope it builds the sport in those countries, so dunno where that proposal is going.

IMHO it's actually kind of fun to watch SA and NZ put up tries, you get to see some really nice running, but yeah probably not good for the sport. It's a lot more fun than watching a close game where nobody can get anything going and both sides are just sloppy.

A lot of people were saying how bad England looked against the USA, but I thought they actually looked pretty decent, and the US was just really playing to spoil their flow, going really hard in the rucks. Olly Barkley looked spectacular, but apparently he has some injury now which is bad news.

England looked better than anyone in Pool D. Actually it's pretty weird that they're in the same pool with SA.

[sixfour]

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glad to see the smaller nations putting up a fight in these games. Seeing a minnow getting 90 put on them by a big nation is not good for rugby

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Very true, although the USA could obviously have let us get the bonus point that we didn't deserve

[sixfour]

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There's a proposal floating around to cut the entrants to 16 nations instead of 20, which would make all the games more competitive. Obviously the idea of letting the weaker nations in is to hope it builds the sport in those countries, so dunno where that proposal is going.

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What would be ideal is to have some kind of tiered system so that the preliminary games feature more matches between sides of similar skill, I have ideas of how it could be done but not sure how they could be introduced practically

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England looked better than anyone in Pool D.

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I find that hard to believe

[cbloom]

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England looked better than anyone in Pool D.

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I find that hard to believe

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Have you seen them play? I haven't seen Ireland yet but England looked better than France or Argentina.

[sixfour]

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Have you seen them play? I haven't seen Ireland yet but England looked better than France or Argentina.

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I've only seen the second half of Argentina - Georgia in that group (pesky interviews), wasn't overly impressed, they just seemed to do enough to get the bonus point and that was about it. Which is something England didn't do in a game that I did see, which imo was the worst performance I've seen from an England side since, well, I can't remember, possibly 04/05 when we were playing horribly

[Chairman Wood]

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Have you seen them play? I haven't seen Ireland yet but England looked better than France or Argentina.

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Right now I would take any of the 3 best Pool D teams over England in this tourney. Keep in mind as well today that Argentina did not play 6 of their starters due to minor injuries or just people asking for rest. Those players will all be back. England played terrible and will not look any better due to injuries and suspensions. IMO, they are going to get walloped pretty badly against SA. I haven't seen a good England team since the year they won the WC.

[sixfour]

Japan - Fiji just gave us a very good game, a lot closer than what might have been expected (although I didn't check the line in fairness)

[jgunnip]

so USA-Tonga just came up on my sopcast. Are we any good? How do you play rugby? omg Tonga just did a little native chant/dance. So cool. I'm a fan already.

[sixfour]

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Are we any good? How do you play rugby?

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No, and basically like football except without stoppages and forward passes

Worringly checked for the Italy score and saw "England pick Farrell at fly-half". We're so screwed.

[AJW]

Who Plays rugby in the USA? I have seen pictures of Bush playing so I'm guessing Ivey league scholars and boys at exclusive fee paying schools, but are their any regional hot spots where the working classes play?