Rugby World Cup 2007

The tournament is about to start, France the hosts open with a potentially tricky clash against Argentina.

Obviously i'll be supporting England and we are holders but no side has ever managed to retain the title and with our current problems we will struggle to break that trend...

Whatever happens it should be a great tournament and even though the all blacks are favourites their are plenty capable of winning.

My bets on New Zealand

Originally Posted by Milan_Mad

My bets on New Zealand

That's not much of a bet is it Only New Zealand can stop themselves winning it this time. They were quite far ahead of most teams 4 years ago, but this time they're miles ahead of everyone else. Their 2nd 15 could probably be the 2nd best side in the world!

Anyway, they're on tomorrow but i'm going to miss them!

Tonight ... hahahaha poor France! Argentina were immense. Their defence was just superb. In the 2nd half when France came right at them, Argentina stood tall and flung everything at them to hold them back, awesome!

France were quite poor creatively, which is unusual. They seemed to lack ideas going forward and once again their kicking was very hit and miss. I can't see them beating Ireland unless they improve dramatically, so there's a very realistic chance that France could fail to qualify from the group stages.

As an Englishman, it's one of the few times i've cheered on Argentina GO PUMAS!!!

USA will win it as they are the best at everything and we all come second.

hmm. with due respect to rugby union fans(rugby league is even better than rugby union in my opinion), i am more interested in FIFA women soccer world cup!!!!

I prefer Union personally, League is stop/start like American football, Union flows like a real football game

Great game yesterday and as Jim says its rare for Englishmen to cheer on Argentina but as it was France they are the lesser of 2 evils It will be tough for the hosts now with Ireland in their group too.

England play the USA today and bad as we are right now this is one game we should be able to win

we beat the Aussies!!!

GET IN!!!!!

We absolutely obliterated their pack and in terms of physicality we owned them big time. But their backs gave me the jitters everytime they had the ball, Mortlock was awesome. Thankfully their play didn't materialise into much and out defence just about held firm.

People will say we 'bored' our way to the win, but that's nonsense. We broke the line enough times and only mistakes stopped us scoring a try or two. I think Australia thought they had this game won before they stepped onto the pitch and the way we battled for everything shook them out of their usual game intelligence.

I'm proud we won as it was a victory no one (myself included) thought we could achieve and it was a victory we deserved through determination and good play ... so even the most anti-english scot, irish and welsh fan has to applaud the effort we put in.

So now we play either New Zealand or the hosts. It'll be an even tougher ask to beat one of those two, so if this is as far as we go then so be it. But getting to the last 4 is more than anyone thought possible.

GO ENGLAND!

This is the sport i will never understand.
I'm too stupid to understand the rules, to notice who is a good player and who is a bad player.

Then you need to watch more of it Tony

Brilliant result today, we were very much underdogs but managed to win even though Wikinson was for once slighty oddgy with his kicking. Sheridan was an absolute monster and by the end the aussies were doing all they could to avoid the scrums

Another shock this evening and France put out the all blacks in another cose game, i was reading yesterday that no nothern hemispere side would makew the semi's so 2 out of 2 so far is a pleasant surprise. Annoyingly i was going to back South Africa to win the torunament this afternoon only for betfair to crash if i had id have made a tidy profit already

New Zealand going out was a huge shock and France deserved the win. New Zealand had so much of the ball, something like 70% possession but did very little with it, they never got their backs into the game at all, so unfortunately they paid the price.

That said McCallister's sin binning might have been a bit harsh and France's second try looked like it had at least 1 possible forward pass. But like i said before, New Zealand just didn't create much at all. They're clearly the best team in the world, but always seem to falter at the crucial moments.

But now England face an entire nation, i for one hope for rain and a disorganised French side just like 4 years ago

I forgot to add congratulations to Wilkinson for becoming the all time leading points scorer in Rugby World Cup history. It's frightening to think how many points he'd have for England if he hadn't basically missed the last 3.5 years through injury!

Woah so suprised about the Wallabies and All Black going home early, I honestly thought the semi's would of been them two playing each other.

Still pretty comical as the NZ fans were laughing at Australia losing and how their 'trip the the final' was much easier, makes you think you should never underestimate your opponents.

Woo World Champions for another week.

It's frustrating seeing the all black choke in the big stage again and again.
I thought this is their world cup but......

The All Blacks didn't play well, but the refereeing was awful. It was never a sin-bin offence, amd the forward pass was somewhat blatant.

But that's been common throughout the tournament. Forward passes are pretty much normal in many moves because of the flatness of the attack, and the officials are not doing a good job of picking it up (I mean in the Fiji/S. Africa match, there was a pass that went forwards by about 4 yards that the officials missed...and would have led to a Fiji try had the player been about an inch lower). And as for the lineouts and scrums . They've stopped even trying to officiate the scrums - hookers now almost feed the ball to the second row, for crying out loud. And with lineouts unless the ball goes directly to the scrum half they pretty much ignore it. It's turning the game into a farce.

We've only gone and bloody done it! Made the final that is

My goodness, what a tense match ... i was actually shaking at one point, couldn't believe it! Horrible game for the neutral, but for both French & English fans it was a night of nerves and drama.

Once again we stood up and said to the opposition "come and break us down" and the French couldn't. They became a bit reserved and we managed to sneak a win, though a definately deserved one.

We're not the best team in the world, we're not the most entertaining, most English fans know this. But we've got a bucket load of character and right now the biggest cojones in rugby! We might not have world class backs or even individual world class forwards, but as a pack our forwards are the best there is. Pure brutality and determination ... awesome stuff!

So for a second time in the competition i'll be cheering on the Pumas! haha ... though it doesn't matter a great deal who we face, both will pose difficult problems for us in different ways. The worst we can finish now is 2nd and that's more than anyone dreamed of before the tournament and especially after the SA drubbing. So proud of the team, proud to be English.