Sunday, August 26, 2007

12 days to go!

The Australians have left for France and the countdown to the start of the RWC now gets exciting! ChicRugby has been a bit distracted by other things (like work) and hasn't had a lot to say in the last couple of weeks - sorry :-)

It's exciting to see people voting in the ChicRugby poll, but who are these 10 people who've voted for the All Blacks ?! I guess it could be one person voting 10 times ....... it looks like the Kiwis are the fans' faves to win the gold trophy.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

This looks promising ... the French beat England on the weekend!


France has defeated England 21 - 15 in a World Cup warm-up at Twickenham. Apparently the English did alright, but never seemed too threatening of the French line. The English were coming off the back of a 62 - 5 smashing of the Welsh, also at Twickenham. This win will give Les Bleus some confidence in the run up to The Big One.

They play the Poms again this weekend. The picture above shows a deeply unattractive French guy scoring a try despite England's Olly Barkly.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Oh no. That man with the boot is back for England.


Jonny 'I can kick field goals' Wilkinson is coming back to the English team - eeeeeeaaaaagggghhh!

I can't stand him!

I appreciate he kicks the football very well, and apparently he is meant to be a 'nice bloke'. But really ...... am I alone in remembering that field goal he kicked in the dying seconds of extra time in the 2003 RWC Final? Only England could give their players bloody knighthoods (almost) for winning a game with a kicked goal rather than a try ... Rugby is NOT SOCCER!

I always reckon that Jonny Wilkinson looks like he's laying an egg when he lines up the ball for the kick. I say we hatch a plan (an egg - hee hee!) to nobble him and get him out of the game, once and for all :-D

One consolation is the English are known for choking when they're defending any sort of cup they may have won - viz The Ashes. So perhaps there is hope that Mr W won't offend our eyes with his weird stance and his girly FIELD GOAL KICKING!

Monday, August 13, 2007

Time for a lesson in the tournament rules of the RWC: how does the round system work?

There are 20 teams in the competition and each are allocated into one of 4 pools - hence there are 5 teams in each pool. You'll notice that the 'big guns' of the competition are separated and there's usually no more than one of them in each pool (except for Pool A which includes both England and South Africa).

Each team plays each other once in the pool round. Therefore there will be 40 matches to watch in this first stage of the Cup.

Points are awarded in this round as follows:

Win 4 points
Draw 2 points
4 or more tries 1 point
Loss by 7 points or less 1 point.

When the pool phase is complete the teams are ranked in each pool from 1 - 5. The winner and runner-up from each pool then proceeds to the Quarter-Finals. All the rest go home!

From here we move to the knock-out rounds. The quarters are played like this:

QF 1 - Winner pool B v Runner up pool A
QF 2 - Winner pool C v Runner up pool D
QF 3 - Winner pool A v Runner up pool B
QF 4 - Winner pool D v Runner up pool C

The winners of each Quarter-Final progress to the Semis. The Semis are played like this:

SF 1 - Winner QF1 v Winner QF2

SF 2 - Winner QF3 v Winner QF4

The winners of each Semi proceed to the Final. The losers of each Semi play the consolation game known as the Bronze Final.

Of course, this is all allowing for clear results in each game rather than draws. From the Quarters onwards each match will go into extra time in the case of a draw, whereas the teams share the points in the pool phase.

Whew!

Now you can start predicting who'll be playing whom in each round. Australia is in Pool B and hence will (hopefully) play the runner up from Pool A in the Quarter-Finals. This will be either England or South Africa. Should the Wallabies come 2nd in their pool they will play the winner of Pool A, which will also be either England or South Africa! In this way you can see how the tournament organisers stack the pools so as to guarantee exciting and significant matches in the knock-out rounds.

Of course, one of our minnow friends may make it through to the Quarters - in our pool it will most likely be Wales but could also be our faves the Cherry Blossoms. In Pool C it may be the Italians or the Scots, in Pool D Ireland or Argentina. The winners of Pools C and D will be more than likely be NZ and France (unless one of them has a shocker).

Hence Australia looks forward to a tough Quarter-Final whereas the NZ and the French do not. They can both look forward to the Semis, whereas we will have to work hard to get through.

Let's hope that both the English and the Springboks have lots of injury woes and come 3rd or 4th in their pools :-) Much easier for the Wallabies.

Vivent les Australiens!

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Picking a 'rugby minnows' team to support during the RWC ....


It's customary during the Rugby World Cup to pick a 'minnows' team to support ... you know, one of those countries that 'play' rugby but really have lots of expats in their teams or add colour to the Cup but not a lot of competition.

I'm quite liking the Japanese team. The Cherry Blossoms will play in Pool B with the Wallabies, the Canadians, the Welsh and the Fijians. They probably rank in playing status with the Canadians (a quarter-final spot as their best placing) but they do carry the distinction of fielding the number one try scorer in the game today, Daisuke Ohata. That's him on the right with Kiwi-born Andy Miller. He's scored 69 tries for his nation's team, 5 more than former record-holder David Campese.

Other minnows include the USA, Tonga, Romania, Portgual, Georgia and Namibia (the Wallabies once beat them 142 - nil). Out of these teams only the USA really has any chance of making it out of the pool rounds, although the Tongans play an entertaining game and supply a lot of players to other Southern Hemisphere teams (like the Fijians).

So, choose a minnow to support and add some fun to your Cup as well as some support to these teams' fan bases.

Go the Blossoms (even their nickname is nice :-)) !