The All Blacks romp home against Romania

The All Blacks have stomped all over the Romanians, 85 - 8. Dan didn't play as he has a calf strain. He's saving himself for the French :-)

Big wins to the Wallabies and the All Blacks!

ChicRugby and ChicRugby's friend Cat stayed up last night to watch the Wallabies v Japanese and the All Blacks v Italians.

Actually we drank champagne and chatted during the All Blacks game. I could see Dan kicking away, with my peripheral vision, but we had other things to talk about and we got distracted ...

No matter. The upshot is that this morning both the Australians and the All Blacks are sitting nicely at the tops of their pools with cricket scores against their names - excellent. I pity the poor Cherry Blossoms; they got hammered. They continued attacking as best they could but tiredness and the superior fitness of the Wallabies wore them down in the second half. Rocky Elsom played very well and scored the fastest hat-trick by a forward in the Cup's history. The Wallabies scored 13 tries!

The All Black match just seemed to feature Dan kicking a lot. The New Zealanders scored 11 tries.

Very tired this morning (I fell asleep on Cat's sofa) and am thinking that coffee will be my best friend until the 20 October.

Oh, and the English won as well - but we don't care about them.

Just as we thought ... the All Blacks bring down the 'Boks.

I didn't watch the game yesterday as I was otherwise engaged but my prediction that the All Blacks would win was right! They scored three converted tries in the last 12 minutes of the game (that's 21 points).

However, the collective wisdom of the rugby press is suggesting that the All Blacks wouldn't be so pleased with their performance against an understrength South Africa. Chris Foley in Rugby Heaven says they were uninspiring in attack even though they had possession of the ball for most of the game. This means the Springboks were able to defend their line against an 'all over the shop' game strategy by the men in black. It didn't translate into tries for the South Africans but kept the scoreline lower for the All Blacks. The New Zelanders will go back to the drawing board for the game against Australia this coming weekend. Let's hope the Wallabies are not wobbly.

Dan scored a try and made 3 conversions and 4 penalties! As gorgeous as he is let's pray he doesn't do quite so well this Saturday. The upcoming game decides both the Tri Nations and the Bledisloe Cup, hence a lot of national rugby-lovin' pride is at stake :-)

This weekend: New Zealand v South Africa

Saturday afternoon (our time) will see the All Blacks up against the Springboks, in Christchurch. Both teams are coming back from defeats against Australia and will have something to prove.

The smart money is on the All Blacks, as they are always fiercer competition when they have the home-ground advantage. The Springboks will be playing under their fourth captain in four games, Johann Muller. He plays in the second row of the Bok's scrum, and looks it (oh dear).

The All Blacks have announced some team changes due to injury and poor play. Byron Kelleher, another All Black hottie (and the lovely Dan's playing partner at half-back), will not be playing.

But Dan will - hooray!

This is the one time you can all barrack for the All Blacks.

By the way, Australia is currently leading the Tri Nations table with 9 points. The other two nations are on 5 apiece. Let's see how things stand after the weekend but it's certainly looking exciting for the match between Australia and the All Blacks on July 21 (the second game of the Bledisloe Cup).

Aaaagh, it's too much :-)

My favourite rugby player: Dan Carter

Alas, he is an All Black but he is GORGEOUS. Here he is promoting Jockey shorts for Jockey NZ.