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October 27 Archives

LATEST WORLD CUP NEWS... (posted 26th October 2003)
Wow! What a weekend and a half of rugby that was! The Wallabies ran in an incredible 142 points against Namibia on Saturday afternoon breaking some records in the process. Chris Latham was man of the match - WHAT have I been saying about Mr Latham all along?? Keep him in there Eddie - let the man play :)) Latham ran in five tries, and the Wallabies amassed 22 tries all up. I know that there's a lot of critics out there in fan land (especially pommy fan land) who believe that the competition is too unevenly matched and should therefore have two tiers. What crap! This is a world tournament, and the teams that are there played their way into being there. Just because all the teams aren't evenly matched in standard doesn't mean that they shouldn't be allowed to play each other. The 'minnows' will only improve their game standard if they HAVE games against teams better than themselves, that's how they learn and improve. And to be candid, a world tournament wouldn't be too interesting if there were only a handful of teams playing now would it? Imagine how the Olympics would be if only a few nations were allowed to compete - it would defeat the whole purpose of the Olympics - so lounge chair critics clam up. No one is making you watch any of the games, so tune out if you want to and be elitist in the ones you choose to watch if that's your thing. Well, I had bit of a rant just then didn't I :) You can read about the Australia/Namibia game over here.

France beat Scotland soundly on Friday night. I have no idea why people seem to underestimate the French. On their day they can beat any team - cast your mind back to their semi final against NZ in the last world cup :) They are a very good team and they're sitting pretty and very comfortably at the top of Pool B. I reckon they could be playing come November 22 in Sydney.

Also on Friday night Wales played Italy in Canberra - the match to determine which of the two would progress through to the quarter finals. Wales hit their straps at last, and dashed the RWC aspirations of taking home Bill - Match report.

Today saw two excellent games of rugby! Ireland played Argentina in Adelaide, and the game was close and fiercely fought. The Welsh emerged victorious, but only by one point in this game that went right down to the wire.

Just when we all thought that the rugby couldn't get much better, we were in for a huge treat when England and Samoa played in Melbourne. The pompous pommy fans had assumed that their boys would have an easy game, but they surely got a shock! Ten minutes into the match Samoa was enjoying a 10-0 lead over England - almost too good to be true for Samoan fans, and if the doubters thought that Samoa would run out of puff they were also proved wrong! With only fifteen minutes of time on the clock the teams were only one point apart! Woodward had brought on his big guns Balshaw and Vickery and they scored a try each to blow out the final score. The good news is that we can all sleep easier tonight knowing that Jonny Wilkinson is in fact human :) Yes, the kicking machine missed some pretty simple kicks tonight - ones that I'm sure he could kick in his sleep - but pressure doesn't funny things to people doesn't it? And, the Samoans pressured England from kick off to full time. Either team could have won tonight, and England was lucky to escape with a win - they showed that they are beatable though so look out!

Tonight the Japanese Cherry Blossoms take on the USA Eagles down in party central Gosford! Hopefully the Eagles will run the ball a lot more than they have done to date in this tournament, but it would be nice to see Japan walk away with a win - they've also been great competitors in this tournament to date.

A reminder - daylight savings has started in Australia now. That means that games in Gosford, Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, and Tasmania are now an hour earlier. The sensible state of Queensland - where Brisbane games are held - doesn't change clocks just because the southerners do :)) Trust me, in summer it's daylight here just after 4am - we don't need it getting light at 3am! heh.

Happy Birthday wishes today go to Italy's Nicola Mazzucato!

Cheers!