Rugby: France and Beyond

[BigFatCoward]

There really are 2 very strong and 2 pretty weak QF's, the 4 best teams playing each other sucks for the tournament. 

[baxus]

Once again, a noob with questions...

While watching this tournament it stuck out to me that there are quite a few matches won with a huge margin. The question is, is there really 20 national teams of high enough quality to make it to the World Cup? Or is this 20 teams format relatively recent effort of giving more teams a chance to play top teams and improve over time, like other sports are doing?

Edited October 9, 2023 by baxus

[Consigliere]

4 hours ago, baxus said:

Once again, a noob with questions...

While watching this tournament it stuck out to me that there are quite a few matches won with a huge margin. The question is, is there really 20 national teams of high enough quality to make it to the World Cup? Or is this 20 teams format relatively recent effort of giving more teams a chance to play top teams and improve over time, like other sports are doing?

There is a big gap between the top tier nations and the rest. The RWC has been a 20 team tournament for most of its short history though. Only the first 3 WCs had 16 teams.

[BigFatCoward]

Anyone think it will be a 6 nations sweep? 

[ljkeane]

2 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Anyone think it will be a 6 nations sweep? 

They’re probably all favourites but I’d expect at least one to mess up. 

[Iskaral Pust]

46 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

They’re probably all favourites but I’d expect at least one to mess up. 

You can say Ireland.  We’re all thinking it.

[ljkeane]

1 minute ago, Iskaral Pust said:

You can say Ireland.  We’re all thinking it.

I know Ireland fans have a bit of a complex around World Cup quarterfinals but I expect them to win, they're just the better team and they don't really tend to fail to turn up under Farrell.

I was thinking more England, who knows how they're going to play, or France who have a bit of a tendency to be great one week and rubbish the next at World Cups. In fairness mess up is probably a bit unfair. Fiji just beat England a few weeks ago and there's very little in the France South Africa game.

[Which Tyler]

France:
1. Baille
2. Mauvaka
3. Atonio
4. Woki
5. Flament
6. Jelonch
7. Ollivon
8. Alldritt

09. Dupont (c)
10. Jalibert
11. Bielle-Biarrey
12. Danty
13. Fickou
14. Penaud
15. Ramos

16. Bourgarit, 17. Wardi, 18. Aldegheri, 19. Taofifenua, 20. Cros, 21. Macalou
22. Lucu, 23. Moefana.

South Africa:
1. Kitshoff
2. Mbonambi
3. Malherbe
4. Etzebeth
5. Mostert
6. Kolisi (c)
7. du Toit
8. Vermeulen

09. Reinach
10. Libbok
11. Kolbe
12. de Allende
13. Kriel
14. Arendse
15. Willemse

16. Fourie, 17. Nché, 18. Koch, 19. Snyman, 20. Smith
21. de Klerk, 22. Pollard, 23. Le Roux.

[Which Tyler]

Ireland:
1. Porter
2. Sheehan
3. Furlong
4. Beirne
5. Henderson
6. O'Mahony
7. van der Flier
8. Doris

09. Gibson-Park
10. Sexton (c)
11. Lowe
12. Aki
13. Ringrose
14. Hansen
15. Keenan

16. Kelleher, 17. Kilcoyne, 18. Bealham, 19. McCarthy, 20. Conan
21. Murray, 22. Crowley, 23. O'Brien

New Zealand:
1. de Groot
2. Taylor
3. Lomax
4. Retallick
5. SBarrett
6. Frizell
7. Cane (c)
8. Savea

09. Smith
10. Mo'unga
11. Fainga'anuku
12. JBarrett
13. Ioane
14. Jordan
15. BBarrett

16. Coles, 17. Williams, 18. Newell, 19. Whitelock, 20. Papali'i
21. Christie, 22. McKenzie, 23. Lienert-Brown

Edited October 13, 2023 by Which Tyler

[Which Tyler]

IMO all 4 QFs, the NH team is favourite - but not by enough that I have any expectation of a NH clean-sweep.

 

The 2 I've posted should be cracking matches. The other 2... more like cripple fights, that almost completely disinterest me, given what's happening above.

[Iskaral Pust]

Ireland still missing captain James Ryan but otherwise starting a very strong team.  Hopefully our wingers are actually fit to play and can let the whole match because improvised wingers cost us defensively late against Scotland.  No Cian Healy called into the squad either, so front row depth still a problem. Andrew Porter has done incredibly well to anchor a scrum that has been very competitive despite being outweighed in almost every match.

[ljkeane]

The England and Fiji teams for tomorrow. I like that they've gone with Smith at fullback, not because I particularly care about him playing at the back but because at least it's a bit of an attacking option having a bit of a counterattacking threat and a ball player in the wide channels. That's somewhat offset by picking two wingers who're really past their best. England's best weapon is probably their defensive lineout though, it's probably the one part of their game that's actually up with the best and the Fiji lineout has been a bit shaky.

Wales Argentina. There's not a huge amount between the sides on paper, they've both lost arguably their best backrow in Faletau and Matera too, but Gatland's got Wales playing like a Gatland side, they fight hard and don't give anything away easy, while Argentina have been a bit disappointing so I'd expect Wales to win.

[lessthanluke]

Gutted but Wales were just not good enough. Argentina weren't particularly good Wales were just bad, line out not working, terrible kicking game, bad decisions. 

Saves us a semi final spanking I guess.

[ljkeane]

Entertaining game. I think Wales started trying to force it too soon though. They were only two points down, you don’t need to score a miracle try, just work a position to get a penalty or attempt a drop goal. Great awareness from Sanchez to read the move and get the intercept try to win it though.

[Iskaral Pust]

Argentina demanding some tier 1 respect after my diss upthread.  It still seems disproportionate that they’ve reached their third SF.

Wales went from a very poor 6N to almost losing to Fiji, then beat Australia and now lost to Argentina.  Argentina couldn’t lay a glove on 14-man England (not great themselves, even with 15) and had unimpressive victories over Japan and Samoa.  It’s so hard to assess the quality either side brought to this fixture.

[ljkeane]

A bit of a disaster first half for Ireland but they somehow find themselves still well in the game. I feel like I'm a bit of a broken record on this but they really, really need to sort their lineout out. It's been a problem since the warm up games now and they can't expect to keep getting away with it. They can cut the numbers like they did in the South Africa game which makes it harder to get someone up defensively but that's not ideal as it puts more defenders out into midfield.

[Iskaral Pust]

Exciting, tense game so far.  NZ started much better and were more aggressive in rucks, plus got some attacking success with short chip kicks.

Ireland are back in it now but need to shore up their lineout.  There was some nervy/slippery ball handling several times, including a terrible pass early on from Keenan that stopped a try for Lowe.  It was frustrating to see slow ruck speed and unsupported carriers for a bad patch but hopefully they’ve got their shape back.  They’ve shown they can make yards when they switch the ball to the backs.

NZ look fitter and fresher so far.  I hope Ireland don’t fade.

Edited October 14, 2023 by Iskaral Pust

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

The rules of this sport are still confusing as hell for me, but damn this shit is fun.

[Iskaral Pust]

NZ deserved it.  They managed the game well and had more energy and speed when needed.  That held-up try decided it, although Sexton’s penalty miss didn’t help either.  Really disappointing for Ireland to go home at this stage.

[ljkeane]

Great game but Ireland have messed that up for me. Their lineout was a mess in the first half, their phase play wasn’t at the level they expect and you can’t be conceding tries like the one in the second half but they still had the chances to win the game. 

On the other hand brilliant performance from the All Blacks. I still think Ireland are the better team but they found a way to get a win. They’d obviously seen something in the Irish defence that they thought they could exploit with short kicks and it worked. Other than that Jordie Barrett’s try saver off the maul was brilliant and then they held out over a huge number of phases at the end there.

Edited October 14, 2023 by ljkeane