Posts Tagged ‘Argentina’

9
Oct

Wasn’t Sat great?

   Posted by: Fence   in Sport

After we left the RWC and headed home I has to switch and support some other countries. As mentioned, I did the almost unthinkable and cheered on England against Australia. And what a match! And that was followed by France V new Zealand. And for all the moaning about the ref I couldn’t see much wrong with his decisions. Yes, it was a forward pass that led to the French try, but refs miss forward passes all the time. It hurts when it your team that suffers, but swings and roundabouts folks. For the rest of it I thought he was quite fair, although France do seem to be able to play different refs a lot better than other countries.

Sun didn’t go so well. Fiji lost, although South Africa almost threw it away before realising what was happening and putting the squeeze on. And in the final quarter-final, I know, I said before hand that I’d support Argentina, but once it started I just couldn’t. Too many years of cheering Scotland on.

I don’t think Argentina played their best, but their game plan is very effective, and those moments of brilliance mean you just can’t begrudge them a win. Apart from when they beat us, obviously, and I suppose if you were Scottish.

So we’ll have one Six Nations team in the final and probably one Tri Nations. There is the possibility that Argentina will beat the South Africans, and wouldn’t that be something, but I just think that SA have too much skill and power all over the pitch. I’m hoping that Argentina do it, but my head says they won’t.

If they make it I’ll be cheering them on in the final, otherwise I’ll be shouting for France. I can’t see England doing the impossible two weeks in a row. Although anything is possible I suppose.

Tags: 2007RWC, Argentina, Australia, England, Fiji, France, New Zealand, quarter-finals, rugby, Scotland, SOuth Africa

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2
Oct

It’s the hope that kills you

   Posted by: Fence   in Sport

For those that may not know[1] ; Ireland got knocked out of the RWC at the weekend. It wasn’t unexpected. After scraping the bonus point against Namibia, not getting one against Georgia, and losing to France, it would have required a miracle to get past the pool stages. We’d have needed to win by 7 or more points, score 4 tries, and make sure that Argentina didn’t score 4 tries. And, considering the poor performances that the team had been putting in it never seemed likely.

Course you still hope.
Cause what is the point if you don’t?

But in the end Argentina won, and won well, 30 to 15. Maybe that scoreline would have been closer had we not had to chase the four tries, maybe we would have won if all we’d needed was to beat them by a single point, but that is irrelevant. We lost. We came home.

And the post-mortems will continue for many months. Why did we perform so badly? What happened to the team that could run and pass and “had a chance”? Why did we struggle to get our game going?

Some have argued that the players didn’t want to win that much, that they are all paid so much money that they didn’t have the passion of earlier and perhaps less talented teams. Pschaw I says to that. Pschaw[2] Did you see BOD when he scored that try against Argentina? I think maybe[3] he would have liked to win.

He had a good game. As did Paul O’Connell, despite some missed lineouts. And Geordan Murphy had an okay game, considering the support runners he was getting[4] and the options he was presented with[5] and the whole performance of the team was considerably better than earlier in the tournament.

But we should have started the RWC like that, and progressed. Instead we dug ourselves a huge ginormous hole by starting sluggishly.

In a way the tournament was like an extended version of our recent games. We start poorly, realise that we are in deep shit and start to play. Trouble is we just didn’t have the time or confidence to get out of that hole. And so the 2007 RWC is over for Ireland. And for many of those players this is the last RWC they’ll get to go to. Over the hill now. And what a sad way for Denis Hickie to finish his career. And possibly many others.

The debate about whether we should blame the players more or whether management should take responsibility seems to have been ignored in the rush to shout that Eddie O’Sullivan must go. I’ve always been quite supportive of Steady Eddie, but I’m back-tracking now, not that I think he should be fired in some knee-jerk reaction[6] but for the IRFU to be describing this as some sort of blip? Are they insane?

Maybe it is just that they want to get O’Sullivan back, to pick his brains, behind closed doors and try and figure out what went wrong before coming out and saying what is what, I don’t know. Maybe they’re hoping to persuade him to “agree terms” and don’t want to force their hand yet? Who can tell.

But this isn’t something that can be solved with a quick fix. I’d've had no problem[7] with us going home had we played to our potential and still been defeated. But, *shrug* we didn’t. We seemed lacking in strategy. lacking in skills. Lacking in just about anything that a rugby team needs to play. And I haven’t even mentioned the whole substitution fiasco.

Of course the RWC isn’t over yet. There are still a whole heap of teams left in the competitions. And I’ve made my decisions and I shall be supporting: France when they play[8] the All Blacks ; Argentina when they play Scotland[9] ; Fiji when they play[10] South Africa ; England[11] when they play[12] Australia.

Title was something one of the commentators said after we started so well and people began to think, hey, maybe, just maybe…
Linknotes:
  1. you heartless uncaring peoples ↩
  2. remember, repetition provides emphasis ↩
  3. understatement here, jic it doesn’t come across ↩
  4. none ↩
  5. very few ↩
  6. Wales you know what Im talking about ↩
  7. yeah, yeah, that is a lie. I would still be ever so slightly annoyed ↩
  8. lose to ↩
  9. Part of me will be cheering for Scotland, but there you go ↩
  10. you have to support the underdog ↩
  11. heresy, I know, but I do like to go against the popular view ↩
  12. again I think they will lose ↩
Tags: 2007RWC, Argentina, Brian O'Driscoll, Denis Hickie, Eddie O'Sullivan, Geordan Murphy, Ireland, knocked out, Paul O'Connell, Pool D, rugby, sporting post-mortem

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7
Sep

Shock shock, horror horror

   Posted by: Fence   in Sport

Talk about entertaining rugby matches. Okay, so we might not have had the “free-flowing champagne” rugby that certain quarters yearn for, but for sheer tension and not knowing what was going to happen this opener to the World Cup was more than sufficient. And 17-12 to Argentina! I’m delighra.

Although maybe I shouldn’t be. Will we now face a backlash from France. Had Les Bleus suffered their version of the “Croke Park nerves” that we suffered in the Six Nations, and if so will they try to do to us what we did to England? And is this just the boost that Argentina need? Now that they’ve proved “they exist” they’ll be aiming to push on and win all their pool matches.

I still have a good feeling about this RWC. I think we’ll do well. I was flicking between the coverage on TV3 and Setanta Sports and so caught both Denis Hickie and Eddie O’Sullivan giving their reaction. Hickie was his usual sensible self, saying that it would really affect the players, they have to concentrate on their own matches and playing the game the way they want to. They don’t want to have to worry about what other teams are doing. And O’Sullivan seemed to come away with positives. Of course there are also the negatives. How will our scrum hold-up against the French? Their maul was also quite impressive. Still, if they use the same full-back I’m sure ROG will fling up a couple of garryowens just like Argentina did. I don’t think that the Pumas will try the same thing against us, although I would like to see it, Dempsey would have a field day.

Roll on Sunday.

Tags: 2007RWC, Argentina, Denis Hickie, Eddie O'Sullivan, France, optimism, rugby

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