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Rugby World Cup 2019

Penguin

John Solomon (38)
I agree with all you've said there Dan. I've been thoroughly enthralled and entertained the whole way through. Whilst I could never cheer for England, they played a magnificent tournament & were unlucky not to go the whole way. Though odds were against them getting a Southern Slam in the process! I'm also really quiet happy for South Africa to take it out. It gives hope that any country can come out of the doldrums & quite quickly to. England also proof of this. And there are so many good individual stories out of the Saffa camp. With their captain leading the way in that regard. Dare I say it, but I feel South Africa winning has made Rugby beautiful again. The Japanese story is a wonderful sub plot.
 

Dismal Pillock

Simon Poidevin (60)
cobbled together this nice wee Fitzy 2003-ish souvenir for the RWC 2019 scrapbook.....
md1_zpszkfzxdeb.png
 

Dismal Pillock

Simon Poidevin (60)
Great tourney but ffs they spend all the $$$ on the whole shebang..... then leave the insanely crucial actual refereeing of these huge matches in the hands of a clutch of unintelligible failed French waiters.

Incongruous.

Thats what IRB should be throwing $$ at. Offer a huge salary and insane training and scour the earth for 5 or 6 glacially calm masters of spatial gyronomics.

Conversely, I hope "Skeeny" is enjoying his new IRB posting, surely kicking off at 9 am sharp this Monday morning; a parking warden in Tokyo. It's his true calling. "Angus, comms check, comms check. Check 1-2. Angus, this 2016 Nissan Prius has a tread depth of only 1.8 mm as opposed that the ward district required 2.2 mm. Sending you the pictures now, Angus. Angus? Angus, do you copy?"
 

Derpus

George Gregan (70)
I thought the reffing all round during the knock-out stages was fine. Even from Skeen.
The breakdown and offside line were generally a mess all tournament (final included). Pretty sure I didn't see a single player supporting their own weight throughout the whole thing.
 

Viking

Mark Ella (57)
The breakdown and offside line were generally a mess all tournament (final included). Pretty sure I didn't see a single player supporting their own weight throughout the whole thing.


This is pretty consistent every year though. Wouldn't say it was specific for this tournament.

Definitely agree that the sideline ref's needs to step up their game on the offside line.
 

dru

Tim Horan (67)
I thought the reffing all round during the knock-out stages was fine. Even from Skeen.

Perhaps. But I don’t think it makes up for the initial rounds’ reffing. Which was at times diabolically laughable.

Also, this thing of being even handed with (poor) reffing at the breakdown - this does not create a level playing field. Not if the lax interpretations are positive to one teams strategy and negative to a different strategy and style by the opposition. This is particularly the case where interpretations change for a competition, or a new set of “crack downs” create novel quasi-interpretation changes.

That’s not really aimed at the refs but it is at the administration.

Edit: as above for the breakdown ditto the scrums.
 

Dctarget

John Eales (66)
I have to eat a bit of humble pie here after some stellar knock out games. I fully expected at least one of the knock out matches to be marred by the ref crack down on high shots. But turns out people can learn to tackle lower and there were no outrageous cards. Kudos to the players and refs for a fairly uncontroversial wrap up to a great competition.
 

Spruce Moose

Fred Wood (13)
Thought the reffing was similar quality to most tournaments, average to poor in pool games as more refs are used meaning not all are test match quality with the added bonus that they are fed a lot of info/directives from world rugby pre-tournament that probably confuses them. Then by knock outs the reffing is fine, not majorly affecting any of the games (bar the France vs Wales game but that was a text book red).

Haven't read all the posts but thought it was a great RWC.
My Non-rugby playing highlights were:
Full Stadiums of ecstatic fans for nearly all the games I saw on TV.
Japanese mascots all singing the national anthems with the countries they led out (with serious gusto usually).
Sean Maloney commentating on Scandinavian TV/neutral RWC feed. (he should be commentating tests in Australia, knows a lot about every player for each game far superior to most other aussie commentators I hear back home on Fox.)

My Lowlight:
Typhoon affecting games. Not much you can do but hosting it in Typhoon season think they should have been prepared to move pool games that would have affected knock outs.
 

Dan54

Tim Horan (67)
Sean Maloney and Martyn Williams were great in commentary. There should be more of it.

Yep I enjoyed Maloney, much the same as Sumo Stevenson, certainly would not mind Maloney getting more gigs, just a slightly fresher sound to lidten to than Clarkie etc, Marty Willaiams I thought was good comments man.
 

Nath

Bill Watson (15)
My Lowlight:
Typhoon affecting games. Not much you can do but hosting it in Typhoon season think they should have been prepared to move pool games that would have affected knock outs.

It wasn't typhoon season.

They were meant to have stopped a month before the tournament started.

Trouble is, you can never predict how late the season will run.
 
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