Fortaleza

With the Rugby World Cup coming up in just 5 weeks, and as the nations begin their warm up games this weekend, I thought the Siesta room could do with this thread. As we are made up of several different nations we should get some differing views

Can England mount a successful defence of their title? Will the All Blacks choke yet again? Can France make Home advantage count? Or will Portugal run away with the whole thing??!!

Here are the Pools

Pool A
England, South Africa, Samoa, USA, Tonga

Pool B
Australia, Wales, Fiji, Canada, Japan

Pool C
New Zealand, Scotland, Italy, Romania, Portugal

Pool D
France, Ireland, Argentina, Georgia, Namibia

Assuming things go by the form book I'd suggest the Quarter Finals will look like this:

England v Australia

New Zealand v Ireland (Argentina as an outside bet)

South Africa v Wales

France v Scotland/Italy

Semi Finals - who knows??? Maybe.....

Australia v New Zealand

Wales v France (Ok, South Africa v France )

So a NZ v France Final.

What do you think? Once again England's campaign rests on one Pool game - v South Africa. They win that and they face the familiar 6 Nations route just like last time giving them relatively easy passage to the Final. That said, Wales would prefer face England for the same reasons.

Could be interesting.

rugbymatt

Cant see Scotland getting that far mate, just don't think they have it in them.


I suspect it will be a SA v NZ final, and SA are a dark horse at the moment, but the mental edge rests with the AB's.

Pam Sarky

We only watch proper rugby in this house. RUGBY LEAGUE

rugbymatt

don't bring your gay arsed touch rugby in here woman!

Pam Sarky

GAY ARSED??? At least they aint afraid of tackling!!!

Fortaleza

Yes they are!! They're padded up to the hilt and as soon as they get "tackled" they get up and run away.

Pam Sarky

Ok girls I am going to leave you to this thread

But before I do I am just going to say that League is a much tougher game than union. A lot quicker, harder and a hell of a lot more interesting

rugbymatt

Wilko seems happy to tackle here!

Fortaleza

Which must explain why it's so popular???? League is for the masses as it is simplified to the degree that even a monkey could understand it. Fortunately for the vastly superior global audience of Union, the fans prefer a little bit more from their sport. It's a bit like Checkers/Draughts and Chess. Any fool can understand Checkers but you need a bit more skill to become accomplished at chess.

rugbymatt

Plus the fact that it was thought up so that no one would get hurt!

derbyflan

Don't write-off Wales so easily.

rugbymatt

your right, they may just win the wooden spoon yet!

derbyflan

They'll do better than the OP predicts. 'Tis all I'm saying. Of course they won't win it, nor get to the final. They'll do better than what he said though.

Anyway, I can see this getting lifted to the Locker Room which is where it probably belongs.

Fortaleza

Heart says we lift the cup, head says no. Our best shot is that England beat SA in the Pool to set a quarter final against us which we could win then on to a semi with France which again we could win (although a much tougher game) then it's the final. If we have to face SA in the quarters we'll be booking our flights home pretty sharpish.

If we did win though, I can't see there being OBE's in it for us nor even a BBC Sport Personality award. Will get a bus trip through Cardiff and a week long piss-up where no-one will be at work.

rugbymatt

If it ends up there it will be swamped by the League boys and die a death because Union is hated in there.

what's the matter with you, you "sound" miserable.