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Trf team of tournament

14 - no one at this stage is close to Kolbe

Pfft, he hasn't even been the best performing South African 14 at the tournament (think about it*). ;)

Penaud has also been pretty handy at 14, won the game for France today at the reset and he is not culpable for the French slumps. Was electric against Pumas in first half.

Good luck to those picking the centres. I thought it would be a very ordinary RWC for centres and good lord nobody is stepping up that I am seeing to change my mind. Id be interested if a fan of any side was happy with their centres. Thankfully I was wrong in thinking this would make it a very defensive, low scoring tournament.

13 to JD2 for solidity? Uh, Ringrose for a good first 20 against Japan? Ranrandra (although he is getting put on the wing?)

12 to La'faele for the quick hands or to Farrell for his resilient skull? I almost can't even throw a name out there.



*South African born Matsushima, scoring loads of tries and effortlessly switching to fullback almost every game.
 
14 - no one at this stage is close to Kolbe

Pfft, he hasn't even been the best performing South African 14 at the tournament (think about it*). ;)

Penaud has been pretty handy, won the game for France today at the reset and he is not culpable for the French slumps. He was also electric in thr first half against the Pumas.

Good luck to those picking the centres. I thought it would be a very ordinary RWC for centres and good lord nobody is stepping up that I am seeing to change my mind. Id be interested if a fan of any side was happy with their centres. Thankfully I was wrong in thinking these limitations and lack of settled combos would make it a very defensive, low scoring tournament.

13 to JD2 for solidity? Uh, Ringrose for a good first 20 against Japan? Ranrandra (although he is getting put on the wing?)

12 to La'faele for the quick hands or to Farrell for his resilient skull? I almost can't even throw a name out there.



*South African born Matsushima, scoring loads of tries and effortlessly switching to fullback almost every game.
 
Ringer would be my 13 so far... Surprise surprise! He was very good against Scotland and was the main reason they could get absolutely nothing going on attack, even after the first 20 against Japan he was the only back managing to disrupt their attack at all and you can't really blame him for Carty and Farrell losing their heads in attack. He's bagged a couple tries too.

Ultimately it probably won't matter, if Ireland don't make a QF I can say with nigh on 100% certainty that none of our players deserve a place in a world cup XV. Especially considering all of our players who are performing well are our outside backs who barring Ringrose are limited or just not as good a fullback as Liam Williams or BB who have been on top form.
 
Parkes, Tuilagi and Fickou have all impressed me so far.

Obviously it wasn't much of a test for him, but on the stats Lienert-Brown's performance against Namibia was off the scale. Keep an eye on him.
 
Lemeke put in a strong performance against Samoa, bridge didn't cover himself in glory against Namibia but his skills show up more against the top teams.
He was poor in the air but seemed to cop on and stop going for most of the high balls. Probably the one criticism I'd have of his performance in that game really.

Edit: Liked the look of Weber off the bench against Canada, even if it was just Canada. As @bushytop said Williams has been good for Wales and I thought Machenaud was pretty good against the USA as well. Obviously those 3 would need more gametime be properly in contention but I thought I'd mention it.
Not as a contender for best in position but I've enjoyed Damian Stevens from Namibia, particularly in the first game against Italy where he made three trysaving tackles and some other good things. He played quite well against t he all blacks too.
Pfft, he hasn't even been the best performing South African 14 at the tournament (think about it*). ;)

Penaud has been pretty handy, won the game for France today at the reset and he is not culpable for the French slumps. He was also electric in thr first half against the Pumas.

Good luck to those picking the centres. I thought it would be a very ordinary RWC for centres and good lord nobody is stepping up that I am seeing to change my mind. Id be interested if a fan of any side was happy with their centres. Thankfully I was wrong in thinking these limitations and lack of settled combos would make it a very defensive, low scoring tournament.

13 to JD2 for solidity? Uh, Ringrose for a good first 20 against Japan? Ranrandra (although he is getting put on the wing?)

12 to La'faele for the quick hands or to Farrell for his resilient skull? I almost can't even throw a name out there.



*South African born Matsushima, scoring loads of tries and effortlessly switching to fullback almost every game.
Tuilagi to me wasn't special against Argentina, though he was very good. He was special against Georgia but that doesn't count. Lafaele in his first two games was exceptional, though one of those was against Russia, but he didn't excel against Samoa. alb was very good against South Africa , considering the opposition. Ringrose was very good against Scotland, and his workrate against japan was top of the morning, though he was relatively ineffective.

but it's hard to tell as a casual observer, so I'm keen to hear any insights from those who have had close eyes on these positions.
 
15 no stand out at present with none being dire.
Squad rotation at present making it a hard pick so far

BB for NZ
LW for Wales
looking good so far.
 
Dupont very good again I though, a variety of circumstances meant I missed every other game this weekend so sadly that's all I have to contribute.
 
After the first round or so I have some brief notes and a shortlist for 10, going to be interesting as I've found a few of the bigger names haven't lived up to expectations just yet.
This is still the case, although a couple of the usual suspects have found some form. Couple have dropped out.

The biggest dilemma I have right now is picking a 10 that might not make it through to the knock out stages. Haven't been taking notes as much for the past week as sadly had other things on. Still seen all the matches in their entirety bar 2nd half of NZ vs Namibia and France vs Tonga... both on to-do for tonight and tomorrow.
 
Not as a contender for best in position but I've enjoyed Damian Stevens from Namibia, particularly in the first game against Italy where he made three trysaving tackles and some other good things. He played quite well against t he all blacks too.
I've had my eye on him and a few other weaker teams' 9s, will probably have a 'best from a team that went out' prize* at the end of the pool stages.

*Exluding teams like Argentina or potentially Scotland obviously.
 
Good luck to those picking the centres. I thought it would be a very ordinary RWC for centres and good lord nobody is stepping up that I am seeing to change my mind. Id be interested if a fan of any side was happy with their centres. Thankfully I was wrong in thinking these limitations and lack of settled combos would make it a very defensive, low scoring tournament.

13 to JD2 for solidity? Uh, Ringrose for a good first 20 against Japan? Ranrandra (although he is getting put on the wing?)

12 to La'faele for the quick hands or to Farrell for his resilient skull? I almost can't even throw a name out there.
Really? ALB has been NZ's best player of the tournament so far, duelling for that ***le with Savea. Ringrose has been excellent for Ireland.
 
This is still the case, although a couple of the usual suspects have found some form. Couple have dropped out.

The biggest dilemma I have right now is picking a 10 that might not make it through to the knock out stages. Haven't been taking notes as much for the past week as sadly had other things on. Still seen all the matches in their entirety bar 2nd half of NZ vs Namibia and France vs Tonga... both on to-do for tonight and tomorrow.
The way I've been thinking about it for radradra, which may or may not apply to your guys, is that he has one big game against a big opposition that will effectively be Fiji's final, so it's important for him to play well in that game.
 
Okay, so after this past week, the hookers are still scoring tries off mauls, but in general, there wasn't really standout performances for apart from Torsten van Jaarsveld for Namibia vs. New Zealand. He was probably their best forward on the field.

There were some decent performances by Dane Coles, Jamie George, and Shota Horie. Also, I thought Marx was starting to show a bit of his old self when he came on in the second half.
 
For what it's worth my front runners for 12 at the moment are Fikou and Kerevi, although I think I'm going to make most of my decisions based on knock-out stages. DDA in the conversation I think.

Farrel hasn't been great, Japan have been one of the form teams but Nakamura isn't one of their better players, Crotty hasn't had enough time to shine, need to see more from Hadleigh Parkes and Chris Farrel but I'll be keeping a close eye.
 
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I'm struggling with 2nd row, been a few good performances but none that's really shone from game to game. I'm not really considering the SA/NZ demolitions of nambia/canada.
 
I'm struggling with 2nd row, been a few good performances but none that's really shone from game to game. I'm not really considering the SA/NZ demolitions of nambia/canada.

I'd suggest

- Alun Wyn Jones was a key part of Wales winning the breakdown contest v Australia
- James Ryan has one of the best defensive records in the tournament (29-0) and bagged a try
- Scott Barrett had a very good attacking performance v SA
 
I'd suggest

- Alun Wyn Jones was a key part of Wales winning the breakdown contest v Australia
- James Ryan has one of the best defensive records in the tournament (29-0) and bagged a try
- Scott Barrett had a very good attacking performance v SA

I've already got Barrett in my head, but I think he might get dropped to the bench with Rettalick back from injury. AWJ has been good but so has Ball to be fair so I'm on the fence about that one. As for Ryan, I thought Henderson was better than him in the first game then they both looked a bit anonymous (As did a lot of Ireland forwards) in the Japan defeat. Shout out to Thompson though who has put in decent shifts considering he is 38!
 
I've already got Barrett in my head, but I think he might get dropped to the bench with Rettalick back from injury. AWJ has been good but so has Ball to be fair so I'm on the fence about that one. As for Ryan, I thought Henderson was better than him in the first game then they both looked a bit anonymous (As did a lot of Ireland forwards) in the Japan defeat. Shout out to Thompson though who has put in decent shifts considering he is 38!

Barrett has been my top lock. I feel Ryan has been ok, not up to his top standards though, but the Ireland pack hasn't been performing on the whole. I'm going to wait until the knock outs to see the best performers.

Itoje is doing a good job.
 
13: if forced to pick now, probably Ringrose but i'd be a bit unfair. Half the teams are playing their B sides to avoid injuries, etc. I'm taking tier 1 vs tier 1 or Tier 1 vs top tier 2 games with much more weight than the rest.
 

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