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What do you expect realisticly from your country at the RWC?

JJR said:
No Problems there, but 6 Months in World Rugby is a lot of time for things to change. There is still Tri-nations coming and the Current Superugby to regain form. Boks were useless in 06' and Won the World Cup in 07'. All about hitting your straps at the right time; New Zealand always seem to get that wrong, and Peak in between World Cups. Pity it seems that SA and NZ will meet in Semi...would have been a great Final...Defending Champions and the Most consistently No.1 team in World Rugby, New Zealand.
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Yeah, but Super Rugby signals are much diffrent from 2007 ones... That season was ruled by well playing Bulls and Sharks, and the players arrived at the RWC very fresh and in a great form.
Honestly, it's hard to say that now. PDV "overused" his players in the last 2 years, who are pretty much the same of 2007, but now dangerously older!

Anyway... I think the most probable (and surely the most closed one) QF would be England vs. France... Really can't see NZ and ENG not winning their respective pools.
 
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I honestly think Ireland will beat australia or south Africa and then lose in the semis. I think whoever wins an all blacks-Australia match will lift the trophy. I don't see south Africa doing well unless they get rid of Steyn and I think England will do well getting to either the semis or the final.
 
Ah yes, the good old Irish hyping up of the team. How long until someone says we'll make the final?
 
Being American, the only thing I expect is beating Russia. If we could pull off some sort of miracle against Italy, I would wear a USA jersey every day for the following month haha. Of course the odds are 1 million to 1 but I can dream right? But I'm expecting the pool winners to be the SANZAR trio and England. I would hope to see Ireland pull off a win over Australia, but I'm not sure they can. After that beating they gave England, it looks possible, but when you look back at the rest of the 6 Nations tournament this year, you lose some faith for sure.
 
madflyhalf said:
Yeah, but Super Rugby signals are much diffrent from 2007 ones... That season was ruled by well playing Bulls and Sharks, and the players arrived at the RWC very fresh and in a great form.
Honestly, it's hard to say that now. PDV "overused" his players in the last 2 years, who are pretty much the same of 2007, but now dangerously older!

Anyway... I think the most probable (and surely the most closed one) QF would be England vs. France... Really can't see NZ and ENG not winning their respective pools.
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Have you watched The Bulls play lately and Stormers also playing some great Rugby. All the "OLD" Guys you are talking about are smashing the Younger guys. Willem Alberts, Jean Deysel, Beast, B.Du Plessis, etc were smashed physically by The Bulls and they are amongst the Best carrying forwards you can find. The tactical play from Du Preez and Steyn was also very clinical this past weekend.

Lets wait and see who makes The Semi's in this year's Superugby and we will talk again.
 
another grand fail ahead for the masters of being the biggest underacheivers in the world cup ireland.
 
Being Romanian, can't expect miracles from our national team, but I hope we will beat Georgia. I hope we will try to attack in the other games as well, like we did in the last world cup. It was great that we scored a try against New Zealand, even if we conceded 80 points.

If Scotland's horrible form continues, we could maybe get a result against them, but the chances are imo very slim.
 
I expect South Africa to get to the semi finals. If they win their group, they will play New Zealand in the semi's, which is a 10% chance of a win considering the current squads.
 
Scotland have no hope. We play the most boring rugby i have ever seen in my opinion. I reckon we will take a beating off England and we will concede a couple against one of the lower teams.
On the bigger scale, can't see New Zealand not winning, but i hope teams like fiji, samoa and tonga play well as they can be great to watch and obviously difficult to play. Want NZ to win though, they deserve it.
 
JJR said:
Have you watched The Bulls play lately and Stormers also playing some great Rugby. All the "OLD" Guys you are talking about are smashing the Younger guys. Willem Alberts, Jean Deysel, Beast, B.Du Plessis, etc were smashed physically by The Bulls and they are amongst the Best carrying forwards you can find. The tactical play from Du Preez and Steyn was also very clinical this past weekend.

Lets wait and see who makes The Semi's in this year's Superugby and we will talk again.
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Fact 1: a lot of players are struggling with medium/long term injuries (Fourie Du Preez, Brussow, Dewald Potgeiter, Juan Smith, Gurthro Steenkamp), others are back but not in their best form (JP Pietersen). Not a good sign at this moment, looking forward to the forthcoming WC...

Fact 2: PDV is likely going to call the same players used in the last 4 years (ore even more), with a few other names (Louw, Kankowski, Dewald Potgeiter, maybe Jantjes and Lambie because he found he has no 10s after Morné Steyn...).

I'm not saying he has to call up new faces NOW.
I'm saying he should do this 2 years ago, and sistematically use them, as Deans did with Australia!
There are 3-4 key players without some good back-ups

- John Smit first, because he's a great leader, but Matfield is far from him (I always said that vice-captain must be Juan Smith)
- Juan Smith; Frans Louw is on the right way, but he's not ready
- Fourie du Preez, there is no n.9 like him for this team;

I think poor SA we've seen in 2010 was due (also) to the absence of these last 2 guys, when Juan Smith returned, he changed the team (for the last 2 matches)

But he's going at the World Cup with Matfield (who's keep playing like a ghost), Spies (who doesn't tackle my 95yo grandma), Kirchner (who's NOT a test fullback), maybe Juan Smith (based on his injury, he should play with only one leg), and he's not even where John Smit has to play, or who's gonna be the 2 best options for the halves back-up!

In addition to this, what PDV is going to do with Frans Steyn and Joe Van Niekerk?
He can't go to the cup without the first, and the second deserves as well a couple of chances to show what he can still do!


As I said before: it's not matter of what he could do now, but what he should have done before!
 
As an AB's supporter, I expect us to get knocked out in the quarters/semi's, then blame the ref/coach/Steven Donald/a waitress called Suzy..;)

Realistically though, the AB's deserve to be favourites for this tournament. While we have only won 1/6 Rugby World Cups, we have won 1/1 at home.... hopefully that will end up being 2/2 by the end of the year....
 
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Wales need to mae the quarter's at least :s We do have a very physical pool though :s
 
mikefoot1 said:
Wales need to mae the quarter's at least :s We do have a very physical pool though :s
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Just checked out pool D again and jeez. But that goes for everyone, even South Africa could find themselves pretty bruised if(probably when) whey get through to the quarters. At which point they would probably have Ireland who would then have as good a chance as ever at that point.

Anything less than semis will be considered a failure for England. But to be fair a game against France with both teams full strength could go either way and there would be no shame in losing. As long as we can avoid New Zealand then we'll have a chance.
 
I just want Samoa to run over Fiji in the RWC.. I want to see em get smashed at the scrum!
 
Well I'm hoping for robbie deans to get his timing right and the wallabies peak at the RWC. i've secretly been hoping for the last 4 years, the wallabies have been practising several set plays that will only be used at the correct moment and that the players have been playing at 80%. but i'm not so sure haha :)

Just a bit of useless trivia. I put up a 2007 wallabies world cup poster in my garage 4 years ago... counted the players still in the squad today... could only count 5
have any other teams changed as much?
 

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