Random Sports Babbling Post 2

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Possibly our finest result ever I'm told. Beating a tri nations team down in the southern hemisphere is pretty unprecedented. The guy doing the highlights show that night was giddy the whole way through. I think this is going to make a big difference to the draw? If nobody else messes up I think we now have a six nations side and a tri nations side. Great for us as we're much less likely to freeze against people we're used to playing.

 

France vs All Blacks tomorrow night!!! Whoop whoop

 

USA v Australia on now. Ouch, USA almost scored, but they dropped the ball and Australia ran the length of the field and scored at the other end. If only he'd held the ball!

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uSA started well, but now just falling off tackles all over the place.

 

It was good to see England actually playing better, but to be fair i think a blind school could run up the tries against that shower.

NZ are looking ominously good.

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NZ look ominously good all the time. Richie McCaw has been on the winning side 88 times out his 100 matches. Still doesn't mean they will win.

 

The Warriors are in the final next week! What rugby world cup?
XD

 

Go all three Warriors teams! Shame nobody in Melbourne cares about the Storm, so I can't hassle any of my Melbourne friends. AFL is the only religion in that town.

 

I'm still looking forward to a football match against England. Last friendly was cancelled (about 2 months ago) and I was pretty disappointed. Now each time I hear Eng(e)land and football/voetbal in one sentence, I cock my head and prick up my ears.

 

Can't believe Dan Carter's out of the world cup. :/

 

I know. Imagine how he must feel. Pretty much dedicated the last four years of his life to this, and win or lose, to have the experience and opportunity to play taken away from him like that. Cruel luck for the man.

 

Genuinely gutted for the guy.

In other news, England stumble into the next round under a storm of abject performances and off-field controvesies. We'll need to play a lot better against France - I expect them to do better than they did against Tonga. I worry about our scrum (Matt Stevens is no Andy Sheridan), our set pieces (Thommo has had his day) and our kicking (Wilko over Floody? Why? Flood has been our best player over the last year, and Wilko seems to have left his kicking boots at home!). One saving grace is that Chris Ashton is still finishing well. He only needs half a sniff thay guy!

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England are really lucky they are up against France and not Wales or Ireland. France have been ordinary in just about every game they have played so far, not showing anything like the passion and strength of those other two Lions teams. It's a bit of a tragedy that Wales and Ireland have to play each other next because they both seem to have a lot of momentum at the moment, and I can see on of those teams making the final, where there is always a real chance of winning, especially if it means being up against a flakey Australia, an unimaginative South Africa, or makeshift New Zealand team. This tournament is now wide open!

 

Still think we are heavy favourites, that backline is pretty scary even without Dan.

Guys like Kahui and SBW draw a lot of attention from defenders, then you have Dagg, Nonu and Smith... very dangerous. Targetting the inexperienced Colin Slade will be key for opposition.

 

The key man is Jerome Kaino. He is the enforcer in the pack and it's noticeably de peered when hes not there. If we lose Kaino, then I will start losing hope.

 

Can't disagree, Kaino brings what Jerry Collins used to bring - aggression, intimidation and power. The difference being Kaino is so much better.

Kaino - McCaw - Read is arguably the best loose forward trio in the world.

 

Help an ignorant American out here. I saw an advertisement that there are football world cup qualifying matches coming up soon. Now, unless I have my years totally messed up, wasn't the WC just in 2010? So that the next WC is 2014? How can you start qualifying three years in advance? I mean, it would seem like that if the WC is three years away, you don't even know who is going to be on the team yet. In three years, some of the older players playing today will be retired, and younger players who haven't even stepped on the field yet for the national teams will be in starring roles. Or, less extreme, players who haven't entered their prime yet will be in their prime, and players currently in their prime may no longer be.

I doubt there are many teams where you could list their best players today versus their best players three years ago, and have the lists be the same. It seems a bit unfair to have qualifying now, when the teams are likely to turn over 20%-30% of their roster between now and the next world cup. What am I missing here?

 

International football is secondary to club football, so they have to cram the qualifiers in where they can. it's held over 2 years, with approx a year between the qualifiers and the world cup proper.

Teams don't alter that much in 3 years, but some might retire and other players brought in. Why does the team have to be the same?

 

It depends on the region you're in. In Europe it goes in 2 year cycles as Barmy said. We have two years qualifying for the World Cup and then the next two years are qualifying for the European Championship. That's not that big a gap and the teams don't tend to change that much.

Other regions do draw it out over the full 4 years between World Cups. There are two reasons for this. Firstly some regions with lots of countries but few qualifying places have preliminary rounds to narrow down the small teams before having the proper qualifiers later. North America has 35 countries for 3.5 places. The countries playing now are the likes of US Virgin Islands, St. Lucia and Barbados. The likes of the US and Mexico will join later. Realistically these teams are not going to go the full 4 years to the next world cup so no team is actually playing that long. I presume these are the matches you've seen advertised, they're on now.

Other regions just like to play as many matches as possible in order to get as much money as they can. National associations mainly get money from internationals and it's a very big deal if you don't have a rich local club scene to fund youth development and the like.

 

You have to get through a LOT of countries remember (pretty much every country in the world) so it takes ages.

Meanwhile, Wales looking awesome at Rugby World Cup 2011. Best chance ever to win the whole thing!

 

England has a problem against the French. 16-0 at halftime.

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I knew they were playing badly lately, but this one hurts. 19-7