Rugby Union 21/22/23 Discussion | RWC time!

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if ireland were better three years ago, they’d have got a better draw. the key is to not be shit for large periods of time.
 
They both barely lost in two of the greatest games of all time. Underperformed?
But they lost.

Look, my perspective is that Ireland came in as world number one, and this was widely considered the finest Irish team of all time. Yet it still went out in the quarters. That’s underperformed. And to be honest, if you don’t think your best team of all time underperformed going out in the quarters, then that’s not a very optimistic take for ever doing any better
 
They're just not very good and neither are Argentina. Awful game, that.

I don’t disagree but England look unfit in the Argentina game, at the end they couldn’t get rid of the ball fast enough. They are not exactly quality, but they never lack fitness.
 
Saying that England overperformed only makes sense if you think independent of any context. In context, they did exactly what would've been expected.
 
But they lost.

Look, my perspective is that Ireland came in as world number one, and this was widely considered the finest Irish team of all time. Yet it still went out in the quarters. That’s underperformed. And to be honest, if you don’t think your best team of all time underperformed going out in the quarters, then that’s not a very optimistic take for ever doing any better

Exactly, if the draw had gone how everyone claims it should then they’d have been beaten in the semi if things remained the same and been 3/4 overall. Which is an underachievement for the 1 ranked team.
 
I don’t disagree but England look unfit in the Argentina game, at the end they couldn’t get rid of the ball fast enough. They are not exactly quality, but they never lack fitness.
Quite a few are on their last legs in that England squad, and then you’ve got some who are just very average. As a Bath fan, it amazes me that Will Stuart gets starts for England. The likes of Genge and Sinckler haven’t seemed to kick on from where I thought they would be four years ago.
 
Saying that England overperformed only makes sense if you think independent of any context. In context, they did exactly what would've been expected.

Not really. If you actually look at context and see how this team had played over the last 1 year with a coaching change months before the World Cup and the captain banned for the start most England fans expected a complete disaster. It’s easy to look back in hindsight and say they beat who they should have beat but sport doesn’t work like that.

I was worried that this World Cup had the potential to be a complete embarrassment for England and I am glad that they have managed to not only avoid that but actually even ran Springboks close
 
Exactly, if the draw had gone how everyone claims it should then they’d have been beaten in the semi if things remained the same and been 3/4 overall. Which is an underachievement for the 1 ranked team.

That’s not the way knock out competitions in sport works. You’re implying that Manchester City will underachieve this year if they don’t win the quadruple because they’re the number one ranked team in all four competitions. Which is obviously ridiculous.

Ireland should have been good enough to get to the last four. They played well enough to get there too. Beating one of the finalists and running the other one extremely close. Only the insane draw stopped Ireland and France cruising into the semis. From there every tournament winner needs a bit of good luck with injuries, referee decisions, the bounce of the ball and so on if they’re going to beat the very best teams in the competition. Putting Ireland to one side, I thought France played the better rugby against SA and we now know they lost because of a penalty that shouldn’t have been given as a penalty. Individual matches in team sports aren’t always won by the best team. If they were it would be incredibly boring and we’d all be fecking loaded from all the money we won down the bookies!
 
Quite a few are on their last legs in that England squad, and then you’ve got some who are just very average. As a Bath fan, it amazes me that Will Stuart gets starts for England. The likes of Genge and Sinckler haven’t seemed to kick on from where I thought they would be four years ago.
It’ll be interesting to see where England go now. I’m expecting bugger all from SN2024 because it’s only just round the corner, but you’d have to say by 2025 we’d want to see the next wave of players and idea bedded in.

I don’t think the retirees are necessarily a big issue and most of these guys are on the wane and have given their all. The bigger problem is the overseas players. Willis, Marchant, Arrundell are all in or approaching their prime and We’ll have a problem if we can’t use them for the next iteration of the national team
 
It would say they underperformed

If you judge sporting performances by the scores on Teletext, maybe.

Everyone who watched the tournament (and has a clue about rugby) knows which teams performed well and which didn’t. Having said I don’t think England overachieved I do think their performance against South Africa was better than most people expected this team, under this manager, was capable of. So that arguably is an overachievement. The result was exactly as expected but the performance wasn’t. The rest of their performances were about what you’d expect. Running up a score against minnows, making slightly heavy weather of winning against the mid tier teams.

In terms of performance, Ireland and France clearly played some of the best rugby in the tournament by performing about as well as they were expected to. Which is extremely well. They both lost tight games against the two finalists. Maybe they should have won both those games to have considered to have met expectations but that seems harsh and shows also a lack of understanding about the way sport works, where very small margins can decide matches between very good teams. IMHO.
 
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Still fecking ruminating on our loss. I've been listening to the Ireland-NZ post mortem on a podcast I listen to (second captains) who have a bunch of pundits who are very knowledgeable about rugby (unlike me!) They have me a bit confused though.

The consensus is that:
1. A lot of NZ players put in 9/10 or 10/10 performances. Only Aki managed that for Ireland
2. NZ were completely dominant at the breakdown
3. NZ set pieces were better than Ireland
4. NZ preplanned attack plays were better than Ireland
5. NZ defence was better than Ireland's
6. NZ coaching on the day (subs. tactical adjustments etc) was better than Ireland

I completely agree with points 1-5 and am happy to take their word for 6 (that stuff is over my head)

What melts my head is how all of the above can be true and the game was still so close? I can't think of any close shaves at the Ireland try line but the held up maul and the cross kick which just evaded Sheehan's hand were two moments which could have won Ireland the game.

Most of the stats have Ireland as the dominant team too.



Can anyone make all of this make sense? How did Ireland manage to play so badly - and New Zealand play so well - without New Zealand winning comfortably?
Weirdly, I don't fully disagree with the pundits. I'd say we played at about a 6 or 7 out of 10. Our backs probably played as well as they usually do but our pack was well below their best. Very rare to see all 8 members of the Irish pack have so little impact in open play. I think NZ played at 9 or 10 out of 10. Very close to their best anyway. Which makes me wonder if they're not actually that good and will be found out in the final. Which would be a bit of a kick in the balls, with hindsight.

Would this not say the Ireland underperformed then?
 
Pogue (and others) don't do it to yourself, it's not worth it.
 
Would this not say the Ireland underperformed then?

I don’t think they did. The more I think about it the more I reckon Ireland’s poor performance was overstated. We were poor in the first 15 minutes or so but pretty dominant after that. Against a very good team, playing out of their skins. Which is a level of performance that would have won that game, more often than not. Which brings me back to what I keep banging on about. The fine margins when two good teams play each other and that the better team on the day doesn’t always win in a once off fixture. Something any United fan who watched the ‘99 CL final knows very well.
 
Aaaaaanway… moving on… why don’t scrumhalf’s do dive passes any more? Mentioned that to my young lad and he said nobody does it in schoolboy rugby. It’s not a thing. When (and why) did it die out?!
Ruck speed. With the emphasis on ruck speed and quick ball being so high for most teams it’s a hard enough job for the 9 to be at the next ruck in time to make the next pass as it is. If he’s having to get up off the deck it’s even harder
 
England overachieved considering their last 18 months. As did Wales.
Ireland and France both underachieved considering their last 18 months

Yeah, definitely agree with England and Wales take. I never expected Wales to get out of the group, to be honest. And they really should have beaten Argentina. Thought England were great against SA and they should've made the final
 
predictions for the final then? i’m quite conflicted. in general, i find south africans annoying and they’re unable to join in the joshing and bashing in the correct way, yet the south africans on here are actually decent. new zealand seem to peaking at the right time and have had two weeks off. they’ll also want to avenge the mauling they got a twickenham in the warm up.

south africa got a wake up call last week and its a major chance of history for them. hoping for extra time and a cracking game, but think new zealand will pinch it.
 
Aaaaaanway… moving on… why don’t scrumhalf’s do dive passes any more? Mentioned that to my young lad and he said nobody does it in schoolboy rugby. It’s not a thing. When (and why) did it die out?!

Now you mention it our scrum halfs at school were taught to pretty much exclusively use the diving pass when taking the ball from the back of the scrum, I’d completely forgot until you mentioned it. Don’t recall the last time I’d seen one.
 
predictions for the final then? i’m quite conflicted. in general, i find south africans annoying and they’re unable to join in the joshing and bashing in the correct way, yet the south africans on here are actually decent. new zealand seem to peaking at the right time and have had two weeks off. they’ll also want to avenge the mauling they got a twickenham in the warm up.

south africa got a wake up call last week and its a major chance of history for them. hoping for extra time and a cracking game, but think new zealand will pinch it.

I hope New Zealand wipe the floor with them. Not going to happen of course, but I’ve always had a soft spot for the All Blacks. It’ll be interesting to see if the England game took anything out of South Africa, they could be knackered here.
 
predictions for the final then? i’m quite conflicted. in general, i find south africans annoying and they’re unable to join in the joshing and bashing in the correct way, yet the south africans on here are actually decent. new zealand seem to peaking at the right time and have had two weeks off. they’ll also want to avenge the mauling they got a twickenham in the warm up.

south africa got a wake up call last week and its a major chance of history for them. hoping for extra time and a cracking game, but think new zealand will pinch it.

I'd prefer South Africa to win but I think New Zealand will.
 
predictions for the final then? i’m quite conflicted. in general, i find south africans annoying and they’re unable to join in the joshing and bashing in the correct way, yet the south africans on here are actually decent. new zealand seem to peaking at the right time and have had two weeks off. they’ll also want to avenge the mauling they got a twickenham in the warm up.

south africa got a wake up call last week and its a major chance of history for them. hoping for extra time and a cracking game, but think new zealand will pinch it.
I also think NZ are likely. A lot is being made of the 7-1 split as a tactic, but I'm starting to think a lot of the forwards are exhausted, and the 7-1 is almost a necessity at this stage.

The one thing I will say though is if Kolisi lifts the cup again, he will go down as one of the GOATs - probably the greatest springbok of all time. Although there have been better players, his whole history and being the first black captain of what has historically been seen as Apartheid's sport team is the stuff of dreams.
 
Yeah, definitely agree with England and Wales take. I never expected Wales to get out of the group, to be honest. And they really should have beaten Argentina. Thought England were great against SA and they should've made the final
They’d have still been crap and had a crap tournament even if they’d have turned the boks over ;)
 
predictions for the final then? i’m quite conflicted. in general, i find south africans annoying and they’re unable to join in the joshing and bashing in the correct way, yet the south africans on here are actually decent. new zealand seem to peaking at the right time and have had two weeks off. they’ll also want to avenge the mauling they got a twickenham in the warm up.

south africa got a wake up call last week and its a major chance of history for them. hoping for extra time and a cracking game, but think new zealand will pinch it.
Anyone else scour @rimaldo’s serious posts hoping a capital letter has slipped in unawares
 
Aaaaaanway… moving on… why don’t scrumhalf’s do dive passes any more? Mentioned that to my young lad and he said nobody does it in schoolboy rugby. It’s not a thing. When (and why) did it die out?!
I reckon it's because the balls they hve used for some years now weigh half as much as the ones we used at school and the rugby club back in the 60's and 70's when Gareth Edwards was the best exponent of the dive pass and the reverse pass. England are a mirror of United, look clueless at times but somehow manage to grind out a result. It was criminal that Arundell didn't get a decent pass and chance to run. The match last night reminded me of my school day rugby in the 60's (1960's:)) when it was a ten man game. Win the ball pass it to the stand off who wellied it, chase it, get possession and welly it again. Underhill was a beast last night and should have played against the Boks imho. We are not the third best team in the world for sure. Should be an interesting six nations. All Blacks will win it.
 
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