I’m drafting this post on the train from Swansea back to London, reflecting (seething, actually) about some of the performances of this weekend’s Rugby World Cup games. Let’s reflect on some of the matches:

France v Argentina - What an upset! France, hosts of the World Cup, and in the first game of the tournament - in Paris - choked big time, leeting the Argies win a hard fought game.

New Zealand v Italy - Let’s be clear: Italy aren’t bad at all. Yet New Zealand walked it. Hopefully they’ll choke at a crucial point and be denied the World Cup yet again, despite being heavy favourites from the start.

Wales V Canada - The first half of this match hurt to watch. Wales, who were 1/100 favourites before the game started, leaked three tries en route to being on the losing side at half time. James Hook seemed struck by stage fright, and the introduction of Gareth Thomas and Stephen Jones finally turned the game around.

England V USA - England, the defending champions no less, were bossed about by the Americans and rarely showed any inclination to put some real points on the board. The commentators, meanwhile, went on about how they thought it was a psychological ploy to make the South Africans think they have an easy time this Friday. England aren’t that clever.

Ireland V Namibia - Either Ireland were really awful or Namibia played a great game. I haven’t decided

Scotland v Portugal - A dull performance from Scotland brightened up by the obvious joy that the Portuguese took in just being at the World Cup.

Samoa V South Africa - Brian Habana is simply outstanding, I feel that Samoa’s heavy loss might have turned out a little different if it weren’t for him. A hard-hitting game, I’m sure they’re all incredibly sore today.

Australia V Japan - Australia racked up a truly enormous score against the Japanese, utterly dominating and looking a massive threat to the Welsh on Saturday. (I’ll be there.)

This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 7:02 pm and is filed under rugby, sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.