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Apollodorus posted:This World Cup has been really great for several reasons (thrilling Scotland/Samoa game, England crashing out in pool play of YET ANOTHER major sporting event, Japan playing the ballsiest rugby I've ever watched) but as an American I can't help but feel extremely frustrated. All across social media I've been getting these messages from USA Rugby about a "gallant campaign" and "hard-fought games" and "thanks for the memories" and I'm just thinking, look, we couldn't even put a single point on the board against the Springboks, meaning USA Eagles were the only team to be held scoreless this World Cup, and meanwhile we completely collapsed in the second half against Scotland and Samoa. It's just not acceptable that we can't find 30 guys out of a country of ~350 million (which I think is roughly equal to the population of all top-10-ranked rugby nations COMBINED) who have the desire, athletic ability, and training to play top-level professional rugby. Apparently the most we can find is like 8 (Manoa, Wyles, Scully, Fry, Lamositele, Dolan, Smith, Peterson) and several of them play for mediocre top-level teams at that. Maybe the trick is to promote rugby in Canada. Half the time I feel Australia is only interested in rugby since they don't like their little brother NZ looking good. Built up the rivalry with Canada so US always is striving to beat them. Also one thing that amazed my when I lived in Canada was how many kids played rugby in highschool, they all drop it after it seems though.
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# ? Oct 14, 2015 04:15 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 14:24 |
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Scapegoat posted:Maybe the trick is to promote rugby in Canada. Half the time I feel Australia is only interested in rugby since they don't like their little brother NZ looking good. Built up the rivalry with Canada so US always is striving to beat them. Also one thing that amazed my when I lived in Canada was how many kids played rugby in highschool, they all drop it after it seems though. Australia likes the following things: 1) Winning everything 2) Beating New Zealand 3) Beating England When the Wallabies aren't doing 2 of the above, no-one in Australia cares about them. For the last what, 8 years they haven't really been doing the above at all or have been doing it so inconsistently that it sort of happens in News headlines occasionally. Australia cares about Rugby at all because we can beat England and New Zealand and beat other nations that aren't complete jokes at the sport (see also: "League, Rugby"), otherwise it would have remained a Private Schoolboys sport.
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# ? Oct 14, 2015 07:07 |
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Scapegoat posted:Maybe the trick is to promote rugby in Canada. Half the time I feel Australia is only interested in rugby since they don't like their little brother NZ looking good. Built up the rivalry with Canada so US always is striving to beat them. Also one thing that amazed my when I lived in Canada was how many kids played rugby in highschool, they all drop it after it seems though. It probably doesn't help that there's no clear pathway towards playing rugby professionally in Canada. In other news, World Rugby put out an 11-minute video of England's highlights from the current World Cup. The real surprise is that they were able to find that much footage.
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# ? Oct 14, 2015 07:50 |
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Schlesische posted:Australia cares about Rugby at all because we can beat England and New Zealand and beat other nations that aren't complete jokes at the sport (see also: "League, Rugby"), otherwise it would have remained a Private Schoolboys sport. It's really true; when Australia is doing well everyone points to likeable guys like David Pocock and Nick Cummins, but when Australia is busy sucking people's image of union players is centred on university-aged Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey.
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# ? Oct 14, 2015 07:58 |
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Mister Chief posted:I've never seen a Canadian so passionate about American rugby. You joke but that was a seriouspost and a real source of frustration for me and many American rugby fans. I mean, hell, there is a guy on my team who is almost as obsessed with rugby as I am but who can't name more than like 2 players on the USA Eagles and who just ignores American rugby in general. He's planning to send his son to school in New Zealand just so he can grow up playing rugby--rather than, you know, try to support local youth development and help build American rugby into something his son can grow up with.
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# ? Oct 14, 2015 14:16 |
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Referee appointments for the quarterfinals South Africa v. Wales (Twickenham) Referee: Wayne Barnes (England) Assistant Referees: George Clancy (Ireland), JP Doyle (England) TMO: Graham Hughes (England) New Zealand v. France (Millennium Stadium) Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales) Assistant Referees: Jaco Peyper (South Africa), John Lacey (Ireland) TMO: Shaun Veldsman (South Africa) Ireland v. Argentina (Millennium Stadium) Referee: Jerome Garces (France) Assistant Referees: Roman Poite (France), Chris Pollock (New Zealand) TO: George Ayoub (South Africa) Australia v. Scotland (Twickenham) Referee: Craig Joubert (South Africa) Assistant Referees: Glen Jackson (New Zealand), Pascal Gauzere (France) TMO: Ben Skeen (New Zealand) Let the bitching commence.
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# ? Oct 14, 2015 19:18 |
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I can only assume Garces is being given a match now so they can placate him later by telling him he had a QF. Because gently caress me, one of those appointments is not like the others. Barnes' appointment might help Wales - they're used to his style, and his view of breakdown contests. Joubert is probably going to yellow a Scot within 25min. Oh and look forward to Owens telling Veldsman to stop trying to ref the game himself.
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# ? Oct 14, 2015 20:34 |
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If there's any reason Australia will lose it's going to be their play style clashing with Craig Joubert's interpretation of the rules.
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# ? Oct 14, 2015 22:46 |
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ColtMcAsskick posted:If there's any reason Australia will lose it's going to be their play style clashing with Craig Joubert's interpretation of the rules. I don't know, Joubert likes to keep the ball in play and penalises ruck underhandedness. That feeds into the way Australia like to play. Against Wales we got some ruck penalties from him that won us the game. Genia's yellow was blatant cynical play (he admitted so himself), and Mumm's, while pretty soft, was probably for repeated infringements.
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# ? Oct 14, 2015 22:50 |
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From what I recall Craig Joubert hands penalties out like candy. May just be the teams he refs though. I still would have preferred someone else
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# ? Oct 14, 2015 23:19 |
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Barnes has been one of the best refs so far, so I'm well up for that. And politically he's obviously a no-go for New Zealand v France anyway. At this stage (except Garces) they're all doing pretty well most of the time on most things: it's the citing board which is weird as gently caress.
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# ? Oct 14, 2015 23:22 |
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ColtMcAsskick posted:From what I recall Craig Joubert hands penalties out like candy. May just be the teams he refs though. I still would have preferred someone else Yeah, he does, but I think that will work in our favour. We'd prefer to play fast Rugby against Scotland and they'll be trying to slow us down at the ruck. Joubert hates that sort of thing and it usually benefits Australian teams that rely on speed (since we don't have a good kicking field kicking game).
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 01:35 |
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Scotland are probably going to go nuts and throw things around a lot against Australia as they've got pretty much nothing to lose at this point with Gray and Ford out. I don't think they can stand with Australia in the break down so I can't see them wanting to keep the game slow and probably want to get the backs in as much as possible.
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 02:59 |
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fallingdownjoe posted:Barnes has been one of the best refs so far, so I'm well up for that. And politically he's obviously a no-go for New Zealand v France anyway. At this stage (except Garces) they're all doing pretty well most of the time on most things: it's the citing board which is weird as gently caress. Honestly, I wonder if that game in Cardiff 8 years ago has basically ended any chance of him refereeing beyond a quarterfinal in a world cup.
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 04:16 |
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Unimpressed posted:Yeah, he does, but I think that will work in our favour. We'd prefer to play fast Rugby against Scotland and they'll be trying to slow us down at the ruck. Joubert hates that sort of thing and it usually benefits Australian teams that rely on speed (since we don't have a good kicking field kicking game). As someone who was born into Brumbies Rugby, I can holistically deny that Joubert gives Australia any advantage by allowing us to play a smoother flowing game. In fact, the opposite. He has a long and storied history of levying infractions at the Australian scrum like he's some kind of cartoon baboon with poo poo. Same with Poite. Unless one of them has radically changed their view on how scrums, rucks and mauls should be penalised. I'm not saying Australia don't do... well we suck at scrums. But it's typically exacerbated by teams who recognise that you can win 5m with the scrum or you can 50 with the penalty.
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 09:14 |
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Schlesische posted:As someone who was born into Brumbies Rugby, I can holistically deny that Joubert gives Australia any advantage by allowing us to play a smoother flowing game. I suspect the general view on our scrum has changed since Poite did his scrum swivel penalty against England: https://youtu.be/oHjHRD5MK0s?t=206
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 11:27 |
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Scotland are going to appeal the ban on Gray and Ford. I expect just out of spite, the citing commission will increase the bans to 5 weeks.
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 12:43 |
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Wales appear to have decided that they can only win when they sacrifice players: they're putting Tyler Morgan on as centre against the Springboks so that his broken body will appease the bloodthirsty gods.
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 13:09 |
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fallingdownjoe posted:Wales appear to have decided that they can only win when they sacrifice players: they're putting Tyler Morgan on as centre against the Springboks so that his broken body will appease the bloodthirsty gods. When they put that "oxblood" color on the jerseys for this year, it was SUPPOSED to be a metaphor...
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 13:22 |
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fallingdownjoe posted:Wales appear to have decided that they can only win when they sacrifice players: they're putting Tyler Morgan on as centre against the Springboks so that his broken body will appease the bloodthirsty gods. They were also kind enough to provide a visual metaphor for Wales World Cup hopes from this point on : Have Eli Walker and Mike Phillips just shown up for Free Rollercoaster Day?
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 13:34 |
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Vaders Jester posted:Scotland are going to appeal the ban on Gray and Ford. I expect just out of spite, the citing commission will increase the bans to 5 weeks. Does that mean they're denying the offence and withdrawing their remorse?
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 14:44 |
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goatface posted:Does that mean they're denying the offence and withdrawing their remorse? No they're appealing the fact that they were given 5 weeks in the first place, clearly. Seriously though, I know it doesn't really affect things too much but Alesana Tuilagi getting 5 weeks for running forward while a dude made a back tackle on him...utter BS
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 15:07 |
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Apollodorus posted:You joke but that was a seriouspost and a real source of frustration for me and many American rugby fans. I mean, hell, there is a guy on my team who is almost as obsessed with rugby as I am but who can't name more than like 2 players on the USA Eagles and who just ignores American rugby in general. He's planning to send his son to school in New Zealand just so he can grow up playing rugby--rather than, you know, try to support local youth development and help build American rugby into something his son can grow up with. He's planning on sending his son to school in a country thousand's of miles away because rugby, but he's less obsessed than you?
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 15:11 |
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ZombieJesus posted:He's planning on sending his son to school in a country thousand's of miles away because rugby, but he's less obsessed than you? You're right, the first thing I said doesn't make sense in the context of the second thing I said. I suppose what I mean is that to him "rugby" means the same thing as "New Zealand rugby" and he doesn't care at all about the Northern hemisphere, hence the "less obsessed" because apparently I will watch any drat thing to hear him tell it.
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 15:21 |
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You should one-up him and move to New Zealand and have kids who are born there, enroll them into the best schools and live vicariously through their rugby success if they become professionals. I mean, that won't help grass roots rugby in the US but at least you'd be able to great rugby games
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 15:56 |
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Actually I should really move to Australia because my soon-to-be-wife does all her ethnographic research in Bali. But gently caress that.
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 16:26 |
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True, the only thing nature didn't do with Australia is create a giant, glowing, venomous sign near it saying "gently caress off humans!"
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 17:26 |
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Looks like someone is really taking England's getting knocked out hard: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-34537841
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 19:06 |
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Apollodorus posted:Looks like someone is really taking England's getting knocked out hard: Boris Johnson is England's greatest contribution to sport : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWIUp19bBoA
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 19:25 |
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Family to be is coming into town at no notice, so a good excuse to go to another game. Off to get slightly tipsy watching Wales before the NZ/FR fixture, it's been a blast so far so can't wait. Heard the atmosphere here while I as away for Ire/Fra was unbelievable, let's hope it keeps going.
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 19:55 |
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Tyma posted:Boris Johnson is England's greatest contribution to sport : He also looks like Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer crossed with Donald Trump.
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 20:11 |
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It just wouldn't be a World Cup if it didn't happen
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 22:45 |
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Swan Curry posted:
Holy poo poo that's amazing. If I was English I'd totally have a team to follow now.
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# ? Oct 15, 2015 23:51 |
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That poo poo worked for them in the last world cup so why not.
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# ? Oct 16, 2015 01:19 |
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Swan Curry posted:
Goddamn do I love the French
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# ? Oct 16, 2015 06:42 |
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Swan Curry posted:
I have been patiently waiting for someone to say "It depends which French team turn up" so I could come back with the zinger "There's another one in reserve that's not coached by PSA?" Didn't expect it to be true. France by 5.
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# ? Oct 16, 2015 06:52 |
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I'm not supporting the French. No matter batshit crazy they are.
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# ? Oct 16, 2015 08:05 |
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I hate playing the French
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# ? Oct 16, 2015 09:05 |
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The French for the win. Sports misery vampire is anticipating a healthy meal this weekend.
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# ? Oct 16, 2015 11:07 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 14:24 |
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Oh lame I was expecting a Friday night game. I'm falling apart for the lack of rugby here
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# ? Oct 16, 2015 11:09 |