Rugby World Cup Daily catches up with festivities ahead of the second set of quarter finals, then reports back on the matches themselves. You can view highlights from all four matches on rugbyworldcup.com
Your thoughts on the results?
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as said before, it's the same 1/2 finalists of the 1987 edition, and clearly the 4 best attacking sides of the moment (robbie deans)
The 2007 edition was the win of the defence with SA and England, hope that semi's and the final will be attacking anthems.
australia - NZ can be a cracker if the 2 teams don't play mind games. before discovering the younfg cruden i wouldn't have given my penny on the kiwis. but after his performance vs argies and the socher match from cooper, never know...
france - wales can be the match of this WC if both teams play with the same path and spirit of the quarters. i would say "France" (as i'm french ;) for the experience (6th semi final record) and the rebirth of a team... but wales have been very impressive in every aspects of the game, but top-level is quite new for guys like North, Warburton and Priestland. whatever the result, both teams have already saved their WC.
Pocock will be penalised 50 times for it in the semi-final.
That's the understatement of a lifetime! Never once did Pocock release the tackled player before he played the ball, not once was he called. Not to mention some questionable scrum calls.
did think the the all black were joining rucks dangerously alot, hitting players in the back etc. even when the ball was lost.
I wouldn't say the ref was too permissive for NZ, the Argentinians being no angels either. But we did get to see McCaw coming in on the side about ten times during the match ... That young lad Cruden looks like a good pick for 10, he's brazen and mad, I love that! Sorry to see Ledesma and a few other oldies go, I hope Argentina's youth will pick up where the last generation left off. Same for Muliana, a decent guy and a real panther on the field.
In the Australia - South Africa match, I was wondering a few times why Pocock did not gain the advantage line in the ruck before playing the ball. For instance he has a player against him in the ruck, and instead of pushing that player backwards first, Pocock goes straight for the ball (and doesn't get penalised for it). It's ok when he's the first to the ball, but once the ruck is formed he shouldn't be doing that.
I'm not saying the South Africans didn't have a few hands where they shouldn't either, but sometimes the refereeing in this world cup has been a bit odd.
No not at all, Argentina were slow down the ball illegally at every ruck, they could easily have had 2 or 3 more in the bin during the game.
All highlights and replays of the matches are on the official irb site:
http://www.rugbyworldcup.com/video/index.html
So it's now down to the same final four as in 1987: Wales, France, Australia and NZ.
If you pay any attention to wannabe statisticians, teams which have lost a game in the pool stages cannot win the world cup, which means there are only 2 contenders left:
NZ, having lost no games, and France, having lost not "a" game but two games.
I was a bit disappointed Bryce was picked over the better Lawrence referee for this tournament...most games, Bryce Lawrence picks one area of the game to get pedantic over and forgets about all the rest.
The Boks entered almost every ruck by going immediately off their feet, and Lawrence didn't seem to notice at all.
That said, South Africa looked the more threatening team on offense. Burger played his heart out. I was surprised Australia was able to hold them out so many times - a couple of marginal forward passes certainly didn't help...Hopefully the Wallabies can keep that defense up, otherwise NZ will have a field day next weekend.
I was really hoping for an Argentine upset...but what can ya do...Weepu was on fire with his kicks last night.
Brilliant day of rugby. It's just sad that Bryce Lawrence had to have such an influence in the QF #3. Not to take away from the Wallaby win, but his lack of calls were a serious blemish on an otherwise fierce contest. The IRB need to do some serious work in that area of the game. I'm not sure how a referee can be appointed after he's admitted to making mistakes in the previous game he controlled when the Wallabies play Ireland. If you don't believe me, google it. After that admission, I don't think there's any way he could possibly have been unbiased.
I was incredibly inspired by the determination, and vigour that the Argies showed today against the ABs. So many great tackles, always willing to run the ball, and a never die attitude - MASSIVE credit to them for showing their class and strength today.