The Great German Superlative- Sau
The 8th installment of the Rugby World Cup has nearly come to pass with tomorrow the 2 highest ranked teams in the world the invincible New Zealand-All Blacks versus the rejuvenated Australian- Wallabies facing off.
3 teams have won the World Cup on 2 occasions thus far. Australia, New Zealand, and the South African- Springboks. The only other team to win a world cup was England with their inspirational kicking machine Johnny Wilkinson. The most successful team not to win a world cup so far are France, facing off in more finals than England.
Either Australia or New Zealand are vying for their 3rd Rugby World Cup.
It’s interesting to note that Rugby Union is the 2nd sport for many of the competing nations, but 2 of the main winners New Zealand and South Africa have Rugby as a national sport. New Zealand is a Rugby mad nation; whenever a son is newly born into a family, his father’s first wish is that he one day play for the All Blacks. In England it is the 2nd choice sport for the nation, whereas Australia, through an affiliated sport Rugby League, {the most popular sport for 2 states (a little less than half the population)} they draw their strength, and can poach players like the current fullback Israel Folau.
Countries like Fiji, Tonga, & Samoa also play Rugby as a national sport.
Memories
This World Cup will be remembered for the inspirational win, by Japan beating the world no.3 South Africa. Argentina’s rise to be a consistent and dangerous Rugby force. The hosts England being the first hosts not to make it out of the group stage. Australia fighting with 13 men to still beat a hard hitting Wales. No Northern Hemisphere team making it to the semi-finals, and the controversial decision against Scotland that gave Australia a reprieve to get the to the semi-finals.
Rugby line out
The Final
New Zealand are odds on favourites to win tomorrow, but you can’t always assume that the most likely will win. In favour of the New Zealand team, is the clinical and consistent game that the team plays. A bad day on the pitch for them has to be contrasted by a flawless game from the opposition to produce an upset. To watch an All Blacks game is to watch how Rugby should be played. New Zealand have had a relatively easy ride to the final, the South African team giving them the only pressure, but even then the All Blacks were always in a good position. New Zealand have been the undisputed No.1 side for the last 10 years.
Australia have had a tough campaign to this point. Every team has come at them hard and fast, and put as much pressure on them as they could must up. They have survived the worse, and still have all the first choice players, (Argentina lost 4 players coming at Australia hard) however fatigue at this point could tip things into a lop sided contest. In their favour, Australia have played very well at Twickenham the stadium where the match will be played, and even taken out the hosts, with support overwhelmingly against them with the home crowd. Not being the crowd favourite hasn’t phased them. Also in finals and crunch matches against New Zealand, Australia fair well with 2 wins to 1 in World Cups against the All Blacks. Also, Australia are the last team to beat New Zealand, and New Zealand doesn’t have home ground advantage.
Northern-Southern Hemisphere divide
There had been a lot of talk about the Northern-Southern hemisphere divide, starting from the quarter finals with the Southern Hemisphere always more significantly dominant. Now Argentina how bolstered the southern hemisphere’s ranks. The are certainly different styles of play between certain nations. Southern hemisphere like to play free flowing passing games, whereas the Celtic or British teams tend to kick more often. The French have the best style of the stronger northern hemisphere teams, and it also interesting to note that they kick less. The idea should be to hold onto the ball for as long as possible and build up phases to put pressure on the defending team. This goes against the grain of the British philosophy of kicking the ball back and forwards to gain territory. It hasn’t worked for them precisely because there are no tactics to kicks for gaining territory instead of running the ball. They kick the ball and it is straight to a player then he runs and gains more territory. Two games to take note of were the Australia- England game where Australia employed the Englishes kicking tactics, and Australia won the kicking contest. England kicked to players and Australia kicked to open spaces and the line, therefore gaining more territory. Wales also played the same tactics and lost at their own game.
My advice is to stop kicking the f*#king ball so much and hold on to it to maintain some pressure.
Also there has to be encouragement to stop the teams from kicking away possession so freely. The aim of the game is scoring tries first and foremost. 3 point penalties only encourage a team to try alternative methods to gain points against invincible teams, instead of working out ways to cross their line. If the penalty kick was 2 points then they couldn’t surpass a team with 1 try on the scoreboard by kicking 3 penalties. Also some teams milk the penalty situation too much. Too many points come from scrums. Some decisions for scrums should only attract a kick for touch and your feed for a line out, thus building up pressure in the defending area of the opposing team and possible tries. World Rugby should have a good look into this to bridge the north-south divide.
Rugby scrum
The controversial decision
It is sorry thing to see a team work so hard and get so called duped at the end. However, it wasn’t the Australian players decision nor the Scottish. It just happened. Although I didn’t watch the Scotland v Australia match my first thought was what shenanigans did the Scottish get up to to get within a sniff of Australia given it was 5 tries to 3? Australia crossed the line on 7 occasions and Scotland 3. Watching the Australia v Wales, I thought of tarring them with the same brush since they have similar styles. The Welsh tried to kick the ball out of Australia’s hands on 3 occasions, while Australia was in a dangerous attacking positions and did 2 deliberate knock-ons to spoil a dangerous attacking phase. 2 penalties were gained from these 5 infringements and 1 knock-on against Australia. If all the decisions were collectively analysed within the match Scotland, wouldn’t have been so close.
Hopefully you have developed an interest in this great game. If so have a watch of some of the great international games in the 6 nations European competition or the southern hemisphere Rugby Championship in 2016
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