Liverpool FC Forum

[Kewell2Dominate]

poms were terrible. embarrassing really and the old man was shattered. loves his rugby. ozzies looked good against wales and really looking forward to seeing NZ play oz or SA in the final as it will be a ferocious encounter. good to see a few close games as well and just saw georgia stuck it to ireland and only went down 14-10. go the minnows!!!!!!!!!!!

[Big Niall]

We (ireland) came into the tournament thinking that we could win it. I don't what the f**k has happened, they have no confidence.

[dward]

Ireland were absolutely terrible. I'm sure that was the game they should have been trying to get the bonus point from, or maybe I've missed something.

France should batter them on Friday.

[ConnO'var]

Scotland did well against Romania..... They need to cut out the handling errors when the face the All Blacks..... Else, they're gonna get severely punished.... Still it was good to see an impressive performance from a team of the British Isles...

[stmichael]

irish shirts for this weekend:

[taff]

Ireland seem to have gone all over the place in the last two months.  Something is not right in the camp. O'Driscoll is behaving on the pitch like an idiot and there is no cohesion.  I dont understand it to be honest as they were rightly being tipped as semi finalists.

They may not even qualify from the group stage which is bizarre given the talent and experience in the team

Any Irish lads know the inside story as Ive heard nothing

[JBG]

Hard to know taff.

This is supposedly the greatest ever Ireland side with an awesome back line (by Northern Hemisphere standards at least) but its just gone spectacularly wrong.

There have been all sorts of rumours about Ronan O' Gara's alleged problems and that all the squad secretly hate each other, but then again, you always get these kind of stories.

Their form in the friendlies running into the tournament was poor, obviously management has got things very badly wrong as only 6 months ago Ireland came close to winning the Grand Slam, just getting stage fright against France in their first match at Croke Park.

[taff]

The back line is good but I think the strength is their forwards to be honest.

What surprised me was O'Driscolls attitude on the pitch, it looks like he and the rest of the back line think that all they have to do is turn up but this goes against everything that Ireland has stood for for the last decade.

You have looked great for a number of years and been building for this WC then press the self destruct button
Are you lot the dutch in disguise 

[woof woof !]

Not a dedicated follower of rugby but do watch the big games , but so far for me this tournament has failed to catch fire . Maybe thats down to lack of prime coverage in the uk and the fact that England are so sh'ite.?

the France v Argentina game had me going but all else has been a snooze .

[stmichael]

it's been difficult because in the early stages because there are a lot of mismatches. however how are the so called lesser countries going to improve unless they get experience of being allowed to play in these big tournaments?

the knockout stages are where it'll pick up. it looks like it'll be the following:

england vs australia
south africa vs wales
france vs new zealand
argentina vs scotland/italy

england showed glimpses of what we can do against samoa but if we're going to beat the aussies we'll have to seriously up our game.

[taff]

It should start heating up now but I have enjoyed the improvement of the lesser nations and hope the six nations play them in friendlies rather than the same old autumn fixtures

The big game is Ireland Argentina now as that could have some interesting consequences for the quarters.

England are strong but are lacking inspiration and good leadership so I cant see them beating the Aussies at all

The main hope for the Northern teams will be France

[woof woof !]

Taff, in the northern hemisphere we now have the  six nations , picking up on your point about improvement for the lesser nations , do you think it would be a good idea for the "Tri Nations" to allow the likes of Argentina, Samoa, Japan etc into their competition ?

And what the f'uck happened to Rumania  is it my imagination but didn't they once have a team that was superior to anything the Italians had to offer ?

[CardinalRed]

Is it me or is this thing beginning to drag on a bit? It's getting like the Cricket World Cup which took over 6 weeks...... people get bored with it. The premise is that the players need 6 days rest between games but it would test them more to have to play every 4 days..... That way the coaches would have to use all 30 players in their squads and not just an elite XV who get a long lay off after every game....

                                                           

[JBG]

The back line is good but I think the strength is their forwards to be honest.

What surprised me was O'Driscolls attitude on the pitch, it looks like he and the rest of the back line think that all they have to do is turn up but this goes against everything that Ireland has stood for for the last decade.

You have looked great for a number of years and been building for this WC then press the self destruct button
Are you lot the dutch in disguise 

Our forwards are ok, the Munster boys are formidable but occasionaly can struggle against really heavy packs, like the Italians. The real sparkle (up till now) has been the backs, who absolutely ripped England to shreds earlier this year and we have also beaten Australia and South Africa in the past year so its hard to know what has gone wrong.

There is rumour of major discontent in the camp but then again, everytime things go wrong, people say there is discontent.

If Ireland play to their best they'll open up Argentina and get the four tries, the thing is that Argentina are a formidable defensive outfit and if they frustrate Ireland for the first 30 minutes or so and make Ireland try too hard to get the ball out wide too early I could see Argentina winning something like 17-12. If Ireland put a few scores over early it will be a different game. Sadly, I don't see this happening.

[Big Niall]

At the start of the world cup I thought we could win it, now I feel like a spanish football fan.

I think the final 4 will all be southern hemisphere sides.