Week Two made Irish eyes very sad. But Welsh eyes leeked with joy, when the Wallabies didn’t quite manage to hop into the lead in the second half. Uruguay failed to repeat their magic from Week One. Otherwise, the results were more or less as expected.
Week Three’s biggest clash is looking like England v Argentina, although no doubt there will be some surprises in the other fixtures.
We’ve also got some Pro14 and that English Premiership Cup thingy to look forward to.
Exciting (?) rugby on the telly this week
Friday 4th October
| S Africa 49 – 3 Italy | 10:45 | ITV4 |
| Glasgow 21 – 25 Scarlets | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Leinster 53 – 5 Ospreys | 19:35 | Premiers Sports 2 / TG4 |
| Worcester 19 – 34 Exeter | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 5th October
| Australia 45 – 10 Uruguay | 06:15 | ITV |
| England 39 – 10 Argentina | 09:05 | ITV |
| Japan 38 – 19 Samoa | 11:30 | ITV |
| Kings 20 – 31 Munster | 15:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Zebre 28 – 52 Dragons | 17:00 | Freesports |
| Cheetahs 63 – 26 Ulster | 17:15 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Cardiff 11 – 19 Edinburgh | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1 / S4C |
| Connacht 41 – 5 Treviso | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 / TG4 |
Sunday 6th October
| New Zealand 71 – 9 Namibia | 05:45 | ITV |
| France 23 – 21 Tonga | 08:45 | ITV |
| Northampton 28 – 54 Saracens | 15:00 | BT Sport 1 |
Tuesday 8th October
| South Africa 66 – 7 Canada | 11:15 | ITV4 |
Wednesday 9th October
| Argentina 47 – 17 USA | 05:45 | ITV4 |
| Scotland 61 – 0 Russia | 08:15 | ITV |
| Wales v Fiji | 10:45 | ITV/S4C |
Ovally Balls 
Liked also how the Fiji players reacted and showed concern / respect.
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Iks – I didn’t see the match (boo!), but possibly some of the Fiji players’ concern might have been that there could have been a red card in it for them?
Which leads on the thought that, if player safety is the impetus behind the rules, then maybe taking your own player out should deserve a card too, for not paying due care and attention.
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Scotland and Samoa wins would keep you happy then pro
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Japan v Scotland has epic written all over it. To not play it is all kinds of stupid. I hope the complexity of selling and refunding tickets isn’t the sticking point.
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@thauma, the Fiji players had no reason other than sportsmanship as far as I could tell.
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Iks – sure! I was really only leading up to the second part. If a Fijian player had been the culprit, do you reckon it would have been a card? We can probably assume that it was entirely accidental.
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Not sure why it’s ‘sour grapes’ to want the fantastic brave hosts (and a brand new quarter-finalist into what has been a closed shop) to qualify for a QF at the expense of a team who have played 6 QF games and lost all 6.
My wish is that T2 teams start to match and eventually eclipse some of the long standing T1 teams and that rugby becomes a truly global sport.
I understand that does mean some T1 teams have to suffer a loss of status and privilege, but it’s a price worth paying for a meaningful international competition.
What Japan have achieved in recent years is the absolute benchmark for T2 success and it would be a real shame for it all to come to end on Sunday, despite them having turned over one of the best teams in the world a fortnight prior.
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@yosoy.
Burying my heart at Foxy’s knee.
When the going gets tough etc…
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19th October 1991, Quarter Final.
Scotland 28 Western Samoa 6.
Mind you, if we’d played the whole of Samoa we might have lost…..
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Ah got it thauma. I don’t think so, because it was an accidental clash of heads, and Liambility could well have been the one left prone on the grass.
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@BB
You are correct, I actually saw that they made it to 1 SF then wrote that they didn’t.
The tantrum phase that Ada has entered seems to be affecting my mental faculties.
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Aye, we made it to one semi-final. Not one I’m likely to forget….
(Thanks, Gavin).
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Yes. Thanks Gav.
Hehe
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Ma’a Nonu has signed for San Diego Legion.
That’s a great boost for US rugby. The guys at SD will learn a lot from him.
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Digby Ioane has signed for Glendale Raptors too.
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So, the lack of success achieved by one team is a reason to not want them to progress, but the lack of success achieved by another team is a reason to want them to progress.
Is that where we’re at?
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Ticht – just support England instead. Everyone fecking loves us.
Seriously though, I hope Scotland go through (my ‘second team’ as it were) but won’t begrudge Japan either. Been a great wc so far. Be a shame if the wrath of dog ruined it.
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Ticht – I think it depends on whether or not the teams with a lack of success do not smile when they score, or on the other hand get too happy when they score.
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Yes, but the deciding factor is that one of those teams cynically exploits the eligibility criteria while the other team cynically exploits the eligibility criteria.
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Also, I’ve just had a count up of Big Bad Tier 1 Bully Scotland and here are the scores on the doors since 2000 – (there had to be a starting point and this was a convenient one)
No of games won by Scotland against Tier 1 opposition since year 2000
Wales 4/21
France 4/23
Ireland 6/24
England 4/20
Italy 8/15
NZ 0/10
Boks 2/14
Aus 4/14
Arg 8/13
In that time, and outwith the world cup, we have played Tonga, USA, Canada, Fiji, Samoa, Georgia and Japan.
We are no overdogs.
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@Ticht
1. Japan beat Ireland. Scotland didn’t.
2. Japan are a Tier 2 team, Scotland are not.
3. Japanese rugby is massively on the up compared to where it was 10 years ago. Scotland are still at the same level they have been for as long as I can remember.
4. Japan are the hosts of the tournament and are capturing the nation with their general derring-do. Tournaments always seem to be more fun when the host team have a decent run.
5. A tier 2 team reaching a QF would be a major fillip for any sport seeking to be global. World Cup’s become a bit pointless if the same 8 sides contest the knockouts. 5/6 x 6N teams and 3/4 RC teams qualifying every time might mean that notablog favourite teams get a good run but isn’t going to do much for growing the game.
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Just watched Wales-Fiji on catch-up. A good win but we’ll have a lot of sore players tomorrow. Navidi is fantastic. Radrada is out of this world. Glorious to watch him running.
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@BK
At first glance Japan do appear to have plenty of forriners on their team.
However, Captain Michael Leitch, plus Ata’ata Moeakiola, Asaeli Valu, and Ji-Won Koo all moved to Japan aged 14 or 15. Hendrik Tui did so aged 19 to attend university. Others including Uwe Helu, Timothy Lafaele, and Amanaki Mafi received higher education in the country along with Moeakiola, Nakajima, Valu, and Koo. Mafi played for Tonga u20 before attending university in Japan.
It isn’t quite the same as finding NZ professional players with a Scottish born grandparent or enticing SA U20 players to the country with a lucrative club contract.
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I’m just trying to work out which arbitrary variables I’m going to use to decide whether I want France or Wales to win in their match.
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Pro – Michael Leitch was recruited by a high school in Japan to play rugby. Just like Sevu Reece was poached by a high school in NZ. They get them younger in Japan, is all.
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BK, what was the name of the young Aussie wunderkind who, iirc, was recruited by a New Zealand side recently (or perhaps it was the other way around), I think he had a Scottish name.
I remember FD talking about him, I was trying to remember his name earlier but couldn’t get it
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Craigs – I read that at first as ‘arbitrary vegetables’, so I’m basing my preferences on whether the team prefers broccoli and brussels sprouts (yum!) or beetroot and asparagus (yuck!).
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“It isn’t quite the same as finding NZ professional players with a Scottish born grandparent or enticing SA U20 players to the country with a lucrative club contract.”
That’s right – James Moore is Australian, Wimpie van der Walt and Lappies Labuschagne never played SA Under 20 and Luke Thomson’s not got a Japanese grandmother.
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“Up here,” says Vea Taumoefolau, “as soon as you say ‘Yamanote’, people will say ‘rugby’.” Vea is the school’s big, warm, softly spoken No 8. In 2016 he found two Japanese scouts waiting for him outside his house in Auckland. They had seen him playing for his school under‑15s and wanted to offer him a scholarship in Japan. Vea had never even been so far away as Wellington and he already had a place lined up at Mount Albert Grammar, one of the strongest rugby schools in New Zealand. “It was pretty far out there,” he says. “But I decided I wanted to try something new.” Besides, “Tokyo was on my bucket list of places to go.”
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2019/sep/24/michael-leitch-japan-rugby-world-cup-yamanote-high-vea-taumoefolau
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Thaum – I actually really like aubergines, brocoli and beetroot (not pickled). Not sure how that fits into which team I’m going to hate though.
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@BK
Leitch became a good rugby player in Japan. He was an average NZ high school player when he went there.
Some NZ and Pasifika players are being scouted by Japanese high schools, but they are teenagers, not U20 internationals.
On the scale and level that Japan do this the risk / reward ratio hardly makes it a sustainable model to produce world class rugby talent.
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How much piss can any bonfire realistically take?
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Ataata Moeakiola also moved to Japan on a rugby scholarship, in fact there are apparently 7 Tongans in the Japan squad who moved there on rugby scholarships in their mid teens
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Whatever. Personally I think that grabbing kids out of school in NZ and dumping them in Tokyo is worse than giving journeyman adult pros a second chance at kick-starting their careers.
Also I got Scotland in the office sweepstake.
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Risk/reward, though. There have been 117,000 Tongan teenagers on rugby scholarships in Japan and only 7 have made it to the Brave Blossoms.
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Craigs – aubergines are fairly disgusting in most forms, but sublime when turned into baba gannouj.
I like most vegetables, but beetroots are disgusting, and I can only enjoy asparagus if they’ve been picked in the past hour or so. Plus they make your piss smell funny, much like Old Speckled Hen.
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I care less about where players come from, it’s more a question of where they play their rugby as they develop into professional players.
Boys moving somewhere at the age of 13/14 then playing all their high school, student and professional rugby in their new country should naturally play for their country of residence if they wish.
It isn’t ‘poaching’ if the new country developed their talent and invested in them. I don’t think too many boys in their early teens are already marked out as clear world class internationals of the future in the same way that U20 internationals are.
And yes, I know Japan do have a number of players qualifying under the three year rule. That’s why I only listed those whose stay in Japan is much longer.
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TomP, is that for real?
Utna mentioned something like that the other day
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BK – My hooker to Tokyo
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Obviously not the huge numbers, but do a lot of Tongan kids go to Japan on rugby scholarships?
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Hadleigh Parkes became a good rugby player in Llanelli. He was an average NZ player when he went there.
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WP Nel was the most penalised prop in Super Rugby, then he came to Edinburgh
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Thaum – I like 99% of food. Just not sprouts or melon. Fucking hate melon.
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@BK
Doesn’t sound like they are being dragged there against their will:
“The naivety of New Zealand Rugby in taking such a hands-off approach is astounding. They whinge and cry and moan about Japanese and French clubs poaching our players. But they let this culture bed in and they turn a blind eye.
“They let this wave of 16 and 17-year-old boys grow up thinking first and foremost, ‘What’s in it for me?’ The NZR is tacitly endorsing a mercenary mindset. Where is the integrity? There is no country more compromised than us.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/opinion/109169823/mark-reason-schools-poaching-epidemic-teaches-all-blacks-to-follow-the-money
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I care less about where players come from
Seriously? Really pro? Ffs.
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If Hadleigh Parkes only became awesome when he went to Carmarthenshire, imagine how good Sonny Bill – fresh from the NRL – could have been if he’d gone to Llandybie for a year instead of Toulon?
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Craigs – really? I lurves sprouts, and like most melons, although watermelon is a complete waste of chewing. Just yucky sweetness and, er, water. Probably good if you find yourself dehydrated in a desert, and magically wander upon one, but can’t think of any other uses for them.
I don’t have a lot of don’t-likes, but organ meats (liver, kidneys, tongue) are on that list. Just the smell of them makes me gag.
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I hear that Sam Underhill was VERY bad at rugby until he touched Justin Tipuric.
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I’m sure Scotland’s recruits were volunteers too, so we’re all good.
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Yos, it’s as well he didn’t come to Edinburgh, the place where half back and 3/4 talent goes to die.
We had Andries Strauss of course, but he could never have been a project player as he won a Springbok cap.
oh , and because he was rubbish
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