Can the Springboks make history and win two in a row? You wouldn’t have thought so when they lost to Ireland in the pool stages, but you also wouldn’t have the All Blacks could do it after their opening-night loss to the hosts (and first pool loss ever).
Rassie’s gone with a ‘courageous’ 7-1 split on the bench again, so it could well come down to injuries – or, indeed, cards.
As for the other match, it seems like a foregone conclusion, but Argentina will be out for revenge, and can this England put together two good performances in a row? We’ll find out soon!
All in all, it’s been a fabulous World Cup apart from the idiotic draw. Merci à la France for an excellent tournament!
Onna telly this week
Showing matches that are televised in the UK and Ireland or on popular subscription services. Bold indicates free-to-view.
Friday 27th October
| Argentina v England | 20:00 | ITV1 / STV |
Saturday 28th October
| New Zealand v Wales (women) | 04:00 | S4C |
| Ospreys v Zebre | 13:00 | BBC1 Wales / iPlayer Viaplay Sports 1 |
| Connacht v Glasgow | 15:00 | TG4 / Viaplay Sports 1 |
| Stormers v Scarlets | 15:00 | S4C / iPlayer / Viaplay Sports 2 |
| Bath v Leicester | 15:05 | TNT Sports 1 |
| Leinster v Sharks | 16:55 | RTÉ2 / Viaplay Xtra |
| Edinburgh v Lions | 17:00 | Viaplay Sports 1 |
| New Zealand v South Africa | 20:00 | ITV1 / STV / S4C / RTÉ2 |
Sunday 29th October
| Treviso v Munster | 14:00 | Viaplay Xtra |
| Dragons v Cardiff | 14:30 | Viaplay Sports 1 |
| Newcastle v Northampton | 15:00 | TNT Sports 1 |
| Ulster v Bulls | 17:00 | BBC2 NI / iPlayer / TG4 / Viaplay Sports 1 |
Ovally Balls 
On the three GS games England blew:
1999 vs Wales – reffed by Andre Watson who was always awfully biased against England and Wales fielded ineligible players. Does not count. Should be expunged. Did not happen.
2000 vs Scotland – the poor England lads nearly died of hypothermia, but fair play to the Scottish lads for being hardier. Counts.
2001 vs Ireland – Nailed on England would have won if it had been played on schedule; foot and mouth killed it. Game was played when England were coming in cold and Ireland had already played a couple of matches; plus England were still using lineout calls from the Lions tour. Counts, but moral victory to England.
@Deebee – I deplore the reactions of those silly keyboard warriors. Also would admit I have probably overlooked the significance of Mbonambi’s injury in thinking about the deservedness of SA’s win, which then colours my whole view of things. Helluvan effort, to be fair.
What more do I want from Rassie? To stop bloody winning!!
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Hi Thaum
I see you’ve been BtL on today’s Crace masterpiece. What a day / what a government /what a civil service.
World-beating.
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@Dab – 1999 you’re missing a great opportunity to just blame Dallaglio who let’s face it deserves it.
2001 – “Ireland had already played a couple of matches” – in one of which against all expectations they got absolutely stuffed by Scotland. Shame really as I would have liked that Ireland side to get a Slam much more than some of the subsequent ones though on the flip side Gats might never have come to Wales had they won it.
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Slade – what’s the opposite of ‘world-beating’?
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Dab, if we had lost because of Bongi’s injury, it would have been because of bad planning/gambling massively on getting through without needing a replacement. We really took luck and gambling to the limit in the knockouts (until they blinked and picked Pollard), not fielding a 80% kicker or having a specialist back up hooker. Both could have gone belly up, especially with the puzzling decision to pick four 9s in the squad and bringing back Am when he wasn’t fit to play.
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Thaum
– sub amoebal?
– irish? ………………………………………………………………sprints for cover!!!!!
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English pig-dog!
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@Deebee – gutsy by the lads on the pitch though!
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…………. running capitalist pig-dog, if you don’t mind!
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Glasgow leading at the break, two Stormers players in the bin for the first 8 mins of the second half
20 – 9
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Slade – same difference.
Ticht – Ospreys 19 – 5 Sharks, only one Shark in the bin, as the second half starts.
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Well, that was a win at least. All the action in the first half, although couldn’t see the yellow cards clearly (but they were obviously correct decisions…)
Atmosphere felt a bit flat at Scotstoun, which isn’t something I’ve normally thought (from my previous experience of about 20 games).
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BB, from the tv it looked tight for about the first twenty minutes then Glasgow were clearly the better side. Stormers completely lost their collective heads and had the two cards and showed lots of agro.
Glasgow fucked up early in the second half, they could/should have put a really good score on their opponents but played silly rugby at times – you have a team who have two forwards in the bin and you have a lineout – you play a full lineout and leave them two short out wide, but no, Glasgow went for a four man and lost the advantage.
A bit later they were in the opposition 22 and kept throwing wide passes instead of keeping it close around the edges and sucking the defenders in, against a team of 13 you are going to get the overlap after about four or five phases of this, but no, they chucked it about.
Stupid waste of a BP but still a good win over strong opponents
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really took luck and gambling to the limit
…Napoleon….something…something…lucky generals…..
Seriously, every “gamble” Erasmus and Nienaber have taken seems to have come off…. so maybe they’re not quite the gambles they appear….?
I suppose in pool stage, once Scotland were beaten – SA would qualify whatever Ireland result was. I’m not sure what you’d prefer… home favourites or your greatest rivals sore after losing by 35-7 (?) last time out….
Maybe France under pressure to win would be (marginally) preferable to a rival with nothing to lose….so chancing Ireland without a recognised kicker (again) was a risk worth running.
Flipside…. England were more likely to be tougher than Argentina…. on the other hand, England were less likely to spring any surprises ….
Anyway, Fourie is 2023’s Stephen Donald dragged out of nowhere to play a key role in the final….
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Maybe you can get away with a non specialist hooker more than we like to think…. look at Scotland vs Ireland in 6N…. Cian Healy at hooker and van der Flier throwing in….
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Trisk, you can possibly get away with it, but when your game depends on a dominant set piece, having a 37 year old retreaded flank on for 77 minutes is hugely risky! We lost 4 lineouts and didn’t hammer the Kiwi scrum like we’d have liked to, so had to spend much more time defending than we’d have wanted to. Still, we got away with it, so it papers over the cracks in the strategy!
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Heard yesterday we’ve done the treble over New Zealand this year in their three national sports: Rugby World Cup,
Cricket World Cup,
Sheep Shearing* World Cup.
Yes, shearing, it’s not an autocorrect.
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talking of sheep sheering:
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=PqRZHqf54Ok
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Remember when they used to actually give the ball to Sideways?
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I wonder if Arundel will end up the same waste of talent?
Same but different with Marcus Smith
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No Thaum this evening?
Ulster are going really well out Wesht
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Ticht – just got back from an afternoon/evening round friends. Was sure we would lose what with 19 players unavailable!
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17-20 with 20 mins to go … eek!
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Carty had a sitter penalty right in front of the posts to even the scores, and … missed it!
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And Connacht score in the corner off the back of a line-out and several phases.
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This has been a really good watch
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Carty misses the conversion, so there are two points in it with less than 5 mins to go.
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Hmm. Well, at least we got a LBP.
Maybe they should have left the youngsters on, by the sound of things!
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We had a 17-point lead? FFS.
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Thaum, the famous Galway wind was a big factor in both halfs. Having said that, to be honest The Wesht looked the better side to begin with in everything but the scoreboard
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Well, Claw will be happy. Bastard.
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Are you, or anyone else, still in touch with Claw?
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We exchange the odd text or email. Haven’t done for a while, though.
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The best way to observe Remembrance
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Those look like they’d be improved by pineapple to be honest.
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What more do I want from Rassie? To stop bloody winning!!
Dab, you’ll be delighted to hear that Rassie will be Bok coach for the next World Cup cycle, now that Nienaber has gone to Leinster (seriously, if there’s one side in the URC that doesn’t need any more help, it Leinster!).
So, the vagaries of sport: from last week’s huge highs, to a weekend when only the Bulls of the SA sides won, the rest comprehensively beaten (although in the Lions case it was a case of
which side wanted to lose it more, and we gutsed it out to take the honours), the Proteas got absolutely thrashed out of sight by India, and Liverpool needed an injury-time equaliser to scramble a point against Luton, of all sides. Eish!
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We had a 17-point lead?
ooh – that sounds familiar…..
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I’d missed that Halfpenny was going to the Crusaders to play 10 and Patchell has gone to the Highlanders.
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Refit, if World Rugby had any sense at all, they’d bloody pay Squidge to produce his stuff! it’s really excellent, engaging and explains things pretty simply.
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Classy press conference by Galthié. The 1st time he spoke since that QF.
Yes, it still hurts. And it will for a long time.
I know it is only a game, but my, it is painful.
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@Deebee – Looking forward to revenge against Rassie at the next RWC then!
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Glaws Team to face Bath :-
15. Santi Carreras
14. Jonny May*
13. Chris Harris
12. Seb Atkinson
11. Ollie Thorley*
10. George Barton*
9. Stephen Varney*
1. Mayco Vivas
George McGuigan
3. Fraser Balmain
Freddie Clarke*
5. Matias Alemanno
6. Jack Clement*
7. Lewis Ludlow* (C)
8. Albert Tuisue
Replacements
16. Santi Socino
17. Jamal Ford-Robinson
18. Kirill Gotovtsev
19. Freddie Thomas*
20. Ben Donnell
21. Micky Young
22. Max Llewellyn
23. Louis Rees-Zammit*
*Denotes academy player or graduate.
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What’s happened to Hastings The Younger? Is he injured?
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Ali Price to Edinburgh is the big news from Scotland today
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Hello, one two, one two, Is this thing on?
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Ah, there we are
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So what’s been happening with all the Embra scrum halves?
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Questions, questions…
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I don’t know BB, but I think this isn’t a straightforward thing, I think one or two of the Edinburgh scrum halves might be out for a long time, plus this gives more game time for Dobie at Glasgow and Price, who is presumably signing as a starter for Edinburgh
I’m sure the full story will come out in due course
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