With the pool stages now complete, everyone is looking forward to the quarter finals despite the fact that two of the best teams in the world will have been eliminated by close of play on Sunday’s match at the Stade de France.
It’s been a mixed bag so far; but overall most matches have gone according to predictions and there have not been any major upsets.
I don’t think that the interests of any team are best served by being beaten by huge margins, but I appreciate that taking part in the competition is a huge honour for them and their country, not to mention a source of revenue for them to plough back into grass roots rugby which we all hope will grow as a result of children being inspired by watching a different set of heroes. It’s not really entertaining from a spectator point of view either, given the number of people who have said “it got boring after the first 15 minutes, so I switched off.”
We have witnessed emotions from the highs of Portugal winning their first ever RWC match to the lows of the disappointment on the faces of the teams who did not make it through. New Zealand suffered their first defeat in a pool stage game and Australia has not made the quarter final stages of the competition since it first started in 1987.
Ireland remains a clear front runner; they have been clinical and their accuracy is spot on; the ABs have been improving since their warm up game at Twickenham, so it will be interesting to see if they can overcome the green tide in Paris on Saturday night.
Today’s good news is that our Captain was cleared by his surgeon to resume contact training and thus be potentially available for selection against South Africa this weekend. If picked, I wonder if they may keep him on the bench to bring on as an impact player, but regardless, it’s reassuring to have our talisman player back where he belongs. 😊
