All Blacks Beaten by France - your thoughts?

All Blacks Beaten by France - your thoughts?

Mine are quite simple - I've never seen such a poor ref. performance.

My Granny could have spotted that forward pass - and she is dead!

All Blacks with 80% possession and the French didn't concede a penalty - Not likely. One has to wonder how much the ref was paid. Well at least France - the HOSTS have a chance of making the finals now -

No conspiracy there at all.

Go Argentina - I now suspect they will beat South Africa courteous another poor ref performance to set up a France - Argentina final, giving France the hosts the best chance to win the world cup.

 

What a truly GREAT day! Firstly dear old England upset the form book and beat the rabbit-shagging convicts (Australia) 12-10. We have been RUBBISH all tournament and I thought the best we could do was hopefully give Australia a game, instead we absolutely DESTROYED them up front. (Sorry for all the capitals but it was BRILLIANT!). The Australians will moan that it's just the bludgeoning English forwards again ('Orcs on steriods' I think they called us once before) and that we've got no flair. That's true, but who cares?

So, we were thinking, New Zealand in the semi-finals. The classic Good v Evil confrontation. The pure white shirts of the English angels against the ugly black uniforms of the arrogant antipodeans. And then France go and muller them! The pub I was in went beserk: Englishmen, Irishmen and Welshmen all cheering for France. So the All Blacks have lost and who do they blame? The referee! Nothing to do with not being good enough and choking again then?

Swing low sweet chariot! Anything now is bonus.

 

Gosh, I must be dreaming or maybe you were really drunk

Cheers and allez les bleus !

Thibaut

 

Now do England play France in the semis ? Ah , both Oceania teams dumped out ! Real great day for Europe....

 

Yup, we've got France in one semi-final and Argentina play South Africa in the other.

We're still having to pinch ourselves. This team is not a patch on the one that won the cup in 2003, we've got no cutting edge (we won without scoring a try) and the USA, South Africa, Tonga and Samoa have all shown up our defensive frailties - South Africa embarrasingly so. Still it makes beating Australia all the sweeter. And as for France ... they were fantastic. They were supposed to just roll over and they simply refused to. Probably a bigger shock than us beating the Aussies.

Four more years, Kiwis, four more years ...

 

I've never watched rugby, but I could tell that was a forward pass. I'm not familiar with the rules - did that non-call cost NZ the game?

 

They would say yes it did. The rest of the world says if you're so damm good why didn't you score a few more points yourself then?

I've said to tbarr60, you Americans should really get into Rugby. With your football tradition and all the guys who don't go on to the NFL you could have a really good team.

 

This edition of Rugby World Cup from France is one of the best I have seen.

Hope France to win it.

 

If you guys believe the ref. called a fair game - next you'll be saying Europe is a place of peaceful people who always get along.

Not one penalty given to NZ in the second half? France just simply aren't that disciplined.

You Europeans got what you wanted - at least one Northern Hemisphere team in the Final.

Your actual chance of winning the world cup - practically nil - unless you have an even worse ref. in the wings!

 

I`m about to cry...

If you are insinuating that NZ team was stolen, even with video camera control of arbitrage...then what to say about soccer?

 

Are you saying it was fixed?

I'm not expecting us to win it, I'm not even expecting us to beat France. We've only got one weapon, the scrum, and the French forwards are much better than the Australian ones. And if we do beat France we'll probably come up against South Africa who've already stuffed us 36-0 - and played at half-pace through most of the second half. We've got to be superb and they've got to be appalling just for us to make a game of it.

But if France do beat us then in a show of Northern Hemisphere, Six Nations solidarity I shall be cheering for them in the final. Then, as always, it's just a matter of which French team turns up.

And there can't be a worse final ref than Andre Watson (who reffed the 2003 final). He decided to deal with English superiority by simply penalising us every time we pushed the Australians backwards.