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Just wondering if there are any rugby fans out there looking forward to the weekend when it all kicks off.
I can’t wait for it to start, we have a great chance this year with most of our players fit(Gleeson is a loss, but hey!), England losing a lot of players to injury and France unpredictable as usual.
Wales are dark horses, but they are arrogant and this years “Welsh Rejuvanation” will probably turn into “Welsh rugbys darkest hour” by the end of it all just like the past two years.Once we are confident and not casual, in our play and attitude, we have the beating of every team in the competition!
My predictions for this weekends games:
France 42 – 12 Scotland
Wales 17 – 24 England
Italy 13 – 45 Ireland -
It was my great pleasure to watch the England v Ireland game last year in the company of an English man. Oh, the joy!
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My Uncle is going to Austrialia in June the lucky sod, for 3-5 weeks. I envy him, with tickets to all the matches aswell! God damn him anyway. I can’t wait to see some action, Rugby has been lacking these last months, in my opinion its far better than bloody soccer/football anyway!
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Rugby has been lacking these last few months???
What about the H-Cup and Celtic league?
There have been some great games in both of the above over the past while… -
Sorry, I should have made my point clearer. The game isn’t lacking at all, its the coverage its getting that is lacking, and the amount of interest sems to be dropping. just an observation, by no means the correct situation though.
btw Nopti, myself ans Xero saw Creep last night, rubbish!
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Wasn’t going to see it anyway, looks complete pants and now you’ve backed up my assumptions. Will give it a miss! ;)
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Think Cheescake mixed with Pork-Chops with a dollop of ‘I am bored’… (-_~)
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So anyone care to enlighten me as to what the difference is between Rugby Union, Rugby League and the Celtic League? Why is one better than the other? How come Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England are playing each other all of a sudden. I thought they merged into the British and Irish Lions. Or is that something different?
I’ve always been confused by rugby. Why can’t they just have one league?!?! :confused:
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Union and League are two differant codes. They are more of less the same but with slightly differant rules and methods of play.
The Celtic League is a rugby union league in which the provincial teams of Ireland, Wales and Scotland compete. In England they have the Zurich Premiership league.
The British and Irish Lions is a team that is made up of the best players from England, Ireland, Wales & Scotland which does a tour every four years in which they play three test matches against a country. Last time it was in Australia. This year its in New Zealand.
So basically there are two teams, the test team(the better team) which play New Zealand in three tests and there is the second team which plays New Zealand clubs over the course of the tour. -
Cheers for that, Dave. I might catch a bit of it if I’m lucky. Here’s my (very uninformed) predictions:
England will thrash Wales.
Ireland will roam over Italy.
England B Team will do what they do best and lose against France.
Let’s see how it goes! :)
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hmmm….my predictions were way off for the first two games anyway. But I’m even more optimistic about Ireland chances for the championship after watching the other teams.
France were awful.
Scotland played very well, but at the end of the day still lost to a terrible French team.
England were average
Wales were averageIf Ireland played either England or Wales the way they played this evening we would walk all over them…..but things can change a over the course of the weeks.
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Ireland and Italy are pretty close to far. Good luck to them today to get a first win. :)
England were unfortunate to lose against Wales. Robbed!! :D
Aah, my home away from home put away Scotland. Both of them will probably trail at the bottom of the group.
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There is also Rugby 7’s…. ;)
After the first weekend all I can say is that every team more or less seemed to have 1st weekend jitters. Maybe except Italy and Scotland who both played well.
Scotland would have got the draw if it hadn’t been for Danielli’s ludicrous run out of his own 22 when 13 of his own players were ahead of him. Why he didn’t just pass it to Patterson to clear I don’t know. Moment of madness which cost Scotland the game.
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The worse things is anytime the (UK) news comes on its “and favourites to win the 6 nations, Ireland, have minor injury worries…”
aaaah the pressure! Its hard not to have our usual underdog attitude :p
Hopefull O’Driscoll is alright ;)
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Its looking more likely that O’Driscoll and D’Arcy will be fit for the game this weekend. However if there is any doubt I would rather he just field neither of them, or even just one of them(D’Arcy) and have BOD on the bench.
One thing I don’t want to see is this minor injury turn into a major one against Scotland, a team which we can beat without these two players.
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Both Brian O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy are in the provisional lineup, but i fear that’s just to put the fear of god into the scots. 2 hamstring recoveries inside a week is a pretty tall order, but hopefully they will be back and fresh for the home games against france and england.
Dave
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With all this division it just makes you think what football would be like if their was two (or more) competitive structures. Man Utd in one league, Chelsea in the other??
Anyway, back to the spin-off from football – rugby. I think that half the reason the Irish win is because of their determination. They seem to have this aura about them. While England may be world champions, they seem to comfortable with that fact and don’t play to their potential.
With family associations to England, France and Ireland, I’ll most likely be winning either way! :D
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England had a fantastic team which peaked for the world cup they won and hasn’t had the same degree of success since. They are also without Johnny Wilkinson at the moment, who is, despite the hype, fantastically good.
No matter what happens, they are going to be well fired up for the Irish game and even at home its going to be one hell of a tough match to win.
Dave
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2 hamstring recoveries inside a week is a pretty tall order[/quote:022d52201c]
It all depends on the severity of the injury. It is apparently a minor strain, which isn’t a big issue at all really. A few days of rest and some massage can clear that up.
But if they tear their hamstring, forget about it!
I think that half the reason the Irish win is because of their determination. They seem to have this aura about them.[/quote:022d52201c]
True, that could be said about them maybe 4 years ago, when it was all about the Irish spirit and pride. But nowadays we have some of the best players in the world, and our form is mainly down to our fitness, skills, conditioning, coaching staff etc. Pride and grit does play a part of course, but only in that it can tip the balance in a very close encounter with a good team. The days of Ireland winning with determination and pride alone are long gone.
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Nothing else needs saying really :)
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I’m glad the bribe went through to the ref’s bank account, otherwise it would have been tight.
All the welsh guys know its between us and them.
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I’m glad the bribe went through to the ref’s bank account, otherwise it would have been tight.
All the welsh guys know its between us and them. [/quote:98dadea2ca]
Well done to the referee for a hard earned victory over England! I can imagine Damian strutting around the office right now asking his workmates if anyone knows the score. :DIreland have been the strongest squad so far and I doubt even Wales will be able to slip them up. Anyone go along to the match? Only saw the highlights but it looked like a good atmosphere with the Irish and English getting along and enjoying the game. :)
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Good stuff! Ireland have been playing average but still winning their games. Whereas I think Wales have been playing fantastic and winning their games, just about(apart from Italy).
Therefore, if we can go up a gear or two we should have too much for France or Wales. We have been stuck in 3rd gear for the first three games, but playing average and still winning is what all the great teams can do…..
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So what’s the deal now?
If Wales beat Ireland is that the comp won for them? I presumed there would be home and away legs but all I see on TV is how Ireland have apparently snuffed it. :confused:
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If Wales beat Ireland is that the comp won for them? [/quote:61031da702]
yup.
Ireland have lost one game…they need to beat Wales by quite a bit to win the tournament. If wales win they get teh grand slam.
I think our defense is better than Scotlands, so Wales *should* have a harder time…
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we have to beat Wales for the triple crown
we have to beat them by at least 13 points or something like that for the championship..
that is unless France completely hockey Italy which apparently might ruin our changes of the championship..
of course we might ruin our own chances of everything by loosing to Wales…!!
Aphra.
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We need to beat Wales by 25 points.
Its only really between the two of us unless France win by about 60 points.
Chances of us beating Wales by that amount are pretty low though, they’re just playing much better than us at the moment. -
Yeah, if we beat Wales by 13 or more points we win the championship, unless France beat Italy by 42(I think) points. In which case France will win it.
Wales have played well, but to be fair, they played a very poor England, and a France that thought they’d already won the game in the first half and subsequently switched off.
Scotland were dire against Wales, and Irelands defense is exceptionally good. So Wales will not find it easy to score trys against us.
If our forwards can gain the upperhand, which is very possible, then we should have too much for them. Thats provided our backline starts to play consistently, which it hasn’t for most of the tournament.At least now the Grandslam pressure is off Ireland. Our boys have looked very very nervous for all the games and maybe now they can relax a bit and have a good game, in which case I can see Ireland winning by 10-15 points.
Edit: Its only 13 point margin we need Omen, not 25.
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wales are in great form, huge improvement from last year. the only thing i see stopping ireland is wales forwards. take them out, and HOPE o’driscoll and darcy can make the tries,hope o’gara and humphrys can make the conversions,and we have a big chance of winning. either way, it was a great six nations, some of the best rugby matches i have ever seen.
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If our forwards play to their best, then they should walk over the welsh pack with brute strength. The welsh pack is very mobile because they are smaller and lighter than most forwards.
Our second row is one of the best in the world, if O’Connell and O’Kelly have a good game then we should have dominance in the front 5.D’Arcy is unlikely to play. I would say that O’Gara will employ a kick to the touchlines tactic at the beginning of the game to see how the lineouts compete. If all goes to plan and our lineout is dominant then he will continue that tactic.
Otherwise we will probably resort to ruck and maul, gaining the hard yards and subsequently releasing our backs through quick phase ball. -
Oh yeah, increasing our point difference, decreases theirs!
Yeah, main problem is our big players haven’t being playing their best this year…one can only hope..
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