After the treat that was Saturday’s matches, here’s two more to keep the couch full!
Can Fiji, everyone’s 2nd team it seems, perform the miracle vs an England team that are building and learning to do what it takes and win ugly? England did the drop goal game already in the Velodrome, will we see some more here?
Will the hosts be able to overcome the mighty Springbok defense and keep alive the northern hemisphere hopes? Will SA have brought their kicking boots and can french flair find room to maneuver?
All too close to call imo, the bookies always inflate England: these are going to the 80’!
This match is 🔥🔥 I came to the only bar I could find leaning pretty neutral, but the unexpectedly large rugby crowd is so lopsided for France I’m cheering with the 4 Spring Boks fans. Of course my Houston Sabercats have a huge contingent of Saffa players, so I might be seeing some of these guys find their way here in a few years!
Got some friends in Houston, good to hear. And hells yeah, create that atmosphere!
Tell them to go to Pheonix on Westheimer for the rest of the tourney!
People rave about the defensive effort in NZ v IRE, but if the first 5 minutes of SA v FRA are to go by it could be the best quarterfinal purely from the attacking rugby.
Fucking hell. Whoever wins this match is winning the tourney
If they catch their breath in time
I didn’t expect it to be this close. Does this mean the Wallabies actually aren’t crap?
Lol, nah
Four teams vying for a chance to lose to New Zealand in the final.
Meh. Either France or SA will fancy their chances against them.
Still reckon there’s a chance of England walesing their way to a final.
NZ-SA or NZ-FRA will be a very good match.
Shame it’s gonna be England :D
We’ll wish them best of luck in any case.
Ok, WTF has Rassie cooked up that SA call a scrum from a free-kick when catching fairly deep in their own 22m?~~?~?
That was so quickly called by Willemse it must have been a pre-match decision; and the SA scrum wins the penalty too. This forces France to only do contestable shorter kicks or lose territory through penalties.
Oooooo we got ourselves a contest here!
What a final ten!
We love to see it.
This is a better match than IRE v NZ so far. Which team is going to tire sooner?
Those pressure-cooker 30-phase defensive plays were 🔥 too tho.
Does Bryan Habana talk even less sense than Sean Fitzpatrick?
I’m thinking the only way to play with that kind of chaos and flair at the pace we saw tonight is to base it on a foundation of the kind of well drilled precision we saw last night. So maybe these two teams are a level above IRL and NZ.
Or maybe they’re all four about the same level and it was just different game plans. Last night’s was “keep possession” and tonight’s was “get their defence scrambling”
Well that has ruined my year. Some weekend of matches.
Guess I’m Argentinian now.
Tbe NH folding the story for me. Really thought the 6n had turned a corner, alas
In fairness ireland and France could easily have won their games.
By “easily” I mean it didn’t take a hugely different set of circumstances, such as a ref decision, bounce charged down conversion etc.
Both of those games were won on the finest of margins, and it just so happened that it was the SH teams that won both. Replay both those games ten times and I reckon you get like five wins apiece or whatever
Kick-off time! I love a good underdog, but I also have English ancestry to root for. As long as them match is competitive that’s all I could ask for.
A little sloppy but great close by Fiji to put their first try of the match on the board!
That had to hurt.
That was a saucy bounce out of the scrum! Fiji seem to be having a lot of this today, scrambling to recover the ball when it just meanders out of control.
Yeah, bounces not going their way for sure. But also needing to front up a bit more, England winning more collisions it feels
Fiji need the next score to keep this alive too, not great at 40 min
Jerseys the wrong colour get a lucky bounce.
