Juicy weekend of rugby, kick offs in GMT
Friday
Ireland vs New Zealand - 2010
Saturday
England vs Australia - 1510
Italy vs Argentina - 1740
France vs Japan - 2010
Sunday
Wales vs Fiji - 1340
Scotland vs South Africa - 1610
Share your predictions, post some reactions, and bonus question: how many cards this weekend?
England sounded genuinely better this week. Keeping Smith on the field was crucial, and putting that score for your side is fantastic, no matter the opponent. But damn are they weak in D. And the 6n is all about defense.
Well I picked England putting points on the board against Australia who’ve really struggled in defence this year, I just did not have Australia busting through England’s D on the cards at all. Full credit to them, Sua’ali’i looked deserving of his selection which is remarkable given its basically his first game of Union since high school; helped a lot by Ikitau who’s been having a great year. Schmidt seems to have really found a good balance with the loosies now, if they can just tidy up on D they’ll be back to being a real threat.
What a match to catch on the radio it was. So good to hear the commentators shout nooo :) Defense was obviously optional yesterday, here’s hoping Scotland go like that today too! (Wales v Fiji likely to be a high scorer too)
Wonder if Wales will join in campaigning against the new red card sanction after they somehow managed to fail to beat a Fijian team down to 13 at one point.
Wales are traditionalists at the top, part of the reason they are struggling. Personally I’m for it, even if Scotland’s looked very soft in the stadium.
Outcome wise its a bit hard to see it being worse than a Yellow, but given what happened to Tupaea’s knee and he’s only just getting back to near that top flight level now its probably fair to be punishing based on the potential outcome.
Its early days for the north to get used to it yet, but the true beauty of the 20 minute card now we’ve had it in place for a while is how much less whinging about stuff there is. Fans, players, coaches, they all just cop it & move on because whether its perception or reality it just doesn’t feel like the card is a game killer.
Those sorts of “trying to do something you would normally try in rugby but screwing it up and doing a foul play” cards often have so much grey area; but the sanction that punishes the player more than the team really does seem to work here. Especially when we’ve had straight reds for punches, head-butts which are just so much more obviously deliberate & thus worse.