Rugby world cup Japan 2019 Discussion Thread

Heart says England win .
Head says .

This is it!! at 9am BST England clash with New Zealand with a place in the Rugby World Cup Final at stake. Dare we dream of not only of an impressive England victory, but also a victory for Wales over SA and set up an all British Final but also an all Northern Hemisphere Final for the first time? I think Wales were 13 minutes from the Final in 1987 only to concede a late try and the team in 2019 has probably the best opportunity to go one better than that.

ENG V NZ - prediction: England by 7 - 10 pts
SA V Wales - prediction: Wales by 10 - 15 pts

10 -0 at half time try after 90 seconds

I cant watch you know the all blacks will come back

should have won that by more but for that Welsh Ref and Saffa TMO

We better finish it up esp if its against the welsh. If we beat the Aussies and All blacks and loose to the Welsh they will never let us hear the end of it

Enjoyed that, and I am not a rugby fan generally!

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I thought the ref, tmo and especially the linesmen were 'meh'. So many NZ forward passes missed at the end. But to be fair, it was probably a hard game to officiate. Good discipline by England. Very few penalties given away. Superb.

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I'll be willing to bet, there will be more neutrality shown tomorrow, than today! Jesus ITV haven't even tried to even up the presentation/commentary representation of these matches (notably when England are playing) when it comes to commentary and studio guests! Today's commentary team (all English - could/should have included S Fitzpatrick) including N Mullins (normally respect him) were calling everything for England!

I don't subscribe to the belief that Owens etc cost England more points - Christ someone seems to be always out to get you!! I don't usually kick off like this, but when you hear it once too often...….!!

Congratulations (genuine) to England. They were great today (not superb - a superlative that was used the other day, when it wasn't justified either)! Did not let the All Blacks 'breathe' almost, they were 'in their faces' so much!! Some say that NZ didn't play that well! I think that is simply because they weren't allowed too. I have rarely - if ever - seen them fail to find any real space to play! That is down solely to England who were just plain better!

(26-10-2019 10:39 )Starblade Wrote:  .
I thought the ref, tmo and especially the linesmen were 'meh'. So many NZ forward passes missed at the end. But to be fair, it was probably a hard game to officiate. Good discipline by England. Very few penalties given away. Superb.

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That is fair!!

Just watched it back.
The intensity of that England performance was immense particularly in a defence capacity.
England closed off a lot of the All Blacks lines of attack and did so with relentless precision and power.
The truth really is that they arguably should have won by a bigger margin.
A thoroughly deserved victory.