This RWC tournament so far has been bloody fantastic, which is why I’ve bitten my toungue and held my rant back till now. Alas if I keep these points of annoyance in any longer I will explode. It’s time for the gloves to come off and me to call a spade a f’uckin shovel.. so to speak.

Item 1: The Wallabies flight from Australia to Portugal for our pre-RWC training camp. It took 36 hours to get to Portugal via Heathrow, and during transit some equipment was lost. According to Stephen Hoiles, “a few blokes who have got some very minor soft tissues injuries, purely because it took us about 36 hours to get here”.

With the Wallabies major sponsor being QANTAS surely they could have flown a charter flight direct? Even if the extended squad didn’t manage to fill up a plane there would have been plenty of fans on their way over who’d have jumped at the chance to share a plane with the Wallabies. It is possible to fly direct from Sydney to London, with flight times being around 22 hours. Why then couldn’t they fly Sydney to Lisbon in around 21 hours, organise a connecting flight and they could have been at the destination in say 24 hours.. a vast improvement on 36!

Item 2: Northern Hemisphere coaches and teams underperforming and then crying like little girls. “It’s unfair. How do you expect us to compete against players who have been preparing for seven months?” said France’s coach Bernard Laporte. Didn’t seem to bother England this time in 2003.

Item 3: Schalk Burger’s high tackle:

• Initially not being yellow carded when it was right in front of Paul Honiss, who gave Samoa a penalty
• being cited for the incident when Lima wasn’t for a much worse offence taking two days to cite him
• the citing commissioner taking into account Burgers “good” disciplanary record, yet still handing out a 4 game sentence
• having the sentence halved on appeal halving it ; why did it need to be appealed to realise that he was going for the ball?

Item 4: France doing underhanded deals
Wales and Scotland traded their votes for hosting rights. I thought this was bad until I read that Ireland opted instead for a cash settlement! Surely this is bribery? It’ll serve those bloody frogs right if they end up playing their semi-final in Cardiff against the choice bro’s.

Item 5: Kiwi’s being precious
They haven’t really ramped it up on the presconometer yet.. but you know it’s coming. Just wait till they get knocked out then it’ll be open season..

Item 6: Minnows.
The term refers to “a small freshwater fish of the carp family”. It is also used in Cricket but it bugs me cause no-one has the detail of what minnowism involves. How does one become a minnow? How does one revoke their minnow status? Once minnoism is revoked, can it be re-applied?

Item 7: Media claims that the Argies beating France was an upset.
Going into this game, Argentina had won 4 out of their last 5 clashes, with the exception being a 27-26 loss last year. 5 of their players have Stade-de-Francais as a home ground, France were under enormous pressure from the press… I know I picked the Argies!

Item 8: Adam Ashley-Cooper’s toe.
What a softc’ock! He should take a leaf out of Brumbies team-mate Jone Tawake’s book and chop the bloody thing off!

Item 9: The Channel 10 coverage.
Impromptu commercial breaks during play for hair care products, “cheap-cap” Tune leading a woeful commentry team, and Rupert McCall’s squeky voice. Give yourselves an uppercut, seriously sh’ithouse.!

Item 10: Standard of Refereeing.
Specifically Spreadbury the English twat. Is he a coach of a ref? Canada were robbed against Fiji the other night with an incomprehensible decision to not award a try, changing the result.

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