RWC: What’s grated my goat

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.

Latho back!

In the single greatest piece of positive news for Australia’s World Cup campaign, Chris Latham has today declared that he’s back to 100% fitness after a serious knee injury sat him out of the Super 14 this year.

“[playing in Auckland was] the best thing I could have done. I would have been able to handle it, but I would have been in a different mindset going into the first game on September 8 if I hadn’t climbed that mountain and played in that Auckland Test.”

Is this man from Narrabri in New South Wales really that important to the Wallabies chances of bringing home Bill? Well.. yes! He’s been a solid performer for the Wallabies for many years, though has endured a bad run of selection conflicts with Matt’s, having missed the 99 world cup for Burke and the 03 world cup for Rogers! Latho is a player who can regularly release bucketloads of pressure with unbelievable deeds.

I remember seeing him field a kick completely isolated on our own goalline, with chasers almost on top of him. He steped through three of them to palm off another to work his way back towards our 22 then boot a massive torpedo to set up a lineout on the oppositions 22. The Wallabies have sorely missed those get out of jail opportunities that in the Latho’s abscence Fuxley has done everything in his power to turn into valuable points for the opposition.

He has the biggest boot in World Rugby, and combining Northern Hemisphere conditions with Knuckle-draggers gameplan expect to see plenty of kicking for field position. His heart is the size of Pharlap’s, and he is an inspiration to those around him ; a true leader by example.

This could very well be the New South Welshman’s World Cup. We were good enough to beat the Kiwi’s in Melbourne without him, now watch the Wallaby juggernaut regain momentum as Latho retakes his place at 15.

The major missing piece in our world cup puzzle is now a quality kicker. Can Mortlock step up to the plate? Giteau perhaps? Too late to call up Schicofske?