France Here We Come

Well now it is off to Cardiff to waste the Frogs and redeem ourselves for the 1999 failure at Twickenham - a very very dark day in NZ rugby history. I remember the day well. My brother Ian - a dedicated MAB fan from way back - and I were sitting in my house (now long gone and all the money from it taken by my ex-wife ...but I digress) watching the semi together in the middle of the night. We were pretty happy with the effort at half time but we weren't confident. And our feeling turned out to be right when the frogs came back and beat us with a classic display of French brilliance.

What is different about that episode and this coming Saturday?

Firstly today's team is much better than 1999. Secondly we've been ambushed by the Frenchies before and we will be going into this quarter final looking no further than this game. Thirdly, this team has a few mongrels in it unlike Hart's team of "good boys" in 1999. If the Frogs start doing the niggle then Hayman, Collins and Robinson will be there to do a bit of enforcement. Fourthly, we have forwards domination. And last but not least their inspirational half Pierre Mignoni is OUT. Yipee.

I note that Bernard Laporte has been talking up his prospects and trying to influence AB game plans in the media. I love the build up cause you see all the gamesmanship. Henry is pretty good at this unlike Mitchell in 2003.

The Romania game had a lot of positives which were well covered in the press. Its is clear now that if the ABs click on the day then they can beat all teams in this final 8 - not doubt about it. I think they are mentally tough enough and have the goods.

Speaking of mentally tough enough. Witness the Welsh on the weekend. They were 53 minutes in to the game and they started to panic cause they were behind. They went for tries instead of taking points on offer from penalty kicks. That was poor choices and the panic was obvious which pushed Fiji to defend defend defend which they did and eventually the decision not to kick was a deciding factor in the game.

My picks:
Australia will defeat England (this is my hardest pick cause something inside me says that England have not played their one good game of the tournament yet and this will be it)

Argentina will defeat Scotland for sure.

NZ will cream the Frogs (this is the game that the all blacks will come together and make hardly any mistakes - or only make them in the first 20 minutes)

South Africa will beat Fiji

This is now the time when the dept will count. Unlike all the other teams the All Blacks have 30 test players all with a lot of experience. In these next two games people will get injured or front the judiciary and get suspended all of which means you need to call on your reserves.

GO THE MIGHTY ALL BLACKS.

PS: Look for the "other" haka Kaponga for the Frogs.