World Champions and Wales

Well I should have gone with my hunch and put some brass on the Kiwis. Everything pointed to a big upset the way the Sydney press was crapping on that it was going to be a walkover. It reminded me of the tri-nations triumph in England in 2006.

I sat down with Melsy to watch the match but assured her it would be turned to another channel after 15-20 minutes if it was going to be the usual pounding the Kangaroos give us. Sadly Mel didn’t get to change channel and I got to see a very entertaining game in which we actually won.

The recriminations are going down here in Sydney with Ricky Stuart dreaming up a number of conspiracies against his team by the ARL to keep the people’s interest in the game. You can’t call the ref’s decisions marginal, they were pretty spot on. And you certainly can’t rig the bounce of the ball for that last try. Perhaps the only one that was dodgy was Slater’s wing and a prayer pass but then that’s his trade mark and usually they’re 50 points in the lead so it doesn’t matter anyway.

Bottom line: Kiwis didn’t run out of steam like they usually do combined with Aussies believing the TAB odds. Great game. Oh, and we're the World Champs at something.

Wales Game

I watched this game on replay and was mildly worried by the lack of SMS messages from the UK and NZ. It worried me that there were not the usual celebratory text messages even at the end. Melsy teased me by saying she knew the final score and I’d be surprised. Didn’t fool me but caused unnecessary concern shall we say.

The first half was the usual with a pumped up Welsh team doing their very best and the All Blacks doing just enough to make sure they were within a converted try. The Welsh had the majority of the possession and made some good plays. I liked their team and their aggression at the breakdown. Awesome crowd even better Haka theatre!

With Mel’s little tease still in the back of my mind I went into the second half expecting it to go down to the wire. But then out came Richie and the boys and gave the Welsh a lesson in how to prevent the other side scoring simply by keeping the ball and grabbing it back every time the other side got it.

Highlights:

Richie looks to be taking the mantle of world’s best referee from Fitzy. I was most impressed with how Kaplan deferred to him a couple of times and conceded that he was right but unlucky. All good stuff to have in the bank next time there’s a 50/50 situation.

Soalo is also showing signs of being an excellent ref.

Jimmy Cowan is starting to show Marshall-type traits. He’s starting to be an all round player with sniping runs, good defence and barking orders at the forwards.

What’s with Kaplan suddenly policing the put in at scrum time? They’ve been throwing it into the second row for several years now! I had assumed that everyone was on board that the put in was no longer a contest. I’m going to start watching that more closely.