Just discovered that the Japanese are training at my son's old school, big screened off area on their playing fields. apparently previous winners of the national schools rugby cup (used to be Daily Mail, now NatWest Cup) are hosting the smaller nations. Another reason to wish them well.
Well I never Col...you could hear the sound so could both my hubby and I too. We both lived in Wembley(separately) then Where did you live
The Japanese must have a decent shot against the Scots, despite presumably being underdogs Australia v Fiji will give some measure as to how well or badly England did in their first match (pleased to see Ford has got the boot in favour of Owen Farell for the Wales match) France should win comfortably over Romania in the evening match
4 days turnaround time for Japan is a handicap, but should be interesting. Australia need the bonus point against the Fijians, but may struggle. Farrell vs Ford? For the playmaker position I believe you have to be sure of who your first pick is, and Lancaster doesn't seem to be. More worrying is Burgess vs Jamie Roberts, inexperience may be shown up big time. Shame, just when the English centre pairing seemed stable and exciting. Burgess will be very good soon, but this is a big ask. Relative strength of the bench plus Twickenham should shade it for England, unless nerves get to them.
And therein lies a problem that I feel will cost us the Cup, you have to have a World class No.10 and we haven't been anywhere near Wilkinson's quality in recent years. It'll take a huge improvement in that area to overcome the top sides...
Was close at HT, but think Japan ran out of steam - not really fair on them as they only had four days rest, but now Scotland have a good chance of getting through to next round
Let's see how they do against a humiliated Springboks. But should be an easy run through to defeat in the quarters.
Don't hold out much hope for them to be honest, and I don't think even the most die-hard Scots up here are expecting anything past last eight!
