I don't mind league (I'm northern after all) but I'm not a fan of Rugby. Union just seems to be a casenof kicking it out constantly. Played league at school, once got scouted by the mighty kieghley cougers but was way more into football.
I don't mind league. But again, it seems to invariably be charge headlong at the opposition 5 times and then kick it back down as far as you can. The game tonight between the blacks and France was some great flowing, attacking rugby. No, it's not all been like that, but it's a W.C. and teams are sometimes more afraid of losing than throwing caution to the wind.
Fair play. Its not my thing so its not really fair to comment as it would only be negative. Just be lucky it wasn't a ln American Football thread, people need to be told just how ****e that it. You watch more adverts than you do actual sport..
Argentina looking good 7-0 up already, and just wrecked the Irish at the first scrum. Let's make that 14-0! With less than 10 mins gone!...
Indeed. Well played. Having said this, I think Oz suffered from a bit of complacency. Plus some really stupid unforced errors...
I think the Northern hemisphere in general, and England in particular, need to take a long hard look at themselves and their structures. Argentina have come on leaps and bounds recently, whilst we have stood still, or in England's case, regressed!..
It's obviously not got the general popularity and support of football. However it's becoming increasingly popular, with sellout crowds - particularly at Twickenham. The English RFU is the richest in world rugby. It really is totally unacceptable that we should have won only one six nations championship in 12 yrs, and be knocked out of our own hosted WC at the group stage! Unfortunately, A lot of Carling's 57 old farts still seem to be running the game ( into the ground, currently!)
Scotland excelled while the rest, and probably better teams were a big big let down. I know they don't want to use it as an excuse but injuries to Ireland and Wales especially were big factors. England were poor and France have been a mess for years
Cotter has certainly brought Scotland on from the depths they were in. However, I still feel that that was a game that The Wallabies made unnecessarily difficult for themselves. Again, complacency - always dangerous against a strongly motivated opponent - and far too many daft, unforced errors ( two if which led directly to tries!) made their task far harder than it should have been.
Filling Twickenham for England games isn't to big a shock. Its at club level crowds are low. Sometimes you get a good turn out bit it's on a par with lower league football.
That's mostly because of the capacity of the majority of grounds. When a recent club match between Quins and Saracens was held at Wembley, the crowd exceeded 70,000!
The occasional one off will. I suspect in most cases its much cheaper than following football, well, except when following England to the southern hemisphere You say there's money in the game, or, to be accurate, you say we have the richest RFU. Is it safe to say their isn't a sustainable demand for ground increases?
Rugby doesn't have the funding that football does - not in England anyway. In France there are several very wealthy owners who have brought the club game on - and it's hugely popular. But, to the detriment of the French national side due to the number of expensive foreign imports ( sound familiar?) As I say, the support is growing rapidly and it looks like it will continue to grow.
