RWC: Three quarter final places to be decided in three games

By /
Despite the constant and very irritating complaint that the month of pool games has been a total waste of time the final weekend of games does include some fine opportunities for Northern Hemisphere teams to be bowled out. Unfortunately that does include Wales.

So far the Quarter Finals are adorned with the usual suspects of the All Blacks (NZ), Australia and South Africa, all comfortably through ... too comfortably for the All Blacks according to lot of people.

However the following games are not to be missed - the rest you can watch if you're interested but I shan't bother and that might even include the All Black/Romania game (10pm, Saturday) if I am in any way tired.

Pool A: England v Tonga (6:30am, Saturday)
This could be a fairly rough and tumble game with the chance that the current World Cup holders leave before the Quarters. Tonga, however, will have to be on their top game and play for 80 minutes as England have looked just that little bit better each game and despite reports I believe are able to handle the pressure. This will probably be England's game of the competition but won't rank in any future "World Cup 2007 Greatest Moments" DVD.

Mike prediction: England by a comfortable but small margin much to the annoyance of a lot of people.

Pool B: Wales v Fiji (4am, Sunday)
Crickey ... um, hmm ... I think the Welsh boys will have too much skill, crowd noise and guts to let this go past them IF they don't have a shocker of a start (see Australia game). If they can contain the Fijians in the first 20-30 minutes, play their own game and score a few handy tries then this could even be a romp. If.

Mike prediction: Wales by a small something, sighs of relief all round.

Pool D: Ireland v Argentina (4am, Monday)
This has all the potential of being a walk over or the closest game going (barring Canada/Japan) with it being a roller-coaster of a ride. I am glad I'm not a supporter of either side as the stress would do me in ... which doesn't set me up well for the Quarter Finals and beyond.
Argentina will play a solid, consistent and dominating game with the Irish desperately trying to break through the sky-blue defence - if the Irish get some lucky breaks, some touches of actual team work and manage to hold onto the ball then they have a chance.

Mike prediction: Argentina by quite some which will kick off an Irish implosion of tabloid proportions.

Comments

Post a Comment

Be kind

Popular articles

Make Your Public Event Calendar Usable To All

Image
If you run a sports club, this post is for you. If you are on a community committee, this post is also for you If you host events, this is for you. If you put on shows, this is for you. In fact, if you do anything that has a date/time component that you'd like to share with people, this is for you . Yep, probably for all of us. Sharing calendars can be both: an effective way of letting everyone know a complete and utter technical pain in the bottomly region If you've posted up an events page onto your website you know how difficult it is to keep up to date, how the readers have to keep coming back to get the latest changes and don't even think about integrating with somebody else's "events page". Ok, so we all know the problem. What's the solution? iCalendar (normally shortened to iCal) ... yep, it's a geek word that you will come to know and love just as much as RSS. In fact, think of it as RSS for calendars. But that's enough geekery, if you want

We Live Better Than Medieval Royalty

Image
It's an almost common phrase, "We live better than a king of old!" Ok, let's do some a lot of searching and see if that's true in any sense at all BUT first ... Some definitions ... "We all" Almost exclusively this is white, middle-class / middle-level, in the top 10-15%, sort of people. Also, European or of European descent, i.e. those that think being a medieval king is a thing to emulate. "live" Doing our general stuff but not one-off things like wars, marriages, and deaths. Think of it as the life we live on a Tuesday afternoon. "better" Hmmm, I think this is a combination of ease, ability, availability, and cost. "Medieval" The medieval period , also known as the Middle Ages or the Dark Ages, began around 476 A.D. and ended between 1400 and 1450. The term was first used by 15th-century scholars to describe the time between their own time and the fall of the Western Roman Empire. "royalty" Absolutely thinking

Signs Of Old

Image
Cheap, I assume, but effective way to make your newsagent feel solid and like a permanent member of the community, cover it in signs of products you might've sold "back in the day". So says the cynic. I, of course, love old shit like this. And it says it's been around since 1872, so deserved. So, what have we got ... Smoke PLAYER'S TOBACCO AND CIGARETTES . Beautifully Cool and Sweet Smoking LYONS Coffee and Chicory EXTRACT Drink TIZER , The Appetizer THE LARGEST Weekly Paper. NEWS WORLD OF THE WORLD . THE LARGEST Weekly Paper TUG-O-WAR PLUG . It's made by the 'MICK MCQUAID' people PALETHORPES . Royal Cambridge RUB IT IN! GODDARD'S White Horse Oils EMBROCATION . Sold Here in Bottles 6d 1/- & 2/- Maynards By Gum They're Good WINE GUMS R WHITE GINGER BEER . Luncheon, Dinner & Supper FRY'S High Class CHOCOLATE Black Cat Pure Matured Virginia Cigarettes THE BIG SUNDAY DISPATCH . 24 Large Pages. Free Family Insurance PARK DRIVE FOR

The Difference Between One Million And One Billion

Image
It's feels like a billion is just a bit bigger than a million. Obviously it's bigger but it fits on the same scale as a million, surely. It doesn't. A billion is so so so much bigger than a million. I've trawled the internet finding graphics and videos that show the VAST difference between one million and one billion. Oh, and just to finish with a different misconception about space starting with the classic opening line from the great Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy : “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

W. C. Fields quotes

Image
The office has all been moved around - new desks (with starter handles to raise and lower them), new high(er) speed network and ... the same old work. At least I have a differing view of the world, my team (well, the team I'm a part of not "my" team) is a lot closer - finally - and it's like an office from the 80's ... or even a classroom. But I still have time to move the crap off the PC : ------ Any man who hates dogs and loves whiskey can't be all bad. Anyone who hates Dogs and Kids Can't be All Bad. Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??! Who stole the cork from my breakfast? Now don't say you can't swear off drinking, it's easy. I've done it a thousand times. Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again. Then quit, no use being a damn fool about things. Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child - if you parboil them first for seven hours, they alwa