All Right guys, this is it; the wait is over New Zealand-Tonga tonight. This thread is to discuss the rugby world cup only, not a comparison between football and rugby full of conflicting biased opinions. Now I am very busy with classes but I will attempt to update this page as much as possible, suggestions are more than welcome as well; and if someone want to hold the thread , we can just lock this one I have no problems with that. Anyway good luck to all the ones who are staying awake tonight to watch the game. Here is a schedule. Sorry I could not find one with American hours. Just remenber it is 16hours later in New zealand than it is on the east coast. So every game played after 4pm over there will correspond to the same day as our. Anyway i will remind everyone when games take place. Don t hesitate to PM me if you need a live link or else. Pool MatchesFriday September 9PoolVenueLocalAESTNew Zealand v Tonga 41-10AEden Park, Auckland8.30pm Saturday September 10PoolVenueLocalAESTScotland v Romania 34-24BRugby Park Stadium, Invercargill1.00pm Fiji v Namibia 49-25Rotorua International Stadium3.30pm France v Japan 47-21ANorth Harbour Stadium, North Shore6.00pm Argentina v England 9-13BOtago Stadium, Dunedin8.30pm Sunday September 11PoolVenueLocalAESTAustralia v Italy 32-6CNorth Harbour Stadium, North Shore3.30pm Ireland v USACStadium Taranaki, New Plymouth6.00pm South Africa v WalesWellington Regional Stadium8.30pm Wednesday, September 14PoolVenueLocalAESTSamoa v NamibiaRotorua International Stadium2.30pm Tonga v CanadaANorthland Events Centre, Whangarei5.00pm Scotland v GeorgiaBRugby Park Stadium, Invercargill7.30pm Thursday, September 15PoolVenueLocalAESTRussia v USACStadium Taranaki, New Plymouth7.30pm Friday, September 16PoolVenueLocalAESTNew Zealand v JapanAWaikato Stadium, Hamilton8.00pm Saturday, September 17PoolVenueLocalAESTArgentina v RomaniaBRugby Park Stadium, Invercargill3.30pm South Africa v FijiWellington Regional Stadium6.00pm Australia v IrelandCEden Park, Auckland8.30pm Sunday, September 18PoolVenueLocalAESTWales v SamoaWaikato Stadium, Hamilton3.30pm England v GeorgiaBOtago Stadium, Dunedin6.00pm France v CanadaAMcLean Park, Napier8.30pm Tuesday, September 20PoolVenueLocalAESTItaly v RussiaCTrafalgar Park, Nelson7.30pm Wednesday, September 21PoolVenueLocalAESTTonga v JapanANorthland Events Centre, Whangarei7.30pm Thursday, September 22PoolVenueLocalAESTSouth Africa v NamibiaNorth Harbour Stadium, North Shore8.00pm Friday, September 23PoolVenueLocalAESTAustralia v USACWellington Regional Stadium8.30pm Saturday, September 24PoolVenueLocalAESTEngland v RomaniaBDunedin (TBA)6.00pm New Zealand v FranceAEden Park, Auckland8.30pm Sunday, September 25PoolVenueLocalAESTFiji v SamoaEden Park, Auckland3.30pm Ireland v RussiaCRotorua International Stadium6.00pm Argentina v ScotlandBWellington Regional Stadium8.30pm Monday, September 26PoolVenueLocalAESTWales v NamibiaStadium Taranaki, New Plymouth7.30pm Tuesday, September 27PoolArena JoondalupLocalAESTCanada v JapanAMcLean Park, Napier5.00pm Italy v USACTrafalgar Park, Nelson7.30pm Wednesday, September 28PoolVenueLocalAESTGeorgia v RomaniaBArena Manawatu, Palmerston North7.30pm Friday, September 30PoolVenueLocalAESTSouth Africa v SamoaNorth Harbour Stadium, North Shore8.30pm Saturday, October 1PoolVenueLocalAESTAustralia v RussiaCTrafalgar Park, Nelson3.30pm France v TongaAWellington Regional Stadium6.00pm England v ScotlandBEden Park, Auckland8.30pm Sunday, October 2PoolVenueLocalAEDTArgentina v GeorgiaBArena Manawatu, Palmerston North1.00pm New Zealand v CanadaAWellington Regional Stadium3.30pm Wales v FijiWaikato Stadium, Hamilton6.00pm Ireland v ItalyCDunedin (TBA)8.30pm
Just came here to make this thread - but you saved me the effort. I'm looking forward to the first game and then Scotland play on Saturday morning (late Friday night in the US). I'm going to be TiVoing a lot of games and watching them in the evening I think.
Italy-Australia and Wales-South Africa will be the big games of this week end. I ll also follow France very closely as they face an improving Japanese side that includes 3 new zealanders. Concerning New Zealand I think it is a shame Hosea Gear was left out even more in order to put Kahui on the wing. Scotland and Fiji will have no troubles.
thanks mourf go wallabees, i mean US *cough cough* not sure how many of these games i can catch during the week with this cot damn time difference
The main thing that worries me is that if Scotland finish second in their group (which is most likely) they get the All Blacks inthe 1/4 finals. If there's anyone we can get up for it's England though so there's a slim chance we could lead the group - and that would mean France instead which is a slightly better proposition.
Wallabies have a real chance to win it all, Scotland will have a tough time coming out of groups stages, the pumas are always a tough opposition
I'm watching a show right now actually about some of the smaller teams and how they qualified. It's like watching low level club rugby - Namibia looked like they were playing on dirt in front of about 50 people. It will be quite different for them playing in packed stadiums. The way they pick the teams is reasonable - although there are a lot of automatic qualifiers - 12 of the 20 teams. I guess it keeps the good teams in - they don't want too many teams that aren't good but want to give them a chance and have something to aspire to. Then they have regional qualifying with 1 or 2 spots available (Europe and the Americas get 2 and Asia, Oceania and Africa get 1 - not sure why there is a difference - maybe to do with the amount of countries with decent teams in that region). It's kind of funny how Namibia are the second best team in Africa - behind South Africa who got an automatic place - when the difference is so huge. They're ranked 20 in the world but outside the top 10 the standard drops pretty quickly. They haven't won a game in (I think) 4 world cups - and they lost to Australia once by about 150 points.
Good point, I agree with you, one of the major problem about rugby is the level difference between certain teams (mostly at the national level) that makes it sort of uninteresting to watch at times as we know one team is gonna get crushed ( watch for Russia vs Australia they can get 100 pts scored against them ) But its true for other sports as well, baseball for example I dont know when we ll have a competitive European team but it's not about to happen. In a way it gets interesting during the 1/4 finals even though we ll have some nice oppositions in the 1st round with a tough pool D
Yeah, it's definitely a limited tournament just because of the level of play - soccer can have a huge tournament without people winning 10-0 because it is played all over the world and at a decent standard - if you look at the IRB rankings it is basically the Tri-Nations, the 6 Nations, a few others and then no-one.
Yee! Can't wait! Opening ceremony and game tonight got my All Blacks jersey on already! Can't wait to see what haka we'll perform. If it's kapa o'pango , but I'd be happy with the traditional ka mate too All games can be watched HERE I think it will alter the times to wherever you are in the world. Although for me the times are out by an hour (not sure why). Also, I've done a blog post on games of interest for foreigners, so if you'd like to have a look see you can go here. Mourf, Kahui can play in at centre as well as wing, I think he gives the coaches more options than Gear does. And Kahui was impressive in the opportunities that he was given. Gear wasn't, which is unfortunate. I'm glad Messam was cut though, he can't perform when it's needed. Just like Donald
I've been watching a lot of rugby on the universal sports channel and I'm really starting to get into it. Sucks but I have a loooong day tomorrow at work so I won't be catching any of the matches tonight but I plan on watching watching a lot of other matches later on.
As we were discussing earlier, New Zealand already leading by 29 to 3 at halftime, not much of a contest right there and already 4 tries for the Kiwis ( 2 for Dagg and Kahui each ) my homie Sonny Bill having an impressive 1st half giving plenty of opportunity for Nonu to run with the ball. Im a bit disappointed by Tonga even though their scrums has been very steady against a very experienced All Blacks pack.
Final score 41 to 10 for New Zealand, great 2nd half from the Tongans; way more aggressive in defense and using their forwards strength who really impressed me during scrums Taumalolo
welcome to my world. FIFA WC and every year when the AB's play in South Africa and go on the end of year tour of the Northern Hemisphere. Was a good game last night, Kahui has definitely cemented his place in there, and most certainly over Gear. SBW should've left his shirt off I think this is an indication of how strong the island nations can be. A lot of people totally disregard them but they've definitely got it in them. Interestingly, their scrum pack weighed 40+ kgs more than ours. Argentina vs England tonight! GO ARGENTINAAAAA!
Will try to watch,been trying to get into watching Rugby since this Summer. One of my fav sports to play
it's finally the weekend...so i'll be up watching now. just need to do the math and figure out the EST start times. so for the time difference...+12...for east coast US, that's 16 hours? so it's 10:50am in NZ? that's aukland, at least...i think
Soooo glad this is finally on. Massive Aussie supporter in all sports, but especially in Basketball & Rugby. Love that we finally won the Tri-Nations again a couple weeks back (and by beating the AB's to do so), and now that we just beat them for the Olympic Quali in Basketball it's definitely rugby time again!!! Gonna be glued to the TV come Sunday with all the killer games on TV, and living in Europe the England-Argentina game will be getting plenty of coverage too so looking forward to that one also! Lets Go Wobblies (family name for them thanks to all the shaky 2nd half performances of late)!!!!!!
so for the time difference...+12...for east coast US, that's 16 hours? so it's 10:50am in NZ? that's aukland, at least...i think It is 17 hrs with the east coast
word...so that 8:30 pm start would be 3:30 am here on the east coast perfect timing for when im home from the bars
I think you were right with your first guess. The best way to look at it is this, you're eight hours ahead of NZ, but a day behind... Get it? Right now it's 12.22pm Saturday here, and it's 8.22pm Friday in Boston.