Regular rugby contributor Igor is battling a newly-diagnosed 40-hour-a-week malady, so I'm jumping in to give a brief update on the 2011 Rugby World Cup (Mr. KQ, feel free to drop us a line if you'd like the assignment for next Sunday's final).
Host New Zealand
topped arch-rival Australia in a bloody semifinal, prevailing 20-6 to keep their date with destiny. Piri Weepu overcame early inaccuracy to connect on 4 penalties for New Zealand. The All-Blacks set up a rematch of the first RWC final against France.
Les Blues topped Wales, 9-8, in the first semi, benefitting from a
controversial red card to Welsh captain Sam Warburton. The young Wales flanker dumped French winger Vincent Clerc 17 minutes into the match, forcing his side to play 7 against 8 in the pack for more than 60 minutes. The undermanned Welch side played valiantly, missing two kicks by inches in the final 20 minutes, but France move on to face the sentimental and actual favorites.
New Zealand lost all-world flyhalf Dan Carter to an injury early in the tournament, but still remain the class of the RWC. The nation will hold its breath for another week, but smart money remains on
Buck Shelford's countrymen. The final is at 3:45 am EST on Sunday, October 23. Meet at KQ's house at 3:00 am for the tailgating.
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48 comments:
Piri Weepu.
Thank you for picking up the slack, Robby.
Was really pulling for Wales, as I mentioned in my preview -- "I like Wales as my (pasty, toothless) dark horse," and dammit, I liked their chances against the Frances. So close, and "valiantly" is perfect to describe how they hung in there a man down, only losing because of errant kicks.
What sucks the most is that this meant more to the Welsh than it does to the French. Sure, the French rugby fans are happy, but had they lost, all the French denizens could return to their art, their wine, their cheese, their toast and fries, their Tour Eiffel, their Grand Prix, their Le Mans, their pretty fair football side, their Riviera, their clothing optional beaches, and their white flag waving. Joie de vive and all.
Meanwhile, the Welsh return to their coalmines, their caves, their Brains beer, their little dogs, their disdain for football and all of England, their memories of Gareth Edwards, their Tom Jones and Alarm albums, and their rare footage of Hannibal Lecter, Q, Robin Colcord, and Catherin Zeta-Jones hanging out and eating this.
Doesn't seem fair. Damn French.
My 6-10 preseason prediction doesn't look so pessimistic now, does it?
6-10.
Okay, nobody's here today to hold me to this, but here goes:
If the Skins come back and win this game, I will make a $50 contribution to a nonprofit this week.
notwithstanding the automatic deductions from your paycheck?
really pleased i picked up the bills defense and started them in place of the patriots. probably shoulda consulted the zman first.
who does the zman root for in this game? is it bills all the way?
holy shit-- whoever's doing color commentary for the giants just pulled the fischel "let em score the touchdown and give your offense extra time" call! i didn't realize anyone besides fischel professed faith in that "strategy."
he just took it back.
Mike Holmgren employed this strategy in the Super Bowl. It didn't work.
Terry Bradshaw says the Skins start Grossman next week. That almost guarantees Beck the start. Truly hoping Bradshaw is wrong.
posted this on facebook, too, but you guys are a lot smarter than my facebook friends:
Team Russell's preparing to enter the 21st Century. We're in the market for an HD TV. We're not crazy technophiles, so all we really care is that it works and is easy to install by ourselves. Built-in wifi would be cool. Any reason why the 42" Visio at Costco wouldn't work for us. Talk to me, Facebook.
Oh yeah, I never disclosed the result of my GTB tech inquiry from a fee weeks back. I actually bought two computers. (Y'know, since I was unemployed and all.) I got an iMac as well as a Toshiba Satellite laptop. Reviews in due time.
Thanks for the recs. Heeded accordingly.
Rob....a fine purchase. Can't go wrong w the Costco or Vizio buy.
Somber shit going on in Indy car racing....Dan Wheldon just got taken away by helicopter. Haven't seen wreck yet.
rob - your fb friend al says to go w/the 47" and you won't regret it. if you've got the space for it, hard to argue. bought a 42" a couple years ago...regret.
did anyone see the beginning of the jim harbaugh celebration? he lifted up his shirt.
holy shit...he's dead.
have been watching this for the last half hour and have yet to replay the crash.
Saw the crash. Awful.
this baseball contest is like a video game.
You shouldn't kick to Devin Hester.
Seeing pictures of Wheldon with his family makes news of his passing tough. After you have kids, you absorb these terrible news stories with a new perspective.
Awful news. Shocking that it doesn't happen more.
I see that you hoad Lori Stevens pimp out G:TB in the latest W&M alumni mag. You my friend are a whore....and I applaud you.
Zman, on the other hand, will likely boycott G:TB due to his hatred of all thengs W&M.
Zman's hatred of all things W&M is similar to Marls' hatred of all things that are spell-checked.
expect more, marls, as i am now writing the '92 class notes with lori. and expect a few references to dave as a renaissance man.
Was "you hoad" supposed to be "Lew Hoad"?
Spelchek is for loosers.
Whit - 6-10 is probably right for the Skins. They've still got Seattle, Miami, and Minnesota, though they're bound to lose at least one of those. I think they actually match pose a tough matchup to the Niners but I don't see them winning another game in the division.
Does anybody else think Beck's long ball (the actual throwing motion) is the most atrocious thing ever? It looks like he's trying to knock out a stadium light. It's a good thing he won't have to play in Cowboys' Stadium because that Jumbo-JumboTron might be in some trouble.
Jerry - what's the verdict for the new tv-viewing season? Looking to hitch my wagon to one or two new dramas - get me in the game.
I can't wait for the update about some guy who was just named assistant ambassador to China followed up quickly by a note about Dave eating 108 tacos.
The scale of awfully thrown long balls is measured by the Pennington Ratio. He is the benchmark for all ugly chuckers, from Vince Young to Phil Rivers.
Yes Zman, I did mean the great 1950's Australian tennis star. Glad you got the reference.
New Tom Waits sounds like a cross between the Pogues and filthy blues music for hipsters. So I like it.
http://badasme.com/
N
NYT website's headline Is about a "renegade Amish group". WTF?
My decision to take Monday off after my trip to Auburn this weekend was a stroke of genius. I slept in this morning, took care of a bunch of errands and now only have a 4 day work week ahead of me.
Florida's offense & special teams at Auburn, not exactly genius level. In both concept & execution. I never, ever thought I'd miss John Brantley this much.
Looking at planning my SEC Raod Trip for Florida at Ole Miss next year. Who's in?
ole miss girls in the grove? temmmmpting.
Memphis as well. Apparently, the way to do it is to stay in Memphis. Drive the 45 minutes to Ole Miss is the AM. Of course, that assumes that somebody stays sober to drive back to Memphis. Not great odds on that.
100% chance someone would get killed in Memphis. And by someone, I mean Greg.
Typical Australia-NZ game. NZ stronger at the breakdown, Australia makes too many mistakes. Combo of those factors and NZ's solid defense prevents the Wallabies from running their explosive stuff.
France-Wales was one of the most boring rugby matches I've ever seen. These two games were illustrative of why I watch southern hemisphere rugby and not northern. France and Wales didn't even look like they were trying to score. New Zealand should win the final by 20+ if they don't choke.
rob-- i don't have cable and i have a 56 inch hdtv. i wish it was bigger and i watch it from ten feet away. get the biggest one you can afford and get a blue ray player and the blue ray option on netflix. for one week, your eyes will be exhausted and you'll think you made a mistake, and then for the rest of your life it will be awesome.
Dave. Spring for an Apple TV. It's not a tv but will allow you to stream all types of goodness to your tv. Expecially valuable for you without cable. If you're so inclined, I can send you instructions on how to jailbreak it (it's easy). Once you do that you can use Icefilms to stream movies & TV to your TV for free. It's pretty awesome.
I'd say just stop being difficult and get cable.
What he said.
i would pay a lot of money for jerry and dave to switch lives for a month and let us film the results, a la one of those reality programs.
The show would be called "Brunswick Stew."
And it would be awesome.
We'd need a lot of monologue from Dave, otherwise this evening would've been a lot of sitting around being confused/bored by rugby.
I don't think we'd be very good at each other's jobs.
How do you think the full-time parenting would go for you? At first I think you'd be amused, soon thereafter you'd go insane.
We would have to make Dave watch 3 TV's most every night, right? I think the same reaction would apply to him as well.
Yeah that's probably about right.
I do play soccer twice a week, so he'd like that.
Dave may also have been frustrated by staying up until 11:30 to make sure that Shonn Greene didn't score 10 fantasy points.
yes the real face brings up, the photographer should be awarded.
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