The weaker nations in the RWC such as Namibia, Japan and Portugal never seem to improve and always seem to concede 70 or 80 points and even in excess.

Why is it alright to see scores such as 125-3 or 118-9 in a RWC pool match when you never see a 10-0 or in excess in the football world cup?

Isnt it simply because these weaker teams get hammered in the group stages and dont even qualify for the actual worldcup. Eg san marino.

Too few a number of teams in the WC finals and you lose commercial opportunities: length of tournament is reduced, not aired in as many countries, no opportunity for England to wear their token away kit etc....

Anyways, forget all that. Allowing the smaller nations to compete on an international stage is worth its wait in gold.

Sorry for double post, but I'm against BP in the 6N, simply because you could win the Grand Slam with 10pts but lose out to a BP-collecting 2nd-place team (potentially 14pts - 8 pts for wins, 5 pts for 4 tries in each of their matches, plus a losing bonus point).

I'm also against simultaneous kickoffs on Super Saturday because as a rugby fan I want to see all three games.

I'm also against Friday Night fixtures because as a Welshman they ruin your weekend before it even starts.

It's the fairest way really but would be a disaster for TV

Never going to happen

I'm not suer Saturday would have been as engrossing if all the matches had started at the same time. Although maybe that had more to do with the last game.

Wales hadn't done enough by half time to put themselves in with a chance of winning, I'm not sure Ireland and England would have been so gung ho if they thought they'd had to win be 5-10 points.

Unless every round of matches is played at the same time, it's not that fair to just have final week start simultaneously.

Saturday was a great day and the atmosphere at Twickenham was the best I'd experienced in the few years I've been going. Credit to the teams for putting on such a good contest.

Someone on Twitter summed it up quite well by tweeting the picture of the kid from the Simpsons shouting "Stop, stop, he's already dead" (when Homer/Krusty is beating up the Krusty burglar)

Mind you I was saying the same watching the women against Scotland yesterday.

He made some very harsh comments about Ireland during the tournament - "one trick pony" and the likes..

Now I know the lads on RTÉ can really dish out comments but his ridiculing of the Irish team was out of place. We have a very small pool of players, have lost our greatest centre and without 2/3 players we are in big trouble (just think back to the 90's where we could hardly buy a win). For Ireland to win back to back championships where rugby isn't even in the top 2 sports in pretty amazing - he of course can be passionate but maybe jealousy is slightly clouding his judgement on Ireland.

Tbf to Guscott he's been slagging off the England team for ages too, though less so recently now that there's a healthy number of Bath players in the team.

I'm not sure he's a fan of modern day rugby,. he usually makes points about players spending too much time in the gym and not learning skills.

Whenever he slates (usually English) players for being gym monkeys, he seems to ignore the fact that South Africa and New Zealand are hardly the slim players of his heyday.

Times move Jeremy, get used to it.

Given there is a much greater inherent bias towards some teams each year due to them having three home games and only two away games then it becomes inconsequential by comparison as to how the final round of games is played.

Personally, I would like to see the last round *always* ordered so the team leading going in plays last etc.

Great weekend of rugby. it was an amazing final day.

Italy decided to raise the white flag at half time which was always a possibility. Although to be fair I never expected wales to score so many tries. There try scorers must have been unsure whether or not they should be looking for penalties or keep running. Fair play though some great tries in an unopposed run.

Scotland were a bit disappointing. I bang on every year about this being their year and they always let me down.

As for England well it was an amazing game we scored 9 more points against France than Italy, Scotland, Wales and Ireland combined but as a result left gaping holes in defence.

we also learnt that James Haskel should spend more time practising catching then lifting weights as he must have the worst hands in international rugby.

Great six nations really pleased for Ireland as they have been the best northern hemisphere team all year by a long shot. We also beat wales and finished above them in the table so that's a good thing.

After a lively start to the tournament he really faded

Croft is arguably the best 6 but sadly can't seem to keep fit for ten minutes. Tom Wood might well be the most solid option

Tuilagi, Corbs and Launchbury will make a big difference to that side. Think England are in quite a good place tbh

I do wonder if Manu will ever come back to full fitness, his short term injury is taking longer and longer to heal.

I can see why Leicester resisted going down the surgery route. Seeing as his 'sugar injection' treatment has done the job, they may now decide to do it. Which would surely put his RWC squad place in jeopardy.

He was sitting with the coaches the last day and travelled over to Dublin with the squad

Clearly in their RWC plans, with Burrell just warming the shirt. The latter was comfortably England's biggest disappointment throughout for me. Can't see him making WC squad at all

Yeah he does seem to have be found out a bit at international level, such a shame that Eastmond wasn't given much of a go. I get the feeling Lancaster and co don't trust him defensively and will leave him out of RWC squad too.

Forgot about Eastmond actually! Some squad

I have another issue with England and that is Robshaws constant chat to the ref. It will turn the ref against you in the end. He was all over Owens all game and it did England no good.

I say the same about Referees to teams I coach. Make a couple of points but don't argue with him, refs don't lose you championships they don't even lose you games. How you manage the ref is down to you.

For me the referee is irrelevant to the outcome. Its how you manage the things you are responsible that deliver the outcome.

Great player to have on the bench. Need to liven things up you get him on.

Yes definitely agree on that

Also, I'm not overly convinced on his decision making. Of course we all remember the Autumn 2012 fiasco but even as recently as Saturday he was unassured at times.

I thought giving Ford that kick at goal on the 10 metre line early on was mad, it was too 50/50, and in a game where you need to chase points wasting a minute and a half like that is silly when you can punt it into the corner and build something

There was one stage near the end too when they won a pen and you could see him deliberating over it. I could actually see Nowell roaring towards him and pointing at the corner. Robshaw just seemed to nearly panic in a way, they needed a try badly

Also against Ireland he turned down a gimme 3 points at a key stage in the first half to go for the corner. they lost the lineout... 3 points would have settled them down massively after being bet up all half

In saying that, he's a tremendous warrior on the pitch and really leads by example in his play.

Brian Moore has been told he is too controversial for ITV's World Cup coverage. Thank goodness. He gets on my wick.

Team Englands performance against France on Saturday will go down in rugby folklore as one of the most brilliant displays by an international side ever.

The Southern Hemisphere teams will be utterly terrified of facing England and they are definitely favourites to win the World Cup.

As a commentator he's annoying simply because he's speaking as a spectator and a fan. He's a dead sound bloke though in fairness, just very passionate


I have to agree. The concession of 5 tries puts a bit of a dampener on it though

I think if they get everyone fit they're my tip for RWC alright.

Im not sure. I genuinely think Ireland have been playing the perfect rugby for world cup tournaments. Creating pressure on the opposition with clever and accurate kicking. A solid defence and a good kicker. They make very few errors and the Wales game aside they are consistent.

Now the problem they have is it only seems to work around 2 players, Murray and sexton. If they can keep them two fit then they could easily win the tournament. Particularly with the pool they are in.

Englands advantage is their strength in depth. loads of quality second rows, loads of backrow options, now a midfield that can be moved and shuffled about with loads of options. Quality full backs and options for full back. Fly half options, front row options. It's a bloody good place to be but we now need the coach to pick his best side and play it to the world cup.

2003 side played almost every game in the build up year with hardly any changes we all knew who were the first choice players and very little changed.

Do I know who Lancaster's first choice of anything is?

Hard to know England's 15 alright

Barring injury you'd imagine Brown, Nowell, Joseph, Ford, Youngs, Hartley, Cole, Lawes, Robshaw would be the certainties as things stand.

Ireland (barring some French miracle) should top pool D, giving them Argentina in the quarters - a reasonable path to the semi's and avoiding the All Blacks.

The bugger of it is England and Wales being in the same pool with Australia.

I can't see both of us beating the aussies in the pool stage, which means a chance that the loser between England v Wales will likely go out. If one of us can beat them and both of us go through however then the next step is easy

Pool B seems quite soft (only S Africa of note) so if England and Wales could get the top two spots in pool A I'd be confident they'd get through the quarter finals and into the semis

After that who knows, but we'd have a couple of chances between the three teams to knock NZ off their perch