Kitchen Garden Forum

Who cares - the result will be the same - "35 seconds to go, the ball comes back..."

If that means we win Geoff, I don't really care how it happens.

I've never though Argentina were much good at Rugby although I'll concede they're half decent at football (but I'll never forgive Maradonna (Primadonna is more like it) for what he did to us) but this year they seem to be playing well.

I hope your dreams were sweeter than mine OH, ugh, nightmares

Hi Chantal,
The 'Puma's' have been playing a very forceful game for some years now and I think South Africa have got quite a task on their hands if they are to beat them.
I have just met a very embittered Welshman who described the match yesterday as a load of old rubbish and how lucky we were to win.
I was about to reply and somebody who is twice the size of me and who plays prop for a local team grabbed hold of him and literally threw him out of the place.
He appeared back and said 'I haven't got my paper yet' and the nameless one told him to 'F' off and go and buy his paper in Wales. I had to break them up!
Guess the pub will be a bit lively lunch time!
JB.

Dear Johnboy, i think you had better keep a tight grip of your pint lunchtime by the sounds of it, or i could imagine there would be a touch more bad language if that got knocked over.

Before I go on, I will say that if SA get to the final, then I hope England win. Having said that, JB, as an ex first class rugby player, you must agree with the "embittered" Welshman who said that the game was rubbish. There wasn't a good team on the field. Other than the first, and only try, no one looked like scoring a try. Quite honestly, other than the tension, it was a boring game. The beloved "Jonny" is not playing well, and if Chrlie Hodgson was playing, with the ball the magnificent pack are supplying, there would have been a hatful of tries. I don't know about the hand of Madona, but if I were English then I would be talking about the "hand of Worsely" that made the tap tackle that prevented a winning try by France!
I hope you are still with me, because I will end by saying that, I wish Wales had played so poorly, and got to the final!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oooh eck, i'm not sure what to make of that.

What you can make out of that OH, is that I wish that Wales were in the final, even playing badly, but, I'm fed up with the game I love being turned into ball in the air, not in the hand. I have played and refereed this wonderful game at a high level, and also been a coach and physio to my local team. Unfortunately, it has turned into a game, where five yards from the line, and it doesn't leave the forwards, until they pickup for the hundredth time and score, or give the ball to the opposition, and not let the backs have it. Or kick the ball constantly in the air until someone miss-cues and puts it into touch. Rughby should be played with ball in hand and magic worked by the backs,after the ball has been hard won by the forwards, or forwards running and linking up, as per the All Blacks, when on song. I hope England win next weekend, but I don't think that the game will encourage any young people to play,or gather more spectators, unless, of course we see a different team in the final, that will not be affraid to run the ball. Sorry for my rant, but I doo fear for my game.

Unfortunately we are now in an age submariner where centres are the size that props were 10 years ago and with the fitness conditioning it is much faster and played with much less space available so tactics have evolved along with the size increase.

Wales and indeed France have the ability through their backs to play the best rugby to be seen, however, Wales along with New Zealand have a bit of hubris about them at the moment and dream of time gone by when they were on top of the world. Take the joke doing the rounds now, have you seen the All Blacks and Wales new bras for sale, lots of support but no cups. New Zealand live in a bubble and think they are the best in the world, whereas Wales really could be if they got rid of the regional teams and brought back the old teams that have gone by the wayside.

Hi Submariner,
Glad you were not in my local lunchtime 'cos it really got heated. Living on the border of Wales has few advantages and those with Welsh names are Welsh when Wales win and the rest of the time they are English.
The local Welsh team applied and got a grant from the lottery to build a clubhouse and changing rooms. No sooner had all the building work been completed when the team de-registered from the league and no game is played there any longer. Open for drinking though. I think that it is a disgrace and nothing to do with the World Cup but as we appear to have got into the 'silly season' I see that as the state of Welsh Rugby. 'All mouth no trousers' is the saying that comes to mind. Rant over!!
JB.

Was planning a Bok Roast for the weekend but nobody seems to stock them round here, will have to try and run over one of the Roe Deer.

Sorry JB your anology passes my by. Wales cannot be as you said, because we have nothing to be mouthy about! If you saw any Welsh rugby TV programme, or read any Welsh papers, you would know that we are more critical about our own than any other country (possibly not counting NZ). What does get up our noses is not the English team or the English Rugby Union, but the press, the smirking presenter, whose name escapes me, and WILL GREENWOOD, who is in love with JW. Even when commentating on the Argentina-SA game, all he could say was how wonderful JW is!!!!!!!!!! I don't speak Welsh, but had to turn over to S4C, who are also televising the games.You know my opinion about that. Other than his kicking at goal, and he has missed a few, he is probably the poorest tactical outside half among the so called top nations. With all the ball he is getting from those brave forwards, the back line doesn't move, and there are some talented backs there like Flood,and Tait, because the ball doesn't reach them. I hope things improve, because I do really want to see a game worthy of a final, with England winning by scoring more tries than SA.
As far as that rugby team near you, the lottery fund should take all the money back.
Piglet, the South Sea island centres are all big, athletic men, who play a wonderful open rugby.

They do indeed submariner and the super 14 is a delight to watch, we are a bit behind them tactically. Perhaps making a penalty worth only 2 points would open up the game and having a failed drop goal treated like a kick going out on the full would stop that option being used so much.

Hi Submariner,
Although what I said was true about the Welsh team and the 'more than banter' in the pub really I was only pulling your leg.
Back in the mid 1940's Rugby was an entirely different game far more open and although we didn't have television then I feel sure that it would have made far better viewing than today's game. Strangely the drop goal was very much 'in' then but then it seemed to lose favour and the game now seems to follow the brute strength tactics of, dare I say, Rugby League.
In my days the game plan was to pass out as soon as possible with only the occasional ruck/maul but in today's game no attempt is made to free that ball up.
This made for a hell of a lot of running so perhaps today's players are all enormous and have great strength they are not exactly fleet of foot.
Because of the continual kicking for touch the game is all line-outs and scrums.
All the Polynesians Nations play a better game and when you consider the small populations they have from which to choose their teams they do remarkably well on the world scene. They play a very similar way to the game here when I was playing 1942-1963 when an accident brought everything to a halt and I admit that by then I was playing in the 'C' team!! Never mind I enjoyed it if nobody else did.
JB.

Hi JB. I started playing the game around 1950, and I agree entirely with you. Nowaday scrum halves wouldn't have lived with the scruim halves of then. I was a wing forward, and delighted in standing over an inside half waiting to play the ball from a scrum (didn't have to stay bound in those days). There was no wind up by the inside half then, to do so was a gift to the wing forward! The ball had to be moved, or the man with it was squashed. The one thing I do like about the modern game is that foul play has all but been eliminated, although in the old days it was always nice to have a thug to protect you!!!!!!
Pigleta lot of what you say, I agree with. In the days gone bye the pitches could always be blamed, not now. The Polynesians, play with abandon and joy, which to me proves that teams nowadays are over coached. Look at France, all their flare has been coached out of them.

A lot of my fellow countrymen will never forgive me for this, for some unknown reason, but Come on England, and watch that that chariot stays on the road