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| Manu Samoa’s Midfield General, Seilala Mapusua, nails Wallaby Digby Ioane. |
Samoa suckered the yellow team into committing huge numbers to rucks, and the tackles they made never let Aussie hit the advantage line. This was a huge effort, but by a very good and very experienced team in a World Cup year. Now normally that last statement would be about Australia, but not today. That Samoan team has an average age of 29 (they said on the telly box) and they play in Europe’s pro teams ... they know what to do. Add to that the quality players in key positions like Khan Fotuali’i (9), Tusi Pisiata (10), Seilala Mapusua (12), and Paul Williams (15) and you’ve got a team that today proved it can set, hold, extend and then maintain a lead.
Alesana Tuilagi was immense today!
The Wallabies again showed their lack of a midfield, and picking Reds players just because they won the Super final looked ill-conceived. I know players like Pocock and O’Connor are being nursed back to the starting XV, but in the meantime Rod Davies and Beau Robinson (the Jack Russell on meth) just aren’t up to it.
I’ll say it again: I think South Africa should be worried about the pool matches as I see someone stepping up to beat them, and after today, it could be Samoa. Irish eyes must be smiling too as they are in Aussie’s pool.
I know it’s early daws, and arguably pre-season, but today just took a little bit of a shine of Australia’s chances and exposed their lack of Test depth again.
Well done Samoa. The result: IRB’s 10th ranked team just beat the 2nd ranked ... eight weeks out from the Word Cup. And my raised garden bed plans got lost somewhere on the way.
3 comments:
Don't look now, but there seems to be a shake up in the Rugby World. Samoa's huge win against Australia comes on the heels of Japan beating Fiji AND Tonga to win the Pacific Cup. You make a good point about most of Samoa's players plying their trade in either Europe or the Southern Hemisphere, so they are a lot more professional than some people might realize.
OMG. I heard it here first on ruggerblogger! Thanks for the scoop. Can't believe the result, that Samoa beat the Wallabies. Thank god, it might take some of the gloss after their super 15 win. I know that's evil, but a confident Wallaby team is a hard team to harness. Much better they have a little bit of a fright!
I agree with you about Ireland. I'm with Jonah, and I think I've said this in the previous months on this blog. I think they are the true dark horses of the world cup. They anhilated (shit, can't spell that word) England in the Six Nations. They gave the All Blacks the hardest test during last years' autumn internationals.
I would personally far rather face Ireland than South Africa in a knock out game. But I am wishful thinking and getting ahead of myself too.
Thanks for the great blog slugso! I can see the raised garden bed suffering quite a lot of neglect in the next few months.
Rugby is really turning into a global game isn't it? Samoa have players with experience of the best of the North and the South, and it shows. And a good game like that gets watched and appreciated in Australia/New Zealand, South Africa, America and Europe. The Australians have sucessfully managed expectations ahead of the World Cup! Ferdy, keep on talking about the Irish, I love that.
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