Canada vs USA WC rugby qualifier

Kreskin

Kreskin

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Feb 23, 2006
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The Canadians recently put up a good fight in Toronto against the All-Blacks. We were just as physical but lacked some finish and made too many turnovers.
 
Blackleaf

Blackleaf

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Oct 9, 2004
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Kreskin said:
The Canadians recently put up a good fight in Toronto against the All-Blacks. We were just as physical but lacked some finish and made too many turnovers.
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The All Blacks would have been just having an off day. Even on an off day they still win. You should thank your lucky stars they weren't their normal selves that day.

gopher said:
watched 2 rugger matches today:

Fiji > Samoa (league)

SAfrica > Scotland (union)
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RUGBY LEAGUE WORLD CUP

QUARTER FINAL (At the Halliwell Jones Stadium, Warrington)

SAMOA 4-22 FIJI

I wasn't able to watch that Fiji vs Samoa match in the Rugby League World Cup Quarter Final but I bet it was a bruising encounter between the Pacific islands rivals.

Fiji just now have to beat the favourites Australia now to make the Final, whereas in the other Semi-Final England have to beat New Zealand who, like their union counterparts, are the World Champions.

England thrashed France 34-6 in their Quarter Final, and Australia ripped the USA to shreds in theirs, thrashing the Yanks 62-0. In the other Quarter Final, World Champions New Zealand destroyed Scotland 40-4.

To win this World Cup, England will have to beat World Champions New Zealand and then they will likely have to beat favourites Australia in the Final. But I think England have a great chance with them being the host nation.

Semi-final line-up

New Zealand v England (13:00 GMT)
Australia v Fiji (15:30 GMT)

Ties to be played on 23 November at Wembley Stadium

Three of the four Semi-Finalists all came from the same group, Group A.

As for Scotland in the Rugby Union Autumn Internationals, I don't know why they bothered turning up against the South Africans yesterday.
 
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coldstream

coldstream

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Oct 19, 2005
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I couldn't believe TSN actually broadcast the Semifinals at Wembley for Rugby League World Cup, as they had shown none of the previous matches. As far as I can remember this is the first time i have watched Rugby League, certainly at an international level.

NZ defeated England 20 - 18
Australia defeated Fiji 64 - 0

The whole thing was a bit of a revelation to me, as i found it totally entertaining. It is much more free flowing and fast paced than Rugby Union.. which is choppier and grittier. In fact, it brings to my mind the correspondence between Canadian and US Football, the same game but a recognizably different character.

The mini scrums (as opposed to Union's full scrums) and lack of line-outs make the game as similar to Aussie Rule Football and Rugby Union. It also means the teams don't use the sidelines as much and keep the play inside the boundaries.

The NZ/England match was won on the last play and was an engrossing spectacle.

Looking forward to Kiwis/'roos in the Final. :)
 
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Blackleaf

Blackleaf

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coldstream said:
I couldn't believe TSN actually broadcast the Semifinals at Wembley for Rugby League World Cup, as they had shown none of the previous matches. As far as I can remember this is the first time i have watched Rugby League, certainly at an international level.

NZ defeated England 20 - 18
Australia defeated Fiji 64 - 0

The whole thing was a bit of a revelation to me, as i found it totally entertaining. It is much more free flowing and fast paced than Rugby Union.. which is choppier and grittier. In fact, it brings to my mind the correspondence between Canadian and US Football, the same game but a recognizably different character.
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When teams in the North of England broke away from the Rugby Football Union in the late 19th Century in a row over money, they decided to create a new league and their own version of rugby.

The main division was caused by the RFU decision to enforce the amateur principle of the sport, preventing "broken time payments" to players who had taken time off work to play rugby. Northern teams typically had more working class players (coal miners, mill workers etc.) who could not afford to play without this compensation, in contrast to affluent southern teams who had other sources of income to sustain the amateur principle.

So these Northern teams broke away in 1895 and formed the Northern Rugby Football Union (NRFU). They played by the normal rules at first but in no time at all they started to develop their own version of rugby to make it more fast-paced and more entertaining than the version played by the "posh" Southern teams. Hence Rugby League was born.

To this day Rugby League is the main version of the game in Northern England, whereas Rugby Union rules in the south. Rugby League is also the national sport of Australia, but Union rules in New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, South Africa, France and Italy.

Rugby League has been professional ever since it started, but it wasn't until 1995 that Rugby Union became professional.

The NZ/England match was won on the last play and was an engrossing spectacle.

Looking forward to Kiwis/'roos in the Final. :)
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To say I was gutted after that England vs New Zealand Rugby League World Cup Semi Final is an understatement.

To be leading New Zealand, the World Cup holders, 18-14 in the last minute of the game and being just seconds away from the World Cup Final and then conceding a converted try in literally the last play of the game and losing 20-18 was just sickening.

I think New Zealand had just two tackles left out of the set of six. Just two more England tackles on the Kiwis and the ball would have been handed over to England, who would then have surely kicked the ball out of play and thus ending the match. England would have won. But one of those two remaining tackles was a high tackle, and the ref awarded the Kiwis a penalty. The Kiwis decided to tap and run from the penalty, and this gave them another set of six tackles. It was then that they went over for the try. It was horrific.

No shame for England. They put in a British bulldog performance against probably the best team in the world and were unlucky to lose right at the death. I don't think any of the England players left the pitch without bloodied and bruised faces.


Jump for joy: New Zealand players celebrate after they came from behind to score the winning try in the last seconds of the Rugby League World Cup Semi-Final


Heartbreak: James Graham and Ryan Hall's faces tell the story after England let slip a lead to lose the match in the last few seconds

And those jammy New Zealanders have just done the same in Rugby Union! They've just played Ireland at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin and Ireland, who rarely beat any Southern Hemisphere team never mind mighty New Zealand, were leading 22-17 in time added on at the end of the match. The Ireland fans were about to celebrate a famous win but then, sickeningly for the Ireland fans, New Zealand scored a try in what was literally the last play of the match to make it 22-22. They then scored the conversion to win 22-24.


Just like their Rugby League counterparts against England yesterday, New Zealand's Rugby Union players celebrate coming from behind to score a winning try against Ireland in the last seconds of the match today

So in both codes of rugby - Rugby League yesterday and Rugby Union today - New Zealand were staring at defeat in the last minute of the match, yet still somehow managed to win the match in literally the last passage of play.

They just never know when they are beaten and you can see why they are World Champions in both codes.
 
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Blackleaf

Blackleaf

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