Sunday, June 27, 2010

Northern rugby drought

Saturday , June 26                    


New Zealand 29 - 10 Wales

Australia 22 - 15 Ireland

South Africa 55 - 11 Italy

Argentina 41 - 13 France



Another Black(and Green and Gold) day for the North I’m afraid.

First up was the All Blacks and Wales. The AB’s obviously had this down as a cake walk – turn up, mince the leek, go home.

The scoreline doesn’t do the game justice as New Zealand faded badly in the second half and picked up a consolation try at the end to put a gloss on the result that wasn’t really there.

The AB’s struggled in the scrum, Tony Woodcock was not at his best, and there were mistakes, missed tackles and dropped passes. In between there were some good skills shown by the backs.

Wales looked the best when they threw the kitchen sink at it, Jamie Roberts was huge as was Mike Phillips.

The AB's need a big step up to the trinations in the next few weeks.

Ireland, I’m afraid, butchered a golden opportunity to get one over the Aussies in the next match, letting in two trys as soft as Kerrygold butter.

Mick O’ Driscoll had a great game but his namesake BOD won’t want to keep a DVD of this match, he’s going to have to be managed carefully in the build up next year.

 Australia are not right at the moment at can’t be looking forward to the Tri Nations much.

Their man of the moment is Quade Cooper, who sparkled briefly, but blew hot and cold as well.

The Boks put the Azzurri away comfortably but it won’t have told them much, with real deal starting for them in two weeks.

Finally, France were abject in their defeat to The pumas, looking like they used their soccer team as a model for motivation and inspiration. Marc Lievremont is not a happy man. http://www.planetrugby.com/story/0,25883,16024_6232620,00.html

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