Dan 'The Terminator' Carter
picture from http://tinyurl.com/5avj7f
Italy 14 - 32 Australia
England 26 - 13 Samoa
Ireland 18 - 38 New Zealand
Scotland 21 - 17 South Africa
France 15 - 9 Argentina
I’m grumpy to say the least this weekend – I support two teams and they both managed to lose. The crime scene has been preserved , the pathologist has been called in and now it’s time to review the autopsy results.
Ireland 18 - 38 New Zealand
This one was a hard one one to take, but the simple matter of the fact is that the All Blacks are just better than us. Ireland played with massive heart, great skill, and composure but the still the men in black were too good for Ireland. To me the turning point of the match was the pretty lucky All Black try on the stroke of half time which seemed to knock the stuffing out of Ireland. Two quick trys after the break put the match to bed as a contest, even though Ireland never gave up, scored a try of their own, nearly scored another, and only conceded the final try in an attempt to attack.
The Irish man of match for me was Stephen Ferris, who threw himself into every tackle with faint regard for his own personal safety. It wasn’t just him though, Donnacha O’Callaghan, and the whole of the Irish team were tackling for their lives. We had a very few opportunities we didn’t put away, while almost every All Black try resulted from a poorly followed up kick or missed throw in or some other mistake. Tom Court was a revelation to me, Sexton and Reddan answered their critics, and it’s going to hard to leave Earls out from now on. Carney was quiet, and Mick O’Driscoll looks a little out of his depth. For the All Blacks, it was all the usual suspects that shone, McCaw, Nonu, Muliana.
While all the evidence might be they that they are in fact super human mutants from a nuclear spill, when we put pressure on them the All Blacks could look ordinary too, we just couldn’t put enough pressure on them for long enough to get a result. And in fact, it is hard to see how Dan ‘The Terminator’ Carter gets through a metal detector at the airport as he’s surely a cyborg, part human, part machine, with a nearly faultless display of kicking from the hand and from the tee, and both in attack and defense. It’s going to take a man from the future to stop him.
It’s not impossible to see us beating the All Blacks, but only when they have an ordinary day, not when they put in a nearly faultless display like they did on Saturday.
Scotland 21 - 17 South Africa
This was not a pretty match played as it was in appalling conditions. It was an ugly brute of a match, a mind numbing 20 minutes of scrumming and scrum resets, and of drops, fumbles and slips. The difference was Scotland played it ugly and smart, while the Springboks played it ugly and dumb. Why am I not surprised by that? The current Boks have perfected the ugly game, but without a few vital cogs (Fourie du Preez and Heinrich Brussow) they are like some big ugly machine mired in the muck, wheels spinning, going nowhere. Scotland refused to be bullied in the pack, played the game in the right part of the pitch, waited for the penalties to come and popped them over. Hats off to Scotland for a well deserved win for a team that apart from last week's implosion, are growing in stature with every match.
England 26 - 13 Samoa
England got a few frights in this match, it must have been hard to keep focused after last weeks heroics, and being battered by massive brutes is at least good practice for next week against the Boks. Matt Bannahan answered his critics (or least this critic) with a decent display in the centre, and Hendre Fourie had a good match on his starting debut. Roll on the Boks!
Wales 16 - 16 Fiji
No point in kicking a man while he’s down, for Welsh fans it’s better just to take the counseling, the hypnotherapy and the electric shock treatment, erase this from their memories and know that Wales will look better against the All Blacks.
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