What a fiasco, a 29-all draw. The Welsh number 13 is a magician. Playing
Giteau at number 9 was a bad move. Larkham came off sometime around the 60
minute mark rubbing his shoulder, so it may yet be holidays for him. Latham
was the only back to shine.
Irritatingly the
Swans came home very strongly in the second half,
readily making up the circa-twenty-point deficit of the first, but not quite
enough to win it.
Being the final
Tri Nations fixture of the year, the hype outstripped all
other aspects of this game. The
Springboks did the
All Blacks last
weekend so I held little hope for the
Wallabies. As it was they did
their best to lose, once again failing to support each other and to
capitalise on some fairly good set-up play. The ref was both blind and
imaginative, so I expect there'll be some backroom brawling over him in the
weeks to come. 24 to 16, not really worth staying up for.
The big game at Aussie Stadium (née the Sydney Football
Stadium). Unfortunately Randwick played like a mix of the Wallabies teams of the past five years — some flashes of brilliance
and occasional complete incompetency at basic things, like passing the
ball. It is almost as if they thought the competition ended when they
comfortably took out the minor premiership. Not to take anything away from
Sydney University, it was a game where one team clearly lost.
The final score line was 16 to 10, with Randwick putting in a heroic
after-the-siren Wallabies-from-2001 drive to score a winning try. The
push came to an end with a colossal knock-on, which aptly summarised the
afternoon.
Watched Australia beat Ireland 37 to 15 in Perth, with
mrak at the
Cheers sportsbar on George St. The Irish are pretty good but need to play a
full 80 minutes of football, and perhaps that's just a matter of fitness or
having a holiday. The backlines of both teams was pretty solid, making for
one of the most exciting games with Australia in it since before Eddie Jones
(2002?).
Australia scores its first three goals in a
World Cup against Japan
after spending 84 minutes one-down.
Australia beats England 34 to 3 in the rugby. Our fowards are much improved
but our backs need to meet each other.
I see that France has beaten England 31 to 6 in the Six Nations Rugby, in
France. One must begin to think that France will win the (rather scrappy)
competition this year, and is on track to thrash all comers at the next
world cup.
I hear they're playing rugby in the Southern Hemisphere presently but
there's no way I'm following that until it's cold enough for a blanket on
the bed.
Went to watch South Africa play cricket against Australia at the
SCG
with my Dad. The SA batting was fairly tedious — they are masters at
slow scoring, as they proved in the first Test in Perth. The last hour or so
saw the collapse of the Australian top-order, which was perhaps a bit
over-eager, understandably so given the crappy weather on the first day and
an exhausting day in the field today.
Rugby: Australia v Ireland at Lansdowne Road. It started at roughly
1:30am in Australia. A pretty crappy match, with O'Driscoll out injured and
the Irish number 10 somehow having an off day. Latham played well and the
(starting) front row didn't cave in.
Went over to the Duke of Gloucester to watch the roundball football (as my SBS
reception is no good). Wow, we beat Uruguay at long last. I think they
should field a team consisting of clones of the goalkeeper and Harry Kewell
and let the rest go.
As I walked over I thought the worst thing that could happen is for us to
win the match 1-0 and still miss out on going to the World Cup. When the
extra time kicked in I got thinking that having a super goalkeeper meant we
really had nothing to fear from a penalty shootout, as indeed we
didn't. Still, not the best way to win a game, and I fear we're in for a
mauling at the hands of a real team (Brazil or France, or heck, even a north
European one). I'll be satisfied if all the Soceroos do on the field in
Germany is to score a goal against the Frenchmen, especially if Bartez comes
out of retirement.
