World Cup man of the match switch after ridicule

Before the Cup, Mr Mudge said, Trade Me received no more than five searches a week for Japanese rugby.

It infuriated fans in Wales, which was grouped with former champions England and Australia, Fiji and Uruguay in Pool A, the toughest of the tournament. When you consider that included a game against a Six nations team, that’s fairly impressive. “We would be contending to win the World Cup, not packing our bags”. The positives for the USA are many, and the work will start now for next season and beyond.

As cruel as it is to say it, the injury to Jean de Villiers has really played into their hands with Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel looking awesome outside the similarly youthful Handre Pollard. They are adjusting their style based on the personnel and not asking the personnel to adjust their style based on what the tactics are. “The judicial officer took into account compelling mitigating factors including O’Brien’s conduct prior to and at the hearing, his remorse, good character and clean disciplinary record, and reduced the suspension to a period of one week”.

“There has also been a lack of attention to detail”.

The United States hit back with Ngwenya touching down, after a raking pass from Wyles, for his first World Cup try in eight years. “We are being robbed of the best players”. France need to bring the likes of Christophe Lamaison and Olivier Magne in to their camp this week and try to summon the spirit of 1999 and 2007 but I can not see it working. What has happened to the big English forwards that used to dominate the opposition? Suitably adapted for a rugby audience, it goes like this: “It doesn’t make sense to select smart players and then tell them how to play”. They have class players now over injury problems and running back into form. Why are southern-hemisphere teams still a step or two ahead?

“Everyone’s very, very focused, you can see it in the way people are floating around the place at the moment”.

Before England took on the Wallabies, Danny Cipriani said that no Australians would have made the current England team. In games against England and Wales, the Wallabies looked a complete package.

Jones was going to South African Super Rugby team the Stormers because he didn’t want to remain employed by a Japanese Rugby Football Union he believed was holding back the game. I did a newspaper column in May about this and yet it’s still all about this culture. They made it to the semifinals only once, in 2007. The only person that is English and has the experience to get that right is Sir Clive Woodward.

“The high school, university and Top League teams need to train rugby players to be rugby players”. It can be analysis, fitness or development programmes – you’ve basically got to be thinking a bit outside of the box.

They coped wonderfully well with their injuries against France but there is a big difference between replacements coming on and shining in a game like that, as opposed to starting a World Cup quarter-final. Winning is a habit. Has England’s exit tainted it in any way? Ireland, by contrast, don’t have any history of success against the All Blacks, and fell short in Dublin at the end of 2013 in the final minute of the game after they had enjoyed a big lead at halftime.

Argentina have shown the benefits of regular rugby against the world’s heavy hitters by cruising into the quarter-finals despite an early loss to New Zealand.

Most of the blame so far has been directed at coach Stuart Lancaster for selecting inexperienced players and sticking to a conservative game plan. America head coach Mike Tolkin said: “A feature of all our matches in the World Cup has been our inconsistency”.Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu thinks he knows precisely what the so-called “tier-two” contenders can expect as a reward for their mighty contributions to the competition: namely, Sweet Fanny Adams.

“They’ve kind of become a second team for a lot of people, plus there are a few Kiwis in the team”, he said.