Beautiful Japan beautiful. Great to see running rugby smash a the shit one pass run it up Samoa game plan. Japan are going to be so good come 2019 at home!
What can Scotland do to beat Australia? 10 man rugby and win it on kicks. Only hope. Scotland showed very good discipline today, yellow card notwithstanding. If they can firm up their defence and turn it into a kicking fest against Aussie they could win. If it turns into a running rugby match then Australia by 25. Great game today. Laidlaw is quality. We will have him if Scotland ever drop him. Ritchie Grey incredible fitness and really started to shine in the second half. His younger brother needs to HTFU just slightly.
The time between the RSA and Scotland games was the killer. I reckon they had a better than even chance of winning if Scotland had played a game prior and had the same time Japan had between games.
Nah, Scotland being from north of the equator doesn't make this automatically the case. The Australian back row is much, much better than the Scottish back row, particularly at the breakdown. I don't see Scotland being the side racking up penalties in an arm wrestle. If Scotland could have an advantage anywhere, and I don't really think they do, it's that Hogg, Maitland and Visser are genuinely quick compared to Ashley-Cooper being an allrounder and Folau being injured.
Let's agree to disagree on first glances the starting back 3 of Australia in the quarterfinal AAC, Beale, and Mitchell are 10 times better than the scottish back three. AAC in particular is arguably the best right wing in the world at the moment in my most people's opinion. It is not how fast you are as a wing. It is how good your step is. And those scottish players looked ordinary. Hogg in particular seemed more interested in arguing with the ref and milking penalties than playing rugby. Johnny May/Watson are better than those three scottish players by some considerable distance. I would probably advocate England playing running rugby against any SH team based on your backs. My comments are Scotland specific and not NH related. Happy to have a different view than yours on this topic. I also concede you have seen more of the Scottish three, I have assessed them based on this game only.
I don't particularly rate the Scottish back three. I just think they're fast. This is a pretty unusual Scottish side compared to previous world cups.
Still going out in their traditional quarter final position! (Would have been nice to make the quarter final!) They haven't got a hope against Aus.
I don't think 10 man rugby will help them. The pack is not that big and the backs are better going forward than defending. This is less true than when they were playing Fife tbf