The Wrap...

The RWC is heating up more than the water temperature on our beloved Atlantic seaboard. Actually if the water was heating up like the rugby it would be near to boiling point...


We were right to expect upsets on the weekend but didn't get specific enough. The Tongan ambitions looked promising after 15 minutes but fizzled out in the end. However, Fiji were heroic in producing what must be one of the best ding-dong RWC games in histroy. 38-34 over Wales with the lead changing hands in the last 20 minutes more often than Graham Henry changes his starting line up.


The Irish-Argentina game was meant to be the cracker of the weekend but despite an awesome BOD solo try Ireland didn't amount to anything more and Argentina breezed them easily. I was correctly corrected for incorrectly stating how the pools would be decided in the event of a draw (I thought rugby365.com was a sufficiently reliable source not to fact check them) but it was irrelevant as the conquestidors walked all over the Irish.

Rockstar of the Moment!

The moment of the weekend however must have been Takudzwa Ngwenya. The guy was sporting at best!


He had Habana on the outside like he was Tyson Gay on the curve of a 200m track. It was blistering. Ngwenya had this to say about it:

"I was thinking of kicking, but then I thought I would try and get him to stop, and then gas him out wide," recalled Ngwenya.

"And he did stop. It's not that I'm fast, I just got him to stop so that worked pretty well."

He added: "I knew he would be annoyed. If I got beaten by a slower person, I'd be annoyed.

"He is a great winger, the best in the world I think."

Can I revert your attention to the part in italics. I'm not that fast? Ya, compared to Lewis Hamilton you're slow.

I didn't know jetfuel was red or even that Ngwenya was leaking for that matter.

Saturday, October 6

Australia v England, Stade Vélodrome, Marseille
Kick-off: 15:00 (14:00 BST, 13:00 GMT)

New Zealand v France, Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
Kick-off: 20:00 (19:00 GMT)

Sunday, October 7

South Africa v Fiji, Stade Vélodrome, Marseille
Kick-off: 15:00 (14:00 BST, 13:00 GMT)

Argentina v Scotland, Stade de France, Paris
Kick-off: 21:00 (20:00 BST, 19:00 GMT)