Donegal Wolf
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2011
- Messages
- 4,649
- Reaction score
- 601
They haven't been good all year, they were so-so in the championship apart from when they played a half strength Australia at home when they were pissed off after losing to them the week before, and are clearly not firing here.
The front row is terrible, line out not great and Carter is not the player he was, along with that some of the other famous names like Reid, C. Smith, Nonu are not the players they are. Who ever plays them in the Quarter Final will feel they have spme sort of a chance, especially the French who seem to spook the All Blacks when it comes to Wc's. Saying that if anyone can flick a switch and turn from mediocre to brilliant its them, plus the back 3 are on fire and McCaw has lost none of his powers.
As for Georgia considering it was a half strength side they stuck at it well with some hard hits, according to people who know these things they are at a similar level to Italy were in the late 90's when they were got accepted to the Five Nations, infact from what we have seen so far if you put Italy, Georgia and Romania in a group, Italy would probably but it is not a foregone conclusion (especially without Parisse) come out on top.
Could be an interesting time ahead in a couple of years for the 6N, Italy are declining and their underage teams are cannon fodder at the moment, they don't look like producing are future stars and the club game is poor, its not hard to conceive in the future (especiaily when Parisse does go) that Georgia would pass them standard wise. You will have a country where rugby is the No 1 sport (they get nearly 70,000 for games with Russia!) and a billionaire backer knocking on the door. No doubt politics and logistics will then come into play.
(I realise this is a dangerous post to make when we play Italy tomorrow, if we lose it will be all my fault!)
The front row is terrible, line out not great and Carter is not the player he was, along with that some of the other famous names like Reid, C. Smith, Nonu are not the players they are. Who ever plays them in the Quarter Final will feel they have spme sort of a chance, especially the French who seem to spook the All Blacks when it comes to Wc's. Saying that if anyone can flick a switch and turn from mediocre to brilliant its them, plus the back 3 are on fire and McCaw has lost none of his powers.
As for Georgia considering it was a half strength side they stuck at it well with some hard hits, according to people who know these things they are at a similar level to Italy were in the late 90's when they were got accepted to the Five Nations, infact from what we have seen so far if you put Italy, Georgia and Romania in a group, Italy would probably but it is not a foregone conclusion (especially without Parisse) come out on top.
Could be an interesting time ahead in a couple of years for the 6N, Italy are declining and their underage teams are cannon fodder at the moment, they don't look like producing are future stars and the club game is poor, its not hard to conceive in the future (especiaily when Parisse does go) that Georgia would pass them standard wise. You will have a country where rugby is the No 1 sport (they get nearly 70,000 for games with Russia!) and a billionaire backer knocking on the door. No doubt politics and logistics will then come into play.
(I realise this is a dangerous post to make when we play Italy tomorrow, if we lose it will be all my fault!)
