[2015 RWC] Semi Final 2: Australia vs. Argentina (25/10/2015)

[Kiwi_]

Changing the complexion of a tournament are strong words.

You're saying Argentina should've played Scotland? Or that they would've won today if it wasn't for Barnes? When it comes down to it, Australia played better than both teams and are deserved finalists. So the tournament is fine.

Sorry, what planet are you from? Planet I don't care how bad the refs are?

Mate the officiating is dreadful and needs a strong shake up, or the rules need to be tightened and made more clear so all this "interpretation" nonsense can be thrown out.

 

[gamine]

Who is this person and why doesn't he know how to spell 'lose'?

Great game today, so much effort from both teams, some lovely running from the Pumas, and wholehearted playing right to the end, all players out on their feet at the final whistle - as they should be! Lovely to see that old respect that players have for each other, when the battle was over. Thank you Australia and Argentina!

I had wanted Argentina to win so that we might have just such a game in the final. Now we will have a boring game just like the other semi, and NZ will win. I would have liked this to have been the final.

 

[Kiwi_]

Who is this person and why doesn't he know how to spell 'lose'?

Great game today, so much effort from both teams, some lovely running from the Pumas, and wholehearted playing right to the end, all players out on their feet at the final whistle - as they should be! Lovely to see that old respect that players have for each other, when the battle was over. Thank you Australia and Argentina!

I had wanted Argentina to win so that we might have just such a game in the final. Now we will have a boring game just like the other semi, and NZ will win. I would have liked this to have been the final.

Do you know what's boring? Your brand of Rugby, thank the lord you lot didn't get close to the finals. You can only dream of scoring the tries we do mate, to call an AB team boring, you really are a muppet.

 

[KeyboardWorrier]

So annoying watching Pumas play today. They'd do all the work, get within the 22 and then do something dumb. Silly lineouts, flat-footed offense and when they broke through defense they'd practically stop and look around to find their teammate.

 

[Redcatstorm]

So the two most successful Nations in World Cup history are finally going at it in the Final for the first time, only once has at least one of these teams not made the final of the World Cup and this will be both teams 4th final from 8 attempts.

They have played each other 3 times previously at World Cups all at the Semi final stage, Australia has the advantage 2-1 winning in 91 and 03 with New Zealand winning in 2011.

 

[RoosTah]

Who is this person and why doesn't he know how to spell 'lose'?

Damn, I missed that. But that's what happens when you outsource your memes ...

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So annoying watching Pumas play today. They'd do all the work, get within the 22 and then do something dumb. Silly lineouts, flat-footed offense and when they broke through defense they'd practically stop and look around to find their teammate.

Yeah, that and they made your prediction of a yellow card fest loss for Australia look pretty silly . There were more yellow cards in the ABs-Bok semi for the record

 

[Scrum Bum]

Just a question not really relevant to the game but as the teams were announced I was thinking about who would replace Bernard Foley if he got injured, and where Berrick Barnes would rank amongst recent Aussie flyhalves. Do you think he is any good?

 

[RoosTah]

Just a question not really relevant to the game but as the teams were announced I was thinking about who would replace Bernard Foley if he got injured, and where Berrick Barnes would rank amongst recent Aussie flyhalves. Do you think he is any good?

Nah, he hasn't played at a high enough level lately and anyway with Beale, Toomua and Giteau we have a tonne of back up for 10

 

[gamine]

Do you know what's boring? Your brand of Rugby, thank the lord you lot didn't get close to the finals. You can only dream of scoring the tries we do mate, to call an AB team boring, you really are a muppet.

Don't get upset, I didn't mean to insult you.

By the way, you don't need to use a capital letter for rugby unless you are referring to Rugby School.

 

[Kiwi_]

Don't get upset, I didn't mean to insult you.

By the way, you don't need to use a capital letter for rugby unless you are referring to Rugby School.

How about you jump back on your Bentley bike and pedal all the way back to your private school where you can discuss the current state of rugby with your campy pals over a cuppa' tea.

 

[Redcatstorm]

Nah, he hasn't played at a high enough level lately and anyway with Beale, Toomua and Giteau we have a tonne of back up for 10

And heaven forbid we could also play Cooper <_<

 

[RoosTah]

And heaven forbid we could also play Cooper <_<

lol oh right, I forgot about Cooper. But no, Cooper cannot play against the All Blacks. His meltdowns are especially awful against them and that's not what we need in a WC final.

 

[KeyboardWorrier]

Yeah, that and they made your prediction of a yellow card fest loss for Australia look pretty silly . There were more yhttp://i.imgur.com/JXXtxTB.jpgellow cards in the ABs-Bok semi for the record

Yeah, well the writing was on the wall in the first two minutes. Australia got just the start they needed, got into their rhythm and were rarely put under serious pressure. Had they been put under pressure, I've no doubt the entire team would have received yellows... :lol:

 

[FNS]

Today is a great lesson on how to lose a semi final. It's a learning experience for a Young team.

We gave 2 easy tries....we had a lot of knock ons, We fail to hang on to the momentum by doing silly mistakes. We fielded a player that was with injury. The list goes on and yet we were 7 points behind and we blew it again.

Good luck to the aussies hope they win so we can say we lost to the champion

 

[gamine]

How about you jump back on your Bentley bike and pedal all the way back to your private school where you can discuss the current state of rugby with your campy pals over a cuppa' tea.

Oh dear! It just shows you, how internet messages can give the wrong impression. You have no idea who I am, so you have jumped to the wrong conclusion. I am a seventy-one year old grandmother, who has watched husband, son and now grandsons, playing rugby for over fifty years!

 

[barthelemy]

Aussie were too good ; plain and simple.
The Pumas in the first half were woeful.
The sin binning was harsh and spelled the end of the game. A penalty was enough.
The extra tackling the Pumas had to do meant they were utterly exhausted by the 60 minute mark and I still don't know why Aussie didn't get a hatful of tries.
Wayne Barnes didn't go to the TMO, which i'm ok with but Woodward and dallaglio looked like they wanted to make an issue out of it.
The Pumas looked rudderless and lost, they looked like their first game in the RC all over again.
Last week against the irish they were far kore determined and discipline.
This week they were like school kids among men.
Aussie deserved it and they were better than the scoreboard, much better.

I think Pumas have effectively totally missed their first half, they were just very poor at rucks, consuming too much players where aussies were very efficient with Pocock and Hooper doing a lot of turn over. The result is that when argentina had the balls, they have not enough people to play it and when AUS had the balls they were outnumbering easily ARG.

ARG corrected this on the second half and they have definitely upped their game. It could have gone either way in this second half, AUS has been lucky that ARG did not score that try were they were in very good position around the 50th minute, that was not smart play from ARG, they were very good at that moment.

Yellow card is a bit tough for ARG and maybe there was a forward pass on the last Aussie try. It would have been anyway difficult to say, even with TMO as the ball goes forward after the first rebound, I think the ball is flat before the rebound.

Overall, AUS has played better than ARG, they have much more choices in their game. ARG stays quite limited in terms of tactics, they count too much on fighting spirit and individual "miracles" as AUS is very well organized and apply some nice collective move in the back.

 

[The Jones Boy]

The Pumas were woeful.
Looks like getting passed Ireland was their cup final.
They were all at sea and they played some very naive rugby min the first half.
Aussie were clinical and went for the jugular in the first half and then they kind of went to sleep and took their foot off the accelerator and let the Pumas right back into it on the scoreboard, but, they never deserved to win this game. Aussie were the better team across the park by a clear furlong. Too many experienced old heads in the Aussie team compared to the youthful Pumas.
I think the Ireland game took a lot out of the Argies and they looked mentally fatigued this weekend.
Aussie fully deserved their victory i just thought they could have scored a lot more points. Thats the catch with high pressure knockout rugby, it cuts short the free flowing element but it didn't matter, Aussie cruised through this game on auto pilot.

 

[marianodan]

The Pumas were woeful.
Looks like getting passed Ireland was their cup final.
They were all at sea and they played some very naive rugby min the first half.
Aussie were clinical and went for the jugular in the first half and then they kind of went to sleep and took their foot off the accelerator and let the Pumas right back into it on the scoreboard, but, they never deserved to win this game. Aussie were the better team across the park by a clear furlong. Too many experienced old heads in the Aussie team compared to the youthful Pumas.
I think the Ireland game took a lot out of the Argies and they looked mentally fatigued this weekend.
Aussie fully deserved their victory i just thought they could have scored a lot more points. Thats the catch with high pressure knockout rugby, it cuts short the free flowing element but it didn't matter, Aussie cruised through this game on auto pilot.

I agree on everything except that aussies could have scored a lot more points. I think they were extremely clinical with the chances they had today (except for Foley) and even then most of their scores were basically gifts from Argentina. 14 points was just the fair and deserved difference, no more but no less either.

 

[KeyboardWorrier]

Anyone else notice that during the 3rd quarter of matches, The Wallaby defense tires for a while? That should really work well for them, given the All Blacks step it up a gear at the 60th minute.

 

[RoosTah]

The Pumas were woeful.
Looks like getting passed Ireland was their cup final.
They were all at sea and they played some very naive rugby min the first half.
Aussie were clinical and went for the jugular in the first half and then they kind of went to sleep and took their foot off the accelerator and let the Pumas right back into it on the scoreboard, but, they never deserved to win this game. Aussie were the better team across the park by a clear furlong. Too many experienced old heads in the Aussie team compared to the youthful Pumas.
I think the Ireland game took a lot out of the Argies and they looked mentally fatigued this weekend.
Aussie fully deserved their victory i just thought they could have scored a lot more points. Thats the catch with high pressure knockout rugby, it cuts short the free flowing element but it didn't matter, Aussie cruised through this game on auto pilot.

I said it in another post, but O'Driscoll picked this result based on the way the Pumas celebrated their win against Ireland. He rightly made the point that they celebrated like they'd won the world cup and wondered if that would affect their hunger in this game.

As for Australia, they played some great rugby and some terrible rugby. Our scramble defence was excellent, our forwards dominated the ruck and were strong on the line out, and our backs were generally pretty clinical when given an opportunity. That said, our scrum was awful, Foley's goal kicking wasn't quite there and in the second half Genia reverted back to his "I don't want the ball" box kick mentality and at times it looked like we didn't want the bloody thing, handing it back with tactically poor kicks after securing critical turn overs.