Rugby World Cup – Week One

Well, the 2007 Rugby World Cup is off and running in France, and has already given us a few surprises.

In the opening match, France vs Argentina, the French went down to defeat in what was probably the most hard-hitting, bloody, physical match that I have ever seen.

The French seemed to take the Argentinians a little too lightly at the beginning of the match, and the Pumas pounced on the opportunity, took the initiative, and held onto it throughout the entire match. Even the French second-half inclusion of replacement hard-man Sebastien Chabal, couldn’t stem the Argentinian tide.

The Argentinians didn’t win by much, but then, everyone expected the French to win this fairly handily.

The World Cup started with a surprise, but it wasn’t to be the only surprise in the early stages of pool play.

In another surprise, The United States had a splendid game against England! No, we didn’t beat them, but most commentators expected that the English were going to teach the upstart USA that we shouldn’t be dabbling in their athletic baliwick. The conventional wisdom, before the game, said that England would beat the USA by at least 60 points. As it turns out, England struggled with awkward play, while the United States had the game of a lifetime, holding the English margin for Victory to only eighteen points.

The second match for the USA was against Tonga. A horrible start by the USA allowed Tonga to score a converted try in the first two minutes of the game. It was all downhill from there, and the United States were defeated 15 to 25.

The opening week was marred only by the four-game suspension of South African flanker, Schalk Burger, who was found guilty of executing a dangerous tackle against Junior Polu, of Samoa.

The coming week promises to be exciting, as England and South Africa face off against each other. Other exciting matches this week will include Wales v. Australia, and France v. Namibia (who are surprisingly strong).

See you next week.