2008 Rugby League World Cup

Time to get away from that other thread with all its dead NRL crap imo


# Are Australia too short @ $1.20?


# I cant work out the media is talking up Tonga as likely semifinalist given the squad that Samoa has put together?


# Who plays fullback? (Perrett plse) Centre partner for Matai is ....? (Inu plse)


Pretty tempting for Kearney to look at playing a few out of position, but Im hoping/thinking Bennet will talk him out of that


I think we're gonna fuggin win it, Adam Blair to be our hero

What are we paying at the moment?

Adam Blair will chicken wing someone and, because he's playing for the Kiwis and not the Storm, will be given 12 weeks.

$6 was the last I heard

You'd choose Inu at centre over Ropati Maestey?



I'd put him on the wing paired with Matai at right centre (Vatuvei being the other paired with Ropati at left centre), Perrett at fullback and have Hohaia off the bench covering the backs, halves and hooker.

I'd also start Fien at halfback, Isaac Luke at hooker an that fucker Leuluai can fuck right off.

Matai and Jerome at the centre positions please.

I'm quietly confident; definitely had a much better prep than the Aussies.

I really hope we CRUSH England.....

I'm going to the Kiwis V England in Newcastle, and at least a semi final in Brisbane, defintley the final if the kiwis make it thru.

As much as i dislike Leuluai, he didnt play that bad against tonga from what i saw and he has had a decent year in Super League.. dont think Fien has the right mix to play alongside Benji..

omg at our Melbourne forward pack

+ Manu vs Tate

OK really ... this is a fucken WC. Why do we have a Aussie fucken ref blowing?

Already 3 horrible calls going against us 1 of them turning into a try

Aussie born but referees the Super League. Their # 1 ref apparently now that Russell Smith adjudicates in the NRL.

But yeah some absolute howlers in this game. The Video ref making rule adjustments in general play is obviously not an international rule.

*ruling

I think the PI players should play for the respective islands. It would make the whole thing a lot more competitive.

In other news, the Abbo team beat the Maori team in the league today

http://www.leaguehq.com.au/news/news/soward-calls-for-world-cup-inclusion/2008/10/26/1224955845792.html

55 mintues gone and Nz are playing very average. There is no offense in this team, regardless of how much pressure aus are putting in, we look shit. Hohaia needs to go to the bench, perret to the back inu to the wing..

Our kicking is very bad also. Wtf has happened in a week?


We will be lucky if we dont lose by 20+

I also think Luke should have been starting at dummy half. Fien has been found wanting.. although thats a little unfair as so has the rest of the team..

It was on Maori T.V. Not a bad game!

No fucken pride in the jumper

Horrible game ... Thomas needs to go!

Poor game from the Kiwis but I didn't expect much more.

Yet another shocker from a league referee too. Turns me right off the game sometimes. PNG were robbed by the referee on Saturday night too.

Also, why is it legal to strip the ball with one's foot? Seems a little counter-intuitive to me.

Well that was a slap in the face for those of us (like me) who think we actually have a chance at this cup

Thomas was bad but omg so was Fien, he is a competent NRL player but no way up to this level...and I know I bang on about it but he's not even a kiwi ffs. So after about 5 minutes play the fucking Australian in a black jersey kicks the ball out on the full with literally NO pressure on him and the boys heads went down.. Makes me want to throw up

Benji looked good but didnt get anywhere near enough room from his forwards and halfback. Our forwards were pummelled in the collision as well, looked like boys vs men out there at times. Really REALLY bad sign

Inu has to come into the centres...hes a class act, (he will now anyway cos Matai WILL be suspended) same goes for Isaac Luke. Give the halfback jersey to Lance and tell him its his for the cup, tell him to either run like a whippet or get it to Benji asap. That will work fine with the odd kick

Perrett was about the only other player who impressed me, so he goes to the back. Is it just me or are we a winger sort in this squad? Misi Taulapapa wouldnt have been a bad option right now.

Sika looked the best forward, maybe. It was hard to work out which big brown nugget was who at times, heh the boys all seem roughly the same size

edit: I fell asleep with 20 mins to go

O 1 more thing I noticed as pivotal to the gap between the sides, Ricky Stuart has got his backline running brilliantly.

1st Lockyear recieves the pill running the perfect angle, then he steps right a little and releases the ball to Slater who is running another perfect angle....with the defence in dissaray and a few monsters lurking like Inglis and Folau its almost impossible to defend againgst

Which is fine...if we can go ahead and do exactly the same thing to them at the other end, and this isnt a player ability thing ....getting the boys to run the right angles and find each other in all the right spots is a coaching issue


Its pretty scary atm to say the least that we appear to have an inferior *weakened* forward pack and issues at halfback, fullback and hooker

Wingers: You forgot we have Jasoin Nightingale.


Pretty much agree with everything else you said. Benji looked threatrening but was way too quiet for the first 50 minutes. He showed touches of class early but it was only later on that he showed more urgency and got himself more involved.

Is anyone watching this Tonga/Ireland match? Can you believe how incompetant the officiating is? How many metres forward were both of those passes Ireland scored from in the first half?

The Aussies worked out our compressed defence straight away, exactly what Manly did to melbourne, should of changed the defensive pattern after the 1st try IMO.

Lacking in attack, but saying that, we never had the pill in there half to do so. When we were close to the line, which was about 3-4 times the whole game, we got over the line twice. Abeit once with a boot in the face.

Need a better kicking game, and to be able to not let them gain so many metres.

they played well against png ..! interesting that they rested benji marshall for the 2nd half , what about fiji ! aye ! lookin forward to see england vs aussie ... & seasoned vet keith senior

Huge game from the kiwis so far, what was slater thinking

Slater and Monahan had great games for the Kiwis. Good try assists from them.

Bounce of the ball went the Kiwis way, but they effectively shutdown the Aussie attack for the important parts of the game.

Brilliant result for the kiwis! You should have heard the English commentary team over here, they were all celebrating like England had won. Goes to show the sheer magnitude of what the kiwis have just achieved.

Bet Monaghan feels like almost as much of a twat as Slater.

R

Arguably the best Australian side ever assembled.


















:>

Does anyone know what was the story with that old guy being resuscitated before the kick off?

Imo, Aussies lost that game for themselves. They played like shit!

Ricky Blew-it



GO THE KIWIS - WORLD FUKN CHAMPIONS! BO!

WE'RE THE FUCKING CHAMPS BABY!!!

OMG, I'm still in shock.

Have it Aussie!!!!

It still feels like some sort of a dream, imo NZ's highest sporting achievement for 2008.

Pfunk, that I heard too, which makes this such a massive success.

4 MORE YEARS!!!

Just 2008?!!??

I reckon that would be one of the biggest of the last 5 years

FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE!!!!




I had a gut instinct on saturday that it would be a good game so I went down to the TAB and chucked a sneaky $20 on the Kiwis to win head to head.

I'm now $125 richer.

Mate made $210 from a $5 bet. I think he put Kiwis 12 and under.

Excellent work, dalai. I had little hope but was going to put a tenner on them anyway, but I haven't verified my TAB account yet - foolish!

Then he wouldn't have won.


They were paying $22 for the 13 and over win though.




I just went straight head to head, couldn't believe the odds so had to take it. $6.25 it was for me...

Oh lol, you know what I mean!

Reading the Aussie newspapers makes for fun times!

Apparently Ricky Stuart went delerious after the game, accusing the referees, the World Cup officials and the head of the ARL of a conspiracy to revamp interest in the international game. Awesome!

http://www.leaguehq.com.au/news/news/stuarts-sour-grapes/2008/11/23/1227375062521.html

Nice one dalai! I had a decent chunk in my TAB account and thought about it but had no faith in the boys. Shame! I would have gone for the the HTFT double Aust/NZ at 15's too

Have to admit if you were an Australian supporter you could help but think that the gods or whoever were against your team, everything seemed to go our way and I think we def got the best deal from the refs. Not from the Penalty try or Ropatis they were both just obvious decisions...but the pen count was a little lopsided and the bounce of the ball was near perfect for us

How sick that Lockyear got MOMT though, HAD to be Jeremy Smith for me

That was stupid. You can't give man of the match to a guy from the losing team who butchered a try that could have put the opposition out of the game.

And Ricky Stuart is bonkers. The officials didn't make his players do mental stuff. I think the referee was alright. Nothing too major, a few slightly dodgy calls. Aussies did do some dumb things that led to penalties.

Video ref was absurd in the amount of time it took to make decisions. Like that Vatuvei one where his leg was clearly in touch before he put the ball down. And how many times did he need to see that Hohaia was taken out and it was a straigtforward penalty try.

Awesome, awesome feeling. I was just delirous watching the game.

Lockyer MOM was a bit off.

I thought it was not a penalty try, I thought it was 10 in the bin for Monaghan and a penalty, nice to see Benefit of the Doubt go to the attacking team for once, but it gives the Aussies another thing to moan about.

All the things that usually got 100% the Aussies' way. They're usually better than us, but they usually also always get the bounce of the ball and always get everything from 20/80 to 100/0 decisions from the refs. About time some went our way.

As for the penalty count... it would have been much higher and more in our favour if the ref had taken a stronger line on offside play.

Clear penalty try for my money. The trick with these things is to reverse the roles and ask yourself how you'd feel if it was Australia on attack and they were awarded a penalty try. I would have said it was deserved and we were lucky to keep 13 men on the field.

Watched the game with the channel 9 commenary instead of Wopo and co and they were all united in that the decision had to be made, it was just a question of whether Gansen had the balls to make it. None of them disagreed when the call was made.

how did you manage that?

Don't tell me Sky have FINALLY made it an option to change commentators? They've got the ability to... they just don't

Slater and Lance looked roughly the same distance away from where the ball landed, but Lance was moving faster. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever he would have got their 1st

Penalty right on the line + ten minutes in the bin is probably just as damaging a verdict imo. Especially if the kiwis tap and score anyway

uve been able to do it for some time now

Slater also took the ball after the bounce. It looked like Hohaia would have been able to dive on the ball as it hit the ground.

Definite penalty try.

Not for the league. A Sky spokesman specifically said they had the technology to do it but no plans to offer it for the league

Think it's only MySky users that can do it?

I'm gonna be riding this high for weeks, best monday ever

Nope not even MySky.

Worked at my mates place. We switched to Aussie commentators right at the end, just for a laugh.

Even better, it's league so it's five more years till the next world cup.

And the lock Paul Gallen also pipes in on this same note. He should get a six month suspension. In the NRL you'd be sitting out for weeks for saying stuff like this.

http://www.leaguehq.com.au/news/news/shocker-roos-point-finger-at-referee/2008/11/23/1227375062524.html

R

Worked at my mates place. We switched to Aussie commentators right at the end, just for a laugh. [/quote]

NO MORE COSTO! It truly is a golden age for NZ league!

I fail to see why we love to use a catch frase that some dude used against NZ in what was arguably their darkest day in sporting history. And then to use it for something that is not even related

Retards

To access the alternative commentary:

Press the + button, then it will bring up a bar that says English on one side, and I think Normal on the other.

English referring to the language, Normal to the screen display.

Press Up or Down to change languages, for league you'll have the option between English and Australian.

We only get it for Channel 9 commentated games like the Warriors finals games, our rare Channel 9 games, and Tests.

Unfortunately I had to record my copy on Saturday night so I was unable to change the setting.

Niggle, wish I'd known that.

Costo and Halligan just get more and more painful by the game. I'm sure Costo has a check sheet with all his cliches on it that he goes through during the game...

'Grinning like Cheshire cat....tick'

'All over him like a rash....tick'

Yep, what MC Gooch said.

Costo

Yeah only works for Channel 9 commentated games. I used it right through the Warriors finals series and for all the Kiwis games in the World Cup.



Ray Warren is the voice of rugby league for a reason!




Note: It only works during the game itself, you still get the Sky build up and halftime spiel.

Oh and Zenny is right, you've been able to do it for aaaaaages. I was doing it last year.

Hmmm... I remember hearing pretty similar things in October last year (about a different country in a different code)

LOL at the cry baby Aussies... There's an entire dynasty of the kiwis being sticthed up by you cunts and you have the fucking nerve to blane the refereeing in a game where you were so awful. The penalty try was exactly that, if they wantto blame anyone blame Monaghan, anytime you make a play like that in that position you risk a penalty try. If the Aussies want to playh the blame game they need to point the finger tat their own players, Monaghan, Lockyer, etc.

UK peeps, there's 1 hr of highlights on iPlayer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00fqhqj/Rugby_League_World_Cup_2008_Final_Highlights/

Yeah it cracks me up that they're not taking into account that if Monaghan didn't take Hohaia out in the first place then it wouldn't have been an issue.

Also they're complaining that the Ropati try should have been called back?? Ahhh guys??? LaFranchi blatantly fucking raked it???? What's the fucking problem????

Also the ref didn't make all those unforced errors, the ref didn't drop the ball at crucial times, the ref never had the brain explosion to throw the ball back into play to gift Marshall a try.

Unbelievable.

I wish I knew more Aussies at times like this.

Phil Gould ain't whinging...good on him.

http://www.leaguehq.com.au/news/news/elementary-really-how-kiwis-kept-it-simple-to-bust-roos/2008/11/24/1227491460455.html

Blair/Smith ....all dem big brown biscuits look the same out there