NPR

Guy Smiley wrote: Fri Sep 22, 2023 12:22 am

Gumboot wrote: Fri Sep 22, 2023 12:15 am Off topic, but the referee for NZ vs Italy is Matthew Carley.

Yay.

oh... wow. That's ummmm.... great, I guess. Yay Carley.


Apparently, Dupont has fractured the orbital floor, not his cheekbone. Some hope he'll be back for the QFs but it's a serious injury and there is no guarantee.

Bugger and stupid of the coach to play him in that match.

_Os_ wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2023 10:06 pm

laurent wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2023 9:40 pm

_Os_ wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2023 9:34 pm Interesting to see claims other African nations could be better than Namibia (I've seen these claims made in this community for two decades now). Or that Namibia wouldn't qualify through a repechage. Argentina XV (players not in their RWC squad), Uruguay, Namibia, Chile all played in a warmup tournament before the RWC. Namibia's results were: Namibia 28 v 26 Chile, Namibia 18 v 26 Uruguay, Namibia 27 v 34 Arg XV.

They don't qualify against Italy/All Blacks/France.

The issue for Namibia is most other nations in Africa have much larger population and the game is progressing in a lot of places.
A lot of kids in the French suburbs qualify for these countries.
One of the place Rugby progresses in France is in the suburbs.
These guys can choose to lift their parents countries should they fail to reach the French team. (a lot did already for Algeria, Morocco, Ivory Coast...)

Thing is I watch African rugby when I can. Uganda who aren't up to much in XVs can beat Tunisia. I've seen Namibia beat Tunisia by 100+, just like I've seen Namibia beat Morocco 50+. Ivory Coast are capable of something playing in Ivory Coast but will get taken apart otherwise. Algeria more capable than the other French speaking countries at the moment, but fully capable of losing to Kenya/Zim/Uganda.

I've been reading all this stuff for decades in this community and have consistently said in reply, if other African countries want to displace Namibia they need: 1. A rugby culture and tradition in the country itself, XVs is played in schools and clubs in Nam to a reasonable standard 2. Actual interest so that there's money/sponsors/investment and no corruption that ends up in all that being stolen 3. Proper organisation so that there's an actual team which competes, sides often skip tournaments because they're not organised.

Population numbers and people in France doesn't matter without that. Uruguay has a population of 3.5m (Nam 2.5m), Uruguay has 28 clubs (Nam 36). Not the case that a country with 10s of millions in population and some guys in France can beat either, if they're not really interested in the sport and not organised.

It was clear in the African qualifying tournament that when Namibia actually takes games against African sides seriously, they’re still a cut above everyone else, with the possible exception of Zimbabwe (who they’re also still clearly better than, but not to the point of outclassing). Maybe Zimbabwe would be capable of taking them down if they could call on the diaspora, but it seems many of them are not too keen on turning out for Zimbabwe for what are probably understandable reasons…

In any case, as I meant to respond when we were talking about Namibia the other day, I can’t understand the hate for this small country — with an actual rugby culture as you note —whose biggest crime is having the audacity to beat worse teams. Everyone shits on them but they always play tough and they’re really not as bad as people think. People who think we’d have fared better would do well to remember that we lost by 90 to a second string Kiwi side just two years ago ON AMERICAN SOIL. At least Namibia kept it to 68 last week!

I recall you saying people rip on them for “holding back” the rest of the continent, but as you of course know no one else in Africa is waiting in the wings. Particularly annoying to me: Kenya in particular has been talked up for years now, and have never shown ANYTHING in the fifteen man game. They barely scraped past the best of the African-well-actually-Frenchmen sides alluded as “the future” by some above in the qualifiers, Algeria, and didn’t score a single point in the final against Nam. And then proceeded to lose by 54 and 85 to us and Portugal in the repechage. They suck.

It’s a shame they had to trot out a second string against arguably the tournament favorites in France, but I think it was the right move as they need to focus on the one game they can realistically win. A Tier 2 team doesn’t have the depth to do that without taking a marked step back. Even before accounting for perfidious Albion’s recent poaching of Namibian born and raised Patrick Schickerling…which I hope is an outlier…is it??

Kiwias wrote: Fri Sep 22, 2023 1:49 am

Guy Smiley wrote: Fri Sep 22, 2023 12:22 am

Gumboot wrote: Fri Sep 22, 2023 12:15 am Off topic, but the referee for NZ vs Italy is Matthew Carley.

Yay.

oh... wow. That's ummmm.... great, I guess. Yay Carley.


Apparently, Dupont has fractured the orbital floor, not his cheekbone. Some hope he'll be back for the QFs but it's a serious injury and there is no guarantee.

Bugger and stupid of the coach to play him in that match.

Agree completely. Even if he wanted to keep him from getting stale on the sidelines, they still have the Italy match….so dumb. Really hope it doesn’t cost them, I was really hoping they’d finally put their name on the Cup this time.

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2023 8:16 pmRomania (only there on a technicality).

So, I should correct the record as I might have been the one who spread this falsehood here, but actually it was Portugal who benefited from WR’s harsh sanctioning of Spain. Romania went straight into the RWC, and Portugal went to the repechage. If Spain hadn’t been pinged, they’d have gone in, Romania would have gone to the repechage, and Portugal would have been sitting at home.

Romania is ass because of an untimely shakeup in their coaching staff at the end of last year. I did some homework recently and it might actually have been because Andy Robinson wanted the US job that had just opened up, which he obviously didn’t get anyway. But in sum Romania is essentially a victim of horrible timing. Check their results from just the past few years (one-score losses to mostly-full strength Argentina and full-strength Georgia, beat Uruguay a few times, beat Tonga), they aren’t the team we’ve seen the past few weeks. They’re in turmoil.

When criticizing NAM perhaps start with the coach. To think that fool once coached the Springboks.

Fonz wrote: Fri Sep 22, 2023 2:19 am

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Sep 21, 2023 8:16 pmRomania (only there on a technicality).

So, I should correct the record as I might have been the one who spread this falsehood here, but actually it was Portugal who benefited from WR’s harsh sanctioning of Spain. Romania went straight into the RWC, and Portugal went to the repechage. If Spain hadn’t been pinged, they’d have gone in, Romania would have gone to the repechage, and Portugal would have been sitting at home.

Romania is ass because of an untimely shakeup in their coaching staff at the end of last year. I did some homework recently and it might actually have been because Andy Robinson wanted the US job that had just opened up, which he obviously didn’t get anyway. But in sum Romania is essentially a victim of horrible timing. Check their results from just the past few years (one-score losses to mostly-full strength Argentina and full-strength Georgia, beat Uruguay a few times, beat Tonga), they aren’t the team we’ve seen the past few weeks. They’re in turmoil.

Yes, you’re quite right, not sure how I forgot that