OK, it's official. I'm worried. An escape to the Pumas, a loss to the Irish and now we give a win to the boot of Jonny Bravo and his merry band of Englishmen.

With the WC less than a year away, I'm not sure I like the way the Aussies are going about their rugby! I do understand that it's been a long year for the boys but they get paid well and don't have a 9 to 5 to contend with anymore.

These are my concerns -

The front row isn't right, in particular tight head. Undisciplined and continually tested by props with technique. There doesn't seem to be near enough mongrel in the pack. The pigs go about their work like a day at training. There's no body on the line drives at the maul. The Irish smashed us off the ball, the poms did it well also.
The backs run to much in behind the breakdown and we gain no momentum by doing this, we should, we don't. We KICK EVERYTHING! Why are we kicking everything? Must be a tactical move from the coach. Chance it, throw it around, use the bigger backline to advantage. We have the loose forwards to cover this but we don't use them.

I have received 4 emails from English mates today giving me plenty. Seems they have won the world cup already (easy rebute thanks to the cricket )

Ok, now I am starting to whine. What do you Wallaby fans think? Anything to worry about or will we be right come September 2003? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

(fingers crossed that this one will actually work ... third time lucky )

Okay, I reckon it all started to go downhill when Eales left, whether or not that was a catalyst for it all I can't say. (League fan here) Having Greegan come home for that couple of days wouldn't have helped the loss to England (fathers have missed births for far better reasons, he's the captain for god's sake) and, just my opinion, they are over confident ... expecting to win every game. With these recent loses perhaps they'll realize that the All Blacks aren't the only competition and will crack down on themselves.

Either way with the northern hemisphere teams doing well of late it's going to make the world cup far more interesting and not the foregone conclusion that eveybody was initially expecting.

(just please, please don't have John Williamson singing at the WC)

The match on Saturday was a wonderful international . The final stages were a real nail biter. I am not sure why Eddie Jones put Gitteau on for Vickerman as his long passing was suspect - going to ground rather tahn to hand. This lost the Wallabies momentum and in a game at this level such errors are unacceptable.
England showed a reserve of character to coem back from a 28-16 deficit and to their credit never showed a sign of playing 'catch-up'.
At least I was able to e-mail some Australian friends to make up for the stick they gave me after the Ashes test.
As to the World Cup - the Wallabies will be playing on home territory and as Eddie Jones said on Saturday 'The World Cup is being held on neutral territory for everybody except us'.
I am really looking forward to it.

Hi Copago - just like to point out we beat the All Blacks the week before as well! Bring on the South Africans!.,
Seriously - two great games so far, both could have gone either way and I will be glued to the TV for the third test .
I was amused to hear both NZ and OZ coaches saying they had experimental, young, inexperienced teams playing - I didn't see many new caps in evidence and I don't suppose there will be many new players in the South African Team either,
When you are playing against the best in the world (who are mainly Leicester Tigers) you can't afford to put out your cubs!

Couldn't agree more Quizcall, and to that end it was a dissapointing performance. Not trying to take anything away from the poms, they wanted to win and played to win. The players that the Aussies ran on I expect will be the world cup team so Eddie Jones is making excuses for them.

Thats what I like about rugby, the team team that wants to win the most will often win. At least with the northern hemisphere teams showing some ticker, it's going to make for a brilliant tournament next year.

Couldn't agree more Bertho - I've enjoyed two very entertaining games so far - both teams wanting the win - this saturdays game against South Africa will be the ultimate test - "Tigers"sorry! England going for a third win against the so-called Best in the World and South Africa trying to defend the South of the Equators reputation. (Don't care what the result is going to be I'll be there watching!)

Nightmare......ain't it? When you know exactly what's going wrong and you can't shout loud enough to let your 'management' know what's going wrong!!

In reply to:

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We KICK EVERYTHING!

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Waha..............have the roles been reversed?

Honestly...........you Aussies have to copy everything that we do, admittedley 10 years after us and when it has been proved tactically deficcient,,,,,,,,,,,,,, I'm revelling (sp?) to do so.

But........What a great title for a thread........ie...... Australian Rugby............What's going on? Try and find my mystical thread........... English Cricket.........why the bloody hell do we bother when we send out a load of injured old crocks, and even they get sent home after 3 weeks???????!"
Sorry.........I'm still revelling........... It would appear, strangely, that us Poms are doing quite well?

Can't believe it meself! Such a shame........he he ho ho ha ha!!!!!!!

wez
As always............I bow down, purely coz you have a much warmer Christmas than we do! Bloody freezing right now!

Mind you, it's official.............Shane Warne weighs at least 4 times as much as I do!

Wez, I'll galdly swap you a cold Christmas for a hot one ...ugh, it's hitting around 40* most days.

And I bet Shane Warne is not only four times bigger than you but four times a pain in the (you know where) as you too! I can't stand him!!

Hi Copago can we cyber mix the temperatures because it's (expletive deleted) freezing, wet and foggy! Wez must be an extreme pain in the you know where if he's a quarter of Shane Warne!
But back to the sport South Aftrica have recalled their "experienced players" for the up coming game England have named the same squad but one (who has glandular fever and will not be fit - shame that as he's the best upcoming player (even though he's not a Tiger YET!))

Looking forward to Saturday - don't care what the result will be, looking forward to another great game of Rugby.