As a Welshman, I doubt Wales can do it!

With what appears to most to be a certain "shoe-in" to the quarters, we still have to beat Namibia and Fiji.

We have to win both of these games, and Namibia by a big margin as the teams that have played them have come away with BIG wins.

Do people think that Wales have got the ruthlessness to demolish Namibia as they really need to, or will we just put 25-30 on them?

If we want to compete with the best... we need to be hammer them in case points difference play a factor in deciding who goes home early.

I am slightly worried as South Africa have automatically put themselves through with the cricket score today, will they rest all of their key players and field a poor side against Samoa so even if they lose, they will have done enough to qualify. In reality, they might want to finish 2nd so they don't have to face Australia and if Wales don't deliver a mighty win, they boys will be flying home.

Your thoughts?

a win will be enough. a bounus point is pretty important but we dont need to score 80 points.

wales cant affect what happens in other matches but i really doubt southafrica will throw the game

Its the professional era... unless your in the thick of it, I don't supose anyone really knows what goes on behind the scenes- it could be like WWF for all we know

Wales will hockey Namibia!

They were faintly depressing against SA today, they couldn't have beaten an arthritic labrador to a stick in a game of fetch.

Having put the PI bogey to bed against Samoa I have no doubt about the result against Fiji either.

SA will not chuck the game against Samoa, FFS, come on fellas! Wales have given you nothing but reasons to be cheerful and here you are fretting about nowt. Drink up and be merry.

PJHolybloke wrote:Wales will hockey Namibia!

They were faintly depressing against SA today, they couldn't have beaten an arthritic labrador to a stick in a game of fetch.

Having put the PI bogey to bed against Samoa I have no doubt about the result against Fiji either.

SA will not chuck the game against Samoa, FFS, come on fellas! Wales have given you nothing but reasons to be cheerful and here you are fretting about nowt. Drink up and be merry.

This is now the pool of death....as runners up will play Ire, as winners Aus.

It seems to me that debate about whether SA lose to Samoa is much more interesting than fr v NZ....but SA really can't afford to lose to Samoa.

If SA put out a 2nd choice side, a definite upset is on the cards. In that case I would expect Samoa to win v SA with no BP and win with no BP against Fiji meaning they will be equal with Wales who will get their BP v Namibia and beat fiji. Both sides would finish on 15 points putting SA out so the SA lose to Samoa scenario is very unlikely...they would have to gamble losing but picking up a losers bp and pd, no coach is that mad even Lievremont (well maybe).

The more likely scemario is SA win group with 18 points, Samoa finish on 10 to 12 max and Wales will be 2nd on 14.

Wales get the Irish, SA the Aussies.

But i've been wrong before.

Am I missing something? If Wales beat both Namibia and Fiji, which they should, theyre through.

What permutations are you concerned about

SA losing to Samoa or Wales losing to Fiji are both unlikely.

Wales only have the one loss and will go through...dont get it...

As an Irish man I'm sure you can. Get a grip for feck seck....we're going tank you in the QF though .....

Good luck

Taylorman wrote:Am I missing something? If Wales beat both Namibia and Fiji, which they should, theyre through.

What permutations are you concerned about

SA losing to Samoa or Wales losing to Fiji are both unlikely.

Wales only have the one loss and will go through...dont get it...

Personally not concerned for reasons stated above however there is rumours of SA losing to Samoa a la Fr v NZ so that they are RU and willplay the Irish not Aussies....its a crock either way they can't risk it becuase Wales and Samoa are then likely to qualify

Oh that. Na. SA are on a demolotion roll and have the exact type of team thats needed to beat Oz as the Irish showed. Can't see it.

Have Ireland done Australia a favour though Taylorman? Will the Wallaby pack come out firing? The Boks look awesome right now but thats a hard one to call. Who would the AB's rather face?

You bet. They'll be firing on all cylinders. But SA won't see it that way. Losing momentum after such a long, long period of inconsistency will be fatal for them.

Nope. SA will believe, and will have every right to believe, that the cards have fallen their way, that there game is what wins tournaments. Theyre similar to Ireland only better at this particular style, and have the deadliest kicker in world rugby.

And who would argue with that?

Oh.
I think we'd MUCH rather face Oz now. Wouldnt have said that 3 weeks ago but Oz don't play like the Irish, SA English way but at a pinch we could, we have the team to do it and with Cooper losing confidence by the time he hits Eden Park against the AB's he'll be shot.

I agree with Taylorman about Wales. The big problem is if Samoa beat SA, which I can't see. If SA beat Samoa, then we just need to beat Fiji and Namibia, even by 1 point in each game, and we'd still go through as second best as SA woud have 5 wins, we'd have 4, and the rest would have a max of 3. Remember we picked up a bonus against SA, so that helps too. We could even lose to Fiji and still come second on bonus points, but I don't want to go there.

I think Samoa and Fiji could be an interesting game. Are Samoa nailed on to win it, or will it be like a Liverpool v Everton local derby where form and ranking goes out the window???

Seven welsh players who beat Samoa were under 24.

Whether we win this world cup or not, our future is looking better every year.

We so stand a chance, we have to win our next two games well. We can do that.

We can also beat Ireland. We beat England in Cardiff they lost to them in Dublin.

That puts us in the semis against possibly France or England. We just beat England. Should have been two nil. And we can beat France too.

Wales doing well, doing better than we expected is possible. Every time I watchthese young lads I get more and more excited.

They are a really good bunch and I am very proud of them.


Come on Wales...!

Wales dont need bonus points to qualify, they just need to beat Fiji who are noticeably weaker than Samoa. Its highly unlilely that anyone will beat SA even iof tehy take their foot off the gas a bit. The gulf between them and the Pislands nations is huge.

If you arent confident about beating Namibia and Fiji you really do need to take a look at yourself.

Even in the unlikely scenarios that a shock result does occur elsewhere Wlaes have a big plus from the bonus point they took against SA. Looking at the way Namibia folded theres no reason to suspect that even a second choice Wales side shouldnt take 5 points off them.

Really qualification shouldnt be a problem from here, it would take something quite horrendous to fluff it up now the hard works done.

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:Wales dont need bonus points to qualify, they just need to beat Fiji who are noticeably weaker than Samoa. Its highly unlilely that anyone will beat SA even iof tehy take their foot off the gas a bit. The gulf between them and the Pislands nations is huge.

If you arent confident about beating Namibia and Fiji you really do need to take a look at yourself.

Even in the unlikely scenarios that a shock result does occur elsewhere Wlaes have a big plus from the bonus point they took against SA. Looking at the way Namibia folded theres no reason to suspect that even a second choice Wales side shouldnt take 5 points off them.

Really qualification shouldnt be a problem from here, it would take something quite horrendous to fluff it up now the hard works done.

Jesus Peter mate

We are welsh fans, not England and Tiger fans...!

Do you know how much heart ache out team has put us through over the last thirty years...!


We can loose to Fiji, Samoa could beat SA... Fiji could thrash Samoa...



But I do agree with you that we do look very good. For the first time in a long while.

Diolch mate


By the way, how confident are you that the scots won't win their last two games??? They are on a bit of a winning streak at the moment.

As long as we win both our games we are through surely?

No dis-respect to Namibia intened but a BP win on Monday whilst not being taken as a gimme should be easy enough for us and it should be more about the nature of the win rather than the win itself.

Bedford we need to run in plenty of tries. We don't score enough.

If the game does open up for Wales then they need to use it hone their attacking ability, which may currently be better than six months ago but could still be improved upon.

Why does everyone presume Irleand will top their group? They still have to play Italy and beat Italy. If they loose to Italy they will in all likely hood finish 2nd in their group as the Aussies have already beaten them. I would say the odds of Italy beating Ireland are slightly better than the odds Ireland would have got in beating the Aussies. Lets not forget Italy beat France in the 6 nations, should have beaten Wales and ran Ireland close. Yes it would be an upset if Ireland lost but by no means a big upset.

mm,

I agree and pretty sure we will, which IMO is why I would have started with our first choice then use bench once the BP was secured.

But if we win our next two games then we are through surely?

wrfc1980 wrote:I would say the odds of Italy beating Ireland are slightly better than the odds Ireland would have got in beating the Aussies.

Actually they're not. Italy have never beaten Ireland in a competitive game whereas Ireland have beaten Australia in 2006, drew in 2009 and lost by 5 points in Australia in 2010. Italy are definitely in with a shout but Ireland have pushed Australia more in recent years than Italy have pushed Ireland.

If Ireland play well, Italy aren't going to beat them. If Ireland don't, Italy are capable of taking advantage (but Ireland would probably still have enough to pull through), at least that's how I see it.

BlueNote wrote:If Ireland play well, Italy aren't going to beat them. If Ireland don't, Italy are capable of taking advantage (but Ireland would probably still have enough to pull through), at least that's how I see it.

Italy are capable of beating Ireland there's no doubt about it but I'd be pretty gutted if Ireland finally succumbed to Italy for the 1st time in such a big game and outside of Rome. I'd imagine it would be how the All blacks would feel if Ireland turned them over in a WC final

Italy do have a habit of dragging Ireland into the trenches and controlling the pace of the game. If they do that then there will be very little in it.

Ireland played abysmaly and beat Italy in Rome. France had to really take their flumping to another level to contrive their loss to them.
Whilst Itlay have been relativly strong by their standards this year theres still a big gulf there, and Irleand look pretty sharp when they are trying. Theres no reason to doubt them as pool topper.

South africa has no reason to lose to Samoa.

Option 1. Beat Samoa convincingly and iron out all the last little kinks, then go into the quarter final match against Australia with momentum and confidence that they have ticked all the right boxes and have improved steadily as the tournament has progressed.

Option 2. Send a second string out against samoa which will break momentum, not have the opportunity to iron out those last few error ridden areas and meet Ireland with low confidence, no momentum.

I can't see you guys even considering option 2 is viable.

Yes, I do fear Australia more than Ireland, but like we have been told so many times before, if you don't beat the tri Nation teams you aren't worthy being world champions.

Do I think we will come unstuck against Australia, I sure as hell hope not.

The worst feeling for me will be to exit at the quarter final stage, but the cards have been dealt, and we simply just have to nullify their attack with pressure and organised defence.

Oh and Taylorman, this is one game I won't mind winning with only penalties and drop goals.

Strange post this one - We need 50 points plus against Namibia with players looking to stake a claim and we need to beat Fiji which is well within our current capability - They will probably be out of the tournament by then but that might make things more difficult. We have what it takes to get to the 1/4's and beat Ireland if we get there. Let's see

wrfc1980 wrote:Lets not forget Italy beat France in the 6 nations, should have beaten Wales and ran Ireland close.

*Should have beaten Ireland, ran Wales close.

For all those assuming we're just going to breeze the group now. Fiji. '07.

I don't think anyone's assuming anything, but at the same time we don't need bonus point wins either (assuming SA beat Samoa). Therefore, it takes a lot of pressure off.

Namibia are the worst team in the competition.

We should beat Fiji comfortably, well, as comfortably as Wales do anything.

I just hope the game against Fiji is a good one, the last time we played them I seriously rank as one of the worst test matches I have ever watched, that 10 minute long scrum didnt help.

roddersm wrote:

wrfc1980 wrote:I would say the odds of Italy beating Ireland are slightly better than the odds Ireland would have got in beating the Aussies.

Actually they're not. Italy have never beaten Ireland in a competitive game whereas Ireland have beaten Australia in 2006, drew in 2009 and lost by 5 points in Australia in 2010. Italy are definitely in with a shout but Ireland have pushed Australia more in recent years than Italy have pushed Ireland.

Maybe im being pedantic, but I think Italy pushed Ireland very hard in the six nations this year. Ireland got a last minute drop goal to win the game I recall.

tomhughesnice wrote:
Maybe im being pedantic, but I think Italy pushed Ireland very hard in the six nations this year. Ireland got a last minute drop goal to win the game I recall.

No you are not being pedantic, it's a fair point but I think you are reading too much into it. Ireland were unusually poor that day. They made 11 unforced handling errors and conceded a massive amount of penalties at the breakdown. The were also missing numerous 1st choice players and couldn't win their lineouts due to missing Ferris and Heaslip from the backrow. It was O'Connell's 1st international game back after a year out with a serious illness/ injury. We also had no recognised full back (Fitzgerald played there and couldn't catch a cold).

I'm not making excuses or taking anything away from Italy but I'd be very surprised if Ireland play as poorly as they did in those 1st few 6N games in this tournament.

South Africa won;t lose to Samoa, the only reason Wales lose to Islander teams is we have psychological issues with them in our heads.
South Africa won;t be scared or intimidated and will dismantle their team, and win by 20 points.

As long as Wales beat Namiaba and Fiji, with or without bonus points we will qualify for the quarters.

Our fate is in our own hands. the only issue could be if Samoa beat Fiji and we lose to Fiji, then things could be tricky, but even so we do have losing bonus point Vs south Africa and we would probably get one against Fiji so we should still go through!

Is my memory playing tricks, or did Fiji not give SA a pretty good run for their money in the last WC?

Yes it was 20 all at a stage, but then our replacements came on and we won 37~20

I eat my words... Well done Wales! It is good to see the boys scoring tries. I know that Namibia were out on their feet but it will give them confidence for Fiji.

Hopefully the Boks can do enough to qualify us against Samoa but hopefully we can put in another big performance.

Come on Wales!

Huwball wrote:I eat my words... Well done Wales! It is good to see the boys scoring tries. I know that Namibia were out on their feet but it will give them confidence for Fiji.

Hopefully the Boks can do enough to qualify us against Samoa but hopefully we can put in another big performance.

Come on Wales!

Not entirely sure that our walloping of namibia should give you confidence! the pen count, error rate and lack of cohesion in the 1st half was very alarming

I know the errors were high but as in most sports from my limited experience, better teams tend to lower their standards when playing "not so good" opponents and get drawn into playing the opponents style - we always seem to do it when playing pacific island teams.

We have seen against the Boks we played so much better so fingers crossed.

Gatts wrote:Not entirely sure that our walloping of namibia should give you confidence! the pen count, error rate and lack of cohesion in the 1st half was very alarming

Yes but it was our second team, and they did pretty well once the rustiness was out of the way.

you crushed nambia donbt worry about it- itys erasy to get complacent against these little teams you sorted it out second half. You guys are playing as good as any team bar NZ

from an englishman-

"
I'm not making excuses or taking anything away from Italy but I'd be very surprised if Ireland play as poorly as they did in those 1st few 6N games in this tournament."

truth is i wouldnt be that surprised if you had a scare against a second tier nation- such as the likes of italy or argentina- its very typical of the 'home' nations(ireland,scotland,wales,england) to do this- you/we rise against the better teams- you cant play much better than you did against england 6n's or australia this world cup- boith were dominant- but you like the rest of us are not a finished article- we can be complacent

Back to the OP, honestly I think we will get a very good win over fiji this time around. I cant see Samoa getting a bonus point win against the boks so we go through. The group games will have gone well, we will have put to bed two of our bogey teams in Fiji and Samoa, recorded a record score in the WC against a minnow, the narrow loss to teh boks looks like a blessing in disguise. Bring on the Irish I say.

England if they get through should beat the French based on the gallic showing against NZ but who knows which France side will turn up, some of them were clearly disinterested in teh NZ game. However, I would not bet against teh scots beating England espescially if it rains. I fully expect Argentina to get a bonus point against Georgia, That could put England out.

i could see scotland beating england if they/we arnt prepared, but what i cant see in any case is england not getting a bonus point

Tycoes

Yes i agree with you on all points

Except Scots. Think they might have been broken by Argentina loss. Yes they can raise their game, always do, but the more i read about the issues they face the only way i can see them doing it is if the English fall apart up front which i don't think will happen. Tuilagi will tear through the Scottish midfield...if they take control early it could be a cricket score.
They seem impotent behind the pack with a try scoring rate that is one of the lowest in world rugby. Their only hope seems to be the boot. For England though they do need to start taking this RWC seriously, it is now pure knockout for them and i think they will rise to he occassion

I think it all depends on the mindset Gatts, England are just as capable of imploding as any of the home nations indeed they have done it already this year. The scots simply have nothing to lose, if the game had been against somebody else I wouldnt give them a hope but the Auld enemey? It all depends on the first half if Scotland get ahead and frustrate England then I think English composure will go.

England should win but.......

[quote="TycroesOsprey"]Back to the OP, honestly I think we will get a very good win over fiji this time around. I cant see Samoa getting a bonus point win against the boks so we go through. The group games will have gone well, we will have put to bed two of our bogey teams in Fiji and Samoa, recorded a record score in the WC against a minnow, the narrow loss to teh boks looks like a blessing in disguise. Bring on the Irish I say.
..............[/quote]


Fannous last words but Wales look good for their game against the Fijians . Most of the team to play have had a rest or limited game time in the Namibia game and will be fresh. I expect them to raise their intensity and get through to the QFS . Beyond that I'm not going to say anything until we are there.

mystiroakey wrote:"
I'm not making excuses or taking anything away from Italy but I'd be very surprised if Ireland play as poorly as they did in those 1st few 6N games in this tournament."

truth is i wouldnt be that surprised if you had a scare against a second tier nation- such as the likes of italy or argentina- its very typical of the 'home' nations(ireland,scotland,wales,england) to do this- you/we rise against the better teams- you cant play much better than you did against england 6n's or australia this world cup- boith were dominant- but you like the rest of us are not a finished article- we can be complacent

Disagree MYS, we can play a lot better. We have failed to capitalise on forward dominance particularly in Aus game (although their defence was excellent which I find strange more people fail to point out). I will reserve judgement on Ireland until after the Italy game, perhaps the backs will feel more confident behind a pack they know are performing well (big ask against Italy who'll be up for a last hurrah).

If we put in a good win with a good performance from the backs we'll go into that Wales game in a very optimistic frame of mind (hopefully not too optimistic). If the forwards put in a similar performance and our backs can start show some creativity we should put Wales away.


lots of "IF SHOULD COULD" above!! I'm sure Welsh fans will have a lot to say on this, (please though this in not a WUM or meant as disrespectful), what kind of game plan would Wales bring, I feel they have an advantage at 7 and your backs are performing better than ours.......

Offload may figure...need to break it up and keep away from your setpiece as soon as we can. Ireland will try and strangle the Welsh by defending very narrow and very flat, which the Boks proved was very effective. Forced our carriers into contact close to the breakdown and prevented us getting over the gainline so prevented ball getting out to numbers wide. We will try and go through the ground more so your forwards cannot maul us - that is their principle strength in slowing attacks - will rely on JR and TF to carry into Irish midfield.

Hmmmmmmm...... good outline plan Gatts. How do you see the set pieces going (assuming we both win and go through unscathed)?

whats you front 5 an how would you rate them against:

Healy
Best
Ross
POC
DOC

the back row battle would be great to watch, it may be that the role of an out an out 7 mud hen will be highlighted in this game (of the potential QFist's Ireland and England seem to have a hole here compared to McCaw, Warb, Dusatoir, Brussow and Pocock)

SA won`t field a B side,I`d give them a 20point start,Samoa are weak.
At the Boks strongest the lineout,Wales should beat Fiji comfortably.