Best game so far

Best upset
1. SA vs Japan
2. Argentina vs Ireland
3. Japan v Samoa

Best win by a favorite
1. NZ vs France
2. Australia vs England
3. South Africa vs Scotland

Best game between 2 closely ranked teams
1 Wales vs England
2 Scotland vs Samoa
3. Ireland vs France

Any thoughts?

One or two, yes.

Japan's easy win v Samoa was a bit of an upset too for me, but they'd sort of raised our expectations of them earlier in the torinament by beating SA so it was sort of brushed under the carpet. But to be such a one sided affair against a powerful Samoa team was a bit of an upset for me. That wouldn't have been predicted at all pre-tournament.

Griff wrote:Japan's easy win v Samoa was a bit of an upset too for me, but they'd sort of raised our expectations of them earlier in the torinament by beating SA so it was sort of brushed under the carpet. But to be such a one sided affair against a powerful Samoa team was a bit of an upset for me. That wouldn't have been predicted at all pre-tournament.

good point. Might change the post a bit.

Was Argentina v Ireland an upset, maybe the margin but the result in general?

Australia v Scotland. I was not expecting Scotland to be as amazing as they were. Great game and one of the best so far.

bedfordwelsh wrote:Was Argentina v Ireland an upset, maybe the margin but the result in general?

It was perhaps not an upset but definitely unexpected. Ireland were rightly touted as a possible favourite for the tournament. The great hopes of the NH. Argentina were barely mentioned pre tournament. So the manner of the victory, and the margin, were definitely a shock for me.

New Zealand v Argentina has been the highest quality game for me so far

Even though the OP has been edited the most astonishing result is still the SA v Japan match.

stub wrote:Even though the OP has been edited the most astonishing result is still the SA v Japan match.

Argentina could win against NZ in the final the most astonishing result would still be Japan over SA

Yep.

Games I have enjoyed most;

Japan / SA

Scotland / Aus ( from behind the sofa)

However there is one moment of beauty that beats all - Japans rolling maul against Scotland - such a perfect move. a thing of beauty

In a weird way the Samoa win was bigger than the SA one for me. It's one thing to shock a team on a low in the first game. It's another to back it up against more decent teams. Granted Samoa were generally disappointing and seems to have lost all discipline, which is what had resulted in their recentish improvement.

I think most of the quarters were great, although got bored with the All Black one once it was clear the French weren't coming back.

Canada 15 - 17 Romania.
15 nil to Canada at one stage.

SA v Japan for me. I know they caught SA cold, but it was still SA.

Torn between Wales v England and Ireland v France. Both incredibly hard fought games, and although both Wales and Ireland emerged the victors, the victories came at a huge cost.
Probably because I was more emotionally invested in the Ireland game, I'm going with Ireland v France.

Best game against adversity has to be the Wales England game. I don't even the most one eyed die hard fan gave us any chance when we had to shuffle our back line like we did.

Griff wrote:

bedfordwelsh wrote:Was Argentina v Ireland an upset, maybe the margin but the result in general?

It was perhaps not an upset but definitely unexpected. Ireland were rightly touted as a possible favourite for the tournament. The great hopes of the NH. Argentina were barely mentioned pre tournament. So the manner of the victory, and the margin, were definitely a shock for me.

Most people around me chose Argentina to win (19 -2 in our local SB group).  I guess it would have been more even in our group if Ireland didn't have their injuries, but I would still have gone with Argentina.  But then I guess, I see Argentina play at full strength more often because of the RC, whereas you mainly see the touring games from them, when they aren't always at full strength.  I don't see SA beating them at the moment either in the 3rd place play off, if we face them there at all.  I think Argentina flew in under the radar for a large part of the tournament.

Best game for me was Japan vs SA. I was happy and disappointed at the same time.

Scotland v Australia. Did not expect Scotland to be any where near as close as they was.

Japan v South Africa has got to be the biggest upset and the biggest suprise of the tournament. I don't no any one who thought Japan would win  that game.

Argentina v Ireland the margin of the win for  me was a big shock. Did not think Ireland would play so bad.

New Zealand v France. It was like watching men against boys. Yes New Zealand are the number one team in the world. But did not expect France  too be so bad.

For me, the best game was NZ - France. NZ played such a clinical attacking style of play that was breath taking to watch as a neutral observer. This was closely followed by Argentina's amazing display against Ireland. Both NZ and Argentina showed amazing close control and expansive rugby in those games, complete rugby if you will.

Most exciting games were SA-Japan purely for the huge upset, England - Wales for the amazing fight back by Wales and Scotland-Australia as Scotland took it right to the Aussies and very nearly got home with a win.

RubyGuby wrote:New Zealand v Argentina has been the highest quality game for me so far

Yup.

Watched highlights of Scotland Samoa, that was a hell of a game.

Australia Scotland was a great game to.
Other quarter finals were good, although still getting over last sunday.

I actually enjoyed the NZ Georgia game, some big hits by Georgia and to be 7 all at one stage, would never expected that.

As mentioned Canada Romania game was good.

France Canada I enjoyed, Canada were in the game for a good while.

For me, don't think there has been a bad game.

Tier 2 nations have stepped up and been good.

Gotta say been a great world cup so far.

It's not been mentioned yet, but I really enjoyed the Argentina/Namibia game.

Yes, it ended up being a big win for Argentina (and there were some really scrappy sections in the game) but there were some cracking moments. Namibia had a couple of really good spells, had a try ruled out and showed they were really good with ball in hand. It all got a bit 7s for a while and totally breathless by both sides!

Then when Argentina got back in their stride they played some of the best attacking rugby played in the tournament (albeit against a much lower-ranked team).

Just thought I'd mention as it was one that stood out for me.

Argentina/NZ probably the best overall quality.

SA/Japan for the shock

Argentina/Ireland for a good see-saw contest and kudos to Arg for putting the game to bed when Ireland looked like getting back into it.

Aus/Scotland for drama.

It's fair to say Argentina have been in most of the best games for me.

There have been a number of close games that were enthralling to watch live. But I wouldn't watch them again knowing the score line as the rugby wasn't particularly great imo. England v Wales, SA v Wales, Aus v Wales, Aus v Scotland, SA v Japan. Has to be said that Pool A has really made this RWC one to remember. It was tense from Day 1 and I can't recall it being like that before.

FerN wrote:

Griff wrote:

bedfordwelsh wrote:Was Argentina v Ireland an upset, maybe the margin but the result in general?

It was perhaps not an upset but definitely unexpected. Ireland were rightly touted as a possible favourite for the tournament. The great hopes of the NH. Argentina were barely mentioned pre tournament. So the manner of the victory, and the margin, were definitely a shock for me.

Most people around me chose Argentina to win (19 -2 in our local SB group).  I guess it would have been more even in our group if Ireland didn't have their injuries, but I would still have gone with Argentina.  But then I guess, I see Argentina play at full strength more often because of the RC, whereas you mainly see the touring games from them, when they aren't always at full strength.  I don't see SA beating them at the moment either in the 3rd place play off, if we face them there at all.  I think Argentina flew in under the radar for a large part of the tournament.

Best game for me was Japan vs SA.  I was happy and disappointed at the same time.

I completely agree with you there. I don't get to watch much RC rugby, and my opinion of Argentina was based on their earlier entry to the RC competition where they were struggling a little. I admit I've been a bit ignorant of their progress and they've completely gone under the radar for me. So maybe the shock was just on my part

Cant think of a bad game so far.

For sheer entertainment Samoa v Scotland was great.

Canada-Romania, Georgia-Tonga, Wales-England, England-Australia and Argentina-NZ were all very good games. SA-Japan was obviously the best though.

Golden wrote:
For sheer entertainment Samoa v Scotland was great.

I'd forgotten about that one. Good call. Crazy game.

Cyril wrote:

Golden wrote:
For sheer entertainment Samoa v Scotland was great.

I'd forgotten about that one. Good call. Crazy game.

Ye doubt there's many fingernails left in Scotland after a few of their games.

Has to be Japan vs South Africa. It was nice to see Japan to show that their win over SA was no flash in the pan with a strong performance against Samoa too.

It also bodes well for for RWC 2019 with Japan being the hosts. Helps give the Japanese a feel good factor in the build up.

beshocked wrote:Has to be Japan vs South Africa. It was nice to see Japan to show that their win over SA was no flash in the pan with a strong performance against Samoa too.

It also bodes well for for RWC 2019 with Japan being the hosts. Helps give the Japanese a feel good factor in the build up.

I didn't really enjoy the Japan/South Africa win.

The end was one the gutsiest things I have ever seen, and not just on a rugby pitch. The result and reaction of the Japanese and their fans will also be one of the memories of the RWC, the game wasn't great though.

NZ vs France has been my favourite game thus far. NZ were absolutely incredible. Savea's bulldozing try, Carter's silky offloading it was just a demonstration of flawless rugby.

Scot vs. Oz is up there too however that was just a nerve shredding experience.

For pure excitement the David v Goliath clash between the minnows of Japan and the heavyweights of SA has to be the stand out game of the tournament.

Cyril wrote:It's not been mentioned yet, but I really enjoyed the Argentina/Namibia game.

Yes, it ended up being a big win for Argentina (and there were some really scrappy sections in the game) but there were some cracking moments. Namibia had a couple of really good spells, had a try ruled out and showed they were really good with ball in hand. It all got a bit 7s for a while and totally breathless by both sides!

Then when Argentina got back in their stride they played some of the best attacking rugby played in the tournament (albeit against a much lower-ranked team).

Just thought I'd mention as it was one that stood out for me.

Argentina/NZ probably the best overall quality.

SA/Japan for the shock

Argentina/Ireland for a good see-saw contest and kudos to Arg for putting the game to bed when Ireland looked like getting back into it.

Aus/Scotland for drama.

It's fair to say Argentina have been in most of the best games for me.

Argentina Tonga 1st half was the most entertaining half i have seen in this World Cup. Weather permitting Arg-Aus could be one hell of a game, wish it was at the Millenium.

Overall i would say this World Cup has been success with ambitious rugby most of the time prevailing over the ultra conservative NH style of rugby.

Most lethal was the Ninja job done by New Zealand on France.  People talk about total rugby - that was a tour de force of relentless accurate aggression.  A thing of beauty.  It didn't matter that it was France either.  No side in this competition would have lived with that endless assault.  That was a present specially delivered for France and had quite a bit of history attached.

There were actually too many good games (classics) to pick one.

England v Wales had all the drama of another murder in Eastenders.

Wales v Australia had a physical grit beauty to it.

Australia v England was a hatchet job of sublime perpetual motion.

Ireland v France was seismically brutal.

SA v Japan was of course...that game!

For some reason the SA v Samoa game stands out for me.  It was the game that was there to ask SA what it was made of.  Was it going to implode completely or set the record straight.
They went ahead and set the record straight with a power play that I kinda liked the taste of.  "F**k you World, we've woken up"

Best game for me was the Scotland Australia, both teams played well and although utterly heartbreaking it showed for the first time since we moved away from Dan Parks' 10 man rugby that we can compete with the big teams. In the past when we've put in good performances against the best it's been based on Poopie conditions and giving the ball to Parks who would hoof it downfield and we'd take three points. Scotland played rugby and should have won on Sunday.

The France New Zealand game was a thing of beauty, it was for me, the best ever performance in a team sport, perhaps only Barcelona against Manchester United in 2013 comes close but the French beat England comfortably in the warm ups and beat Scotland too, they also saw off Italy who gave the Irish a tough time, they aren't as bad as people are making out. New Zealand are just simply brilliant.

RubyGuby wrote:New Zealand v Argentina has been the highest quality game for me so far

They might play it for you again then Ruby

Best game is upcoming.

SA vs AB.

Biltong wrote:Best game is upcoming.

SA vs AB.

Hope you're right.

Griff wrote:

bedfordwelsh wrote:Was Argentina v Ireland an upset, maybe the margin but the result in general?

It was perhaps not an upset but definitely unexpected. Ireland were rightly touted as a possible favourite for the tournament. The great hopes of the NH. Argentina were barely mentioned pre tournament. So the manner of the victory, and the margin, were definitely a shock for me.

What upset you'r talking about? I had Argentina as favourite and any were thining this way.

bad typo..many were thinking this way I meant