What an outstanding game of rugby football there.
That French victory was why I love the game so much.
It had absolutely everything. The skill set of both teams was sensational. It was a complete epic. NZ had an attack of well over 20 phases at the end there and the French defence still stood firm.
Awesome stuff. A game for the ages.
Christ that was something else. Absolutely incredible result. But what bottlers New Zealand are. So much the superior side and just didn’t close the game out despite numerous chances to do so. McAllister plain and simple chickened out of a drop kick attempt at goal until he was back on the half way line where the pressure was off. Unreal.
They paid the price for not picking Mauger in the squad really, though their injuries at out half were unlucky.
Don’t really understand the advantage rule all that well - you’ll probably be able to help me out rocko.
I agree that McAllister chickened out taking a drop goal initially. But he thought the ref was playing them advantage when he tried the one from half way. The French had knocked on in the tackle, the ref called advantage and I think McAllister thought they’d be brought back for the scrum even if he wasn’t successful with the attempt.
My question(s): Was advantage over? How long should it last for?
Good question Bandage and I’m happy to explain.
A number of years ago this ruling was qualified. A knock on results in a scrum which is seen essentially as a handing over of possession to one team. Therefore the advantage that accrues to a team in the event of a knock on is only possession. Once they get clean ball advantage is over and the referee doesn’t have to shout that, though he may choose to do so. They had secured fine possession and only by being appallingly ignorant of the rules could they have thought they’d still have advantage if they missed the kick.
A penalty advantage would have given them a shot to nothing, not a knock on advantage. Annoys the hell out of me when commentators don’t know that.
Cheers. I didn’t know of the distinction between penalty and knock on advantage but given your clarification then it’s clear as day that the referee’s interpretation was 100 per cent correct. In that case it was ridiculous to initially turn down about 3 separate chances of a drop goal from 30 metres or so out and even worse to then kick possession away carelessly at the end with the silly attempt from just inside his own half.
What a match that was. France had the breaks in the game but NZ have done this too often now to call themselves unlucky. This was probably the most entertaining match since 1999 when they last met in the World Cup. McAllister not going for the drop goal reminds me of Lynagh in 1995 when he choose not to take one against England when he had many opportunities to do so. This result opens the whole tournament up. Hope France win it from here.
Was just remarking throughout the entire game about how overrated I believed Michalak to be and then he made that break which was truly world class
Michalak nearly cost France that game. He made one break which was put on a plate for him by Traille’s (forward) pass. All he had to do was sprint and he did that competently. There was nothing to it.
The time when France turned the ball over 5 minutes from time on their own line and Elisade passed to Michalak who decided to kick to the open side where he gave NZ the ball back on the 22 said everything about him. I couldn’t believe he did that.
His offload to the centre out of the tackle was world class
Agreed on the kick though
He didn’t offload out of the tackle. He wasn’t tackled at all. He just turned around and passed it to the next guy in support. It took composure alright and many would have thrown it to the guy on the outside who might have been tackled, or overcarried it themselves. So it was a cool head in a moment of pressure but there was zero skill involved.
Fiji have just scored two tries in a minute to level it at 20-20 with South Africa
Another shock? That would be the mother of all of them
Players queuing up to bottle it over the past couple of days. Dan Parks gets the ball 5 yards out with 2 minutes to go and kicks the ball away appallingly. Then Pichot hands a chance back to Scotland by panicking when he gets possession.
Crazy stuff. Argentina progress but they looked very shaky. They also got a few decisions in their favour that looked dodgy enough (as they’ve done all tournament).