Saturday 2nd June 2007

42 - 11

France's titanic No. 8 Sebastian Chabal sums up his team's feelings

A full strength New Zealand team showed no mercy in their first match together this year, destroying a second string French side, who's major players were all back in France playing in the Top 14 semi-finals.Half of the French squad of 22 players were being capped for the first time today, and the RWC 2007 likely captain, Ibanez was on the bench. But when New Zealand faced up to the French to perform the Haka, it was the lionesque French No. 8 Sebastian Chabal that looked more menacing in one look than the entire All Black squad.

Incidentally, both sides looked particularly fetching in their new even more tight-fitting shirts than we are necessarily used, particularly the renewed, youthful-looking soon to retire Thomas Castignede. As the game began to take shape, one of the world's best [beautifully tanned and perfectly sculptured] fly halves, Dan Carter appeared to do his ankle some damage off a powerful tackle from Nicolas Durand, and Piri Weepu and Aaron Mauger took over responsibility. Twenty minutes in and the All Blacks dominated with 75% of possession, though the scrums were becoming a major issue for the Aussie Ref, Stuart Dickinson as he failed to communicate clearly with the French side. An interesting battle from the start was to be that between the No. 8s, Chris Masoe and Sebastian Chabal - Chabal won hands down as he made such a monumental tackle on his opposite number that Masoe was visibly shaken,  dazed and disoriented for more than a moment or two. But this is rugby after all, so if you don't have the constitution of a boxer for being knocked over [Masoe's brother happens to be a world class boxer], you should not be on the pitch in the first place.

The first try from the All Blacks was clean and clinically scored by Mauger. But continuity was not the prime focus so far as no more than four phases had been strung together in the first half. With five minutes to go, winger Sitiveni Sivivatu created a little chip and chase manouevre and applied no downward pressure on the ball as he rolled his arm over it and moved it forward - but the video ref was obviously watching a different game as he awarded it. Half time - All Blacks 20, France 2.

The start of the second half and the ABs lost both captain RIchie McCaw and fly half Dan Carter through injury; France conceded a penalty almost immediately, but then got one back. Sivivatu popped over his second try and with fifteen minutes gone, but winger Jean-Francois Coux replied accordingly; halfway through the second half and the score sat at 28 - 11. The last twenty minutes saw the All Blacks score another two converted tries from Mauger and So'oialo unhindered by the boys in blue.

The Kiwis tore into the French defence, and put up an almost impenetrable black wall which the French only managed to infiltrate once in 80 minutes with any conviction; five tries to one, France have a mountain to climb when they face the enemy and world cup favourites again next week.

31 - 0

Wales' Gavin Henson fails to securely tackle Australian winger Mark Gerrard

Despite holding the green & gold Wallabies to only a 6 point lead in the first half, Wales failed to make any impact whatsover, being demolished by the two times world champions by full time. The first half saw only Chris Czekaj break his leg to be be almost certainly ruled out of any part in the RWC 2007, and Aussie centre Stirling Mortlock kicking two penalties. The second half was far more eventful with three tries, two conversions and two more penalties - all from the Wallabies as Wales slowly crumbled and fell apart, not a patch on the team that gave Australia a run for their money a week ago, though there were only three changes in the starting line-up for the Welsh.

55 - 22

Jonny Wilkinson tackles Man of the Match, Bokke Pierre Spies

England's misery continued as South Africa racked up a total of 113 points against the current World Champions in just two games. England also lost their Captain, Jason Robinson to a knee-injury, passing the doomed mantle to Jonny Wilkinson for the second time in his career.

The first quarter of the game the English matched South Africa on every front, and could even have taken the lead had Jonny not missed a penalty which fell short by a long way. But at 3 - 3, scrum half Ricky Januarie kicked through and the most fortuitous bounce put the ball directly back in his hands to score easily for Percy Montgomery to finish the job neatly.  SA may have conceded a few penalties, but they made up for it by scoring tries that Monty could convert quite simply, the next one coming form Schalk Burger, last week's man of the match. The Habernero [Bryan Habana] got more than a wrist slap for slapping down the ball, and was rather harshly binned; England took advantage of the 14-man opposition as Dan Scarborough spectacularly intercepted Pierre Spies' pass to score under the posts. Rather surprisingly, at half time, England were in the lead, 17 - 19!

But of course it was all to good to be true...It took SA three minutes to come back fighting; they steadily broke down England's defence as the ball passed through Spies, Olivier, Januarie then with a sharp change in direction, Matfield passed to Bakkies Botha for the try, which Monty missed, but SA 22, England 19. Burger created England's last scoring opportunity with an interesting tackle on young Ben Skirving giving Jonny an elementary penalty shot at the posts.

Fifty minutes into the game, and the score was level at a very respectable 22 all; after this, the Bokke managed to average a point a minute for the remainder of proceedings, with a try from Montgomery, as well as two a piece from Habana and Spies. The Bokke annihilated the boys in white to send them home with a clear message to the England management - don't bother coming down south without a team that can play 80 minutes of rugby.

15 - 20

Clermont Captain, Aurélien Rougerie fights off another tackle from Toulouse

In an exciting spectacle, Toulouse gave a strong performance for the first fifty minutes and were 15 - 7 up with four penalties from Jean-Baptiste Ellisalde and a drop goal from Jean-François Dubois; soon to retire French International, Clermont's Tony Marsh scored the first try of the match off a break from Gonzalo Canale. But with half an hour to go, Clermont turned on the power. A spectacular try from Aurélien Rougerie almost levelled the score thanks to Brock James' conversion. Following that performance, James could not help himself and made good on a penalty from a lineout, and with Toulouse too weary to react, he manoeuvred the situation to score a drop goal in the last minute of play. So onward and upward as they face table-toppers, Stade Français in their home town of Paris on Saturday at the Stade de France for the grand final of the 115 year old competition, Top 14 2007.

16 - 0

Unfortunately [depending on how you look at it], no one took a decent photo of the match, so we thought you might appreciate this instead...Manuel Contepomi, Martin Durand, Ignacio Fernandez Lobbe and Felipe Contepomi

Ireland, like all the other Northern Hemisphere teams, sent an under-strength squad to Argentina. Last week they were denied their first ever win on Argentinian soil by Felipe Contepomi's last minute drop goal - the Irish had led all the way through the match. This week was a whole other ball game; every opportunity that was gifted to Ireland was literally thrown away - there was a barage of spilled ball, forward passes, mis-handling and kicks wide of the posts. Argentina, on the other hand, steadily just reinforced that they are side to be reckoned with; having been underrated for years, they have matched the British & Irish Lions team, have beaten the French the last four times they have played them, and lost only narrowly to New Zealand last year - all this from a team that has no professional set-up to speak of to compare with the world's leading rugby nations. Last week it was Felipe who saved the day for the Pumas - this week it was his twin brother, Manuel who scored the only try of the game. If only Argentina was allowed into the bastion of either the Tri-Nations or Six Nations, they could storm the rugby world and show us what they are really made of. Ireland definitely has a serious contender for the second place qualifying team in Pool D in September.

England Saxons celebrate their Churchill Cop win on home turf

It's about time the English found something to celebrate after the diabolical performance of the Elite squad in South Africa. England Saxons found themselves in the same pool as Scotland A and the USA, and the New Zealand Maori with Ireland A and Canada; both teams won their matches very comfortably to set up a mouth-watering final at Twickenham. And neither team disappointed. By half time, both had scores a try a piece, but Bath's Olly Barkley converted Wasps' Paul Sackey's try to put England ahead - Saxons 7, Maori 5. England conceded a penalty which Maori fly half Tamati Ellison kicked accurately this time, but Wasps' Tom Voyce edged England back into contention with a corner try. Maori Jason Kawau replied swiftly, but none of the fly halves - or their replacements - had their kicking boots on as the Kiwis took the lead again with 12 minutes to go. Wasps' full back Danny Cipriani made a dramatic counter-attack but was stopped in his tracks just short of the line; Sackey again made a significant contribution to the match-winning try scored by replacement lock, Leicester Tiger's Tom Croft. This predominantly London-based team [and I use the term loosely since High Wycombe, Reading and Watford have never really been in London] carried on the England Saxons' tradition of winning the tournament every other year since it's inception in 2003, proudly captained by South African-born London Irish prop, Neal Hatley. Elsewhere, Canada beat USA 52 - 10 to win the Churchill Cup Bowl Final, and Ireland A narrowly beat Scotland 22 - 21 to take third place and the Churchill Cup Plate.

Sunday 3rd June 2007

34 - 5

New Zealand 7s Squad celebrate their Tournament & IRB World Series 2007 win by performing the haka.

All Fiji had to do to win the IRB World Sevens Series 2007 was to reach the semi finals at the Edinburgh 7s. The cup quarter finals saw Fiji vs Wales, New Zealand vs South Africa, Scotland vs Argentina and Samoa vs Kenya. England did not even make it through the pool stages, only managing a win against Georgia, losing 14 - 19 to Argentina and by a quite spectacular 38 - 0 to New Zealand. As has become apparent, whilst the other rugby nations are investing in their Sevens squads as a good training ground for the Elite team, the RFU are withdrawing their support by putting forward younger, inexperienced players against colossal Kiwis, Fijians and Samoans to continue their political games with the premiership clubs.

But back to the day in question, and somehow Wales - who have stealthily crept up on the 7s scene of late - knocked Fiji clear out of contention in the quarter finals by 7 points. New Zealand then had no trouble explaining to Wales that they should not mess with the big boys unless they're hard enough by beating them 28 - 0, whilst Samoa beat Argentina by only 7 points. By then New Zealand could taste their victory and stacked up six tries to Samoa's one, winning both the inaugural Edinburgh Sevens, and the Series title by 2 points. Fiji took consolation in winning the Plate Final, and England won a bowl...or a side dish...or a gravy boat or something...

So until next season, that's it from the excellent show put on by Scottish Rugby for the Edinburgh 7s, and well done to the almost 30,000 supporters who made it such a good weekend.

And as for XVs rugby - we'll be back reporting on next weekend's line up almost as soon as it happens, as there's still all this to come...

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