Rugby World Cup

[stevethedog 0]

Just finished (re)seeing the Scotland Portugal match (just getting ready for the match tomorrow)and I have to admit, watching the Portuguese team sing the national anthem actually got me a bit misty eyed. I can't remember the last time a portuguese side showed so much pride and self-respect at being in an international tournament. Great fair play shown by the Scots too.What a contrast with the portuguese national football team , half of the players probably don't know the words and the other half just mumbles them. And no sense of heart on the pitch, it's like they don't even want to be there. Watching the national football side play and win doesn't give me half the pleasure as watching the national rugby side play and lose gives me.It really is a shame that the portuguese government doesn't care about sports other than football. It spent hundreds of millions of euros on a dozen stadiums that are always less than half empty, but forget about supporting anything else. All our top athletes train in Spain because here we don't have a covered/indoor track for them use during the winter months. And the public channel decided not to show the rugby matches on tv (not a question of having to pay the rights, as they could show them by invoking "national interess" as they do with football matches), so in order to see them you either need cable tv or to go to pub. It also doesn't help that a large portion of the population doesn't even care about any other sport than football. I'm sure a lot don't know that there's a World Cup going on, and that Portugal are there (and are the only amateur side there as well). It's shameful, to say the least, that a team that shows so much dedication has so little support.I'm really fired up to see the NZ-Portugal match. I'm absolutely certain that we'll get raped, but it'll be a once in a lifetime experience for our guys, and an honour to play against one of the best, most renowned teams in the world (no disrespect to the Scots, of course). Hell, if our side score a try it'll be like we won the Cup. Pity I don't know any Scots or Kiwis here (or any rugby fans for that matter), or I'd buy them a pint tomorrow Good win for SA there but diabolical from England.No game plan, and not even able to do the basics. Disappointing as I'm as much English as I am South African. Seems England can't even play forwards rugby anymore.That lewsey kick at the end basically summed it all up, this is a team that knows it's there to make up the numbers and that's all. Samoa will be looking forward to the next game. To think back 4 years when there was just no doubt in my mind that England would win, to this. Not even a brave defence of the trophy .Expected England to lose really, think South Africa are the main rivals for New Zealand, but didn't expect them to be nulled. Think they need to start again after the World Cup, dump a lot of the older guys and just target 2011. Surprised they left out Magnus Lund, and it was a big shame Harry Ellis was injured. Not looking forward to South Africa in the 1/4 finals.South Africa 36 England 0

[ghilazz 0]

I'm Portuguese too, and some of my schoolmates play Rugby at Belenenses, so they advertised all over school that Portugal was playing in the World Cup, many of them didn't even know that the World Cup was on...I think it is a shame that the matches weren't showed on Public TV, I was really looking forward to watch every game and i got very disappointed. So i had to go to a pub, and i think it is completely wrong, if the national basketball team matches are showed on public TV, the rugby national team matches should be too.I think Portugal did very well, as this was their first World Cup participation, we still managed to end with 1 point. Also we got a very thought group, with All Blacks, Scots, Italy and Romania... Some friends of mine said that Portugal was shameful, to lose by 108-13, against the reserve team. I told them they must be out of their mind, only 2 (I think) of Portugal National Team are rugby professionals, and we fought and fought and I was very pride of being Portuguese.And Rugby World Cup was full of fair-play, something that Football never can get. I still remember when Scolari punched Dragutinovic in the face and he is still going to protest at the 4 matches suspension! Violence as that should not be tolerated...