Painful England game, to much ask on Johnny with some long kicks looking for points. England need to ask the team to get the wins not one man.

Enjoyed watching Japan give France a run for their money.

Good win for Scotland, held their nerve at the right times and produced the win.

Yep, ugly win, but a win all the same. Look how bad they were in 2007, and they still managed to get to the final.

Although I can't help feeling that, if they were facing Wales or the Saffas, they'd get slaughtered playing like that; so, i'm hoping for improvement. JW had a nightmare, but that seems to be a common theme for the goal kickers so far.

Well pleased about Scotland's win too.

I should mention that the Wales v South Africa game right now is a cracker.

Gutted ............

No kidding. It was an epic performance, and Wales deserved to win IMO.

Easily the best match so far.

I agree

Wales really deserved to win that, and not just because that penalty shot was definitely on target.

I did enjoy Australia v Italy, not so much for the result (although, obviously I liked that), but because of the fun, open style of rugby both teams were playing - especially the Italians, even when everything was lost.

All up, I'm glad to see there haven't really been any "easy" encounters - everyone is giving the big names something to think about. Can't wait for the next stanza.

Agree

Watched the painful England Match and appart from them winning didn't really enjoy it
Loved the Welsh match - shame they didn't win

Just watched the Ireland v Australia.... amazing game, well done Ireland

Yep, I rather enjoyed it too.

Shock result for Ireland, hopefully England will do alright later, just settling down to watch it.

England looked better, although Georgia aren't quite of the quality of Argentina. Canada seem to be giving France a bit of a game.

Jon

I want to say Australia played badly (which they did) but that takes away from Ireland, who played brilliantly to disrupt the Aussies' game and get a very well-deserved win. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise for the Wallabies. If they'd won the pool, they'd likely play Wales; now they'll likely play the Springboks. Given the way Wales played in their opener, it might be a good move to avoid them, and the Wallabies had the Saffies beat 2-0 in the Tri Nations, so they know they can do that again.

Would like to say I saw the rest of the games, but we only had Ire v Aus shown on the telly here this weekend. Gutted.

Don't worry, the England game was nothing to get excited about. It was a good win against a Georgian side giving it their all, ultimately I think everyone expected more from England though.

It's the discipline that's the main problem, yellow cards in both games and I think it was 11 penalties we'd given away to Georgia in the first half alone. If that was a Frenchman's boot on the end of those penalties it would have been a far different scoreline.

On the subject of penalties, The New Zealand Herald has an interesting read with a former Test referee conceding that the "minnows" usually get a rough deal from refs when they play the top-tier nations.



Full article here

Meanwhile, I have to say I'm really enjoying Quade Cooper's winding up of the Kiwis. Sure, the guy can be a "boofhead" (as described by former captain Nick Farr-Jones) and his on-field brain snaps can be costly, but anyone who wants to pop the almighty egos of McCaw and the All Blacks is ok in my book. This comment from a former All Black sums up the Kiwi hubris*:



Full article here

*Given their reputation as World Cup chokers, the hubris may be a little misplaced.