World Cup Preparation

I watched the first half of the Wales vs. England game on Saturday to see how the Northern Hemisphere is shaping up for the big dance. England looked fully in control at the half and the game ended with England thrashing Wales 62 -5 so I am glad I skipped the second half! It looks like England may be regaining some of their form from 2003 but truth be told Wales couldn't win a lineout to save themselves and rarely kept possession for any length of time. The real test for England will be next weekend against France; I think this game will show us the front runner for the Northern Hemisphere although Ireland may have something to say about that.

According to former All Black captain Sean Fitzpatrick, complacency would be the one weakness in the New Zealand squad that would worry him in their quest for the World Cup. This is also my main concern with the 5 week break and then a relatively easy pool schedule; will they be 100% ready come the quarter and semi finals? From what I can see all the top teams except for New Zealand and Australia have scheduled World Cup “warm up” matches, I am assuming, to keep the boys in game shape. This brings me back to an earlier post where I questioned why the boys didn't all join their unions for the first few rounds of the NPC. I hope this doesn't come back to bite them.

I see that the Wallabies have taken to running a boot camp for their players with midnight marches and forced swims in ice cold water in south-east Queensland, sounds a bit like prison doesn’t it? Oh well at least they are re-connecting with their roots!