All Blacks 76 Italy 14

First things first, if you don’t face the Haka you are just going to make the boys angrier and even more determined to crush you on the battlefield! Come on Italy show some respect and face up to the challenge! Oh well you got what you deserved!

I felt a whole lot better after that performance, I know its not one of the best teams they were playing but even so, the fitness and the game plan was quite impressive. Still some work to do on the ball handling (the 2 Italy tries were a direct result of handling errors by the AB’s) but they were bound to be rusty after 7 weeks without a test.

As for some other tests on the weekend, shout out to Canada for taking it to Wales in the first half, the look of shock on the Wales players for 40 minutes was awesome! Watching the Samoa v S.A. was painful given the refereeing in the first 20 minutes and the dirty play by S.A. I think Samoa deserved a little more than they got. Nice to see England in poor form against the USA and Yikes! I couldn’t watch more than 20 minutes of Japan against the Wallabies.

Onwards to take on Portugal next week, which should be interesting given the talk about not embarrassing them and watching out for injuries. Remember when you are not playing at 100% that is when injuries happen!

All Blacks vs. Italy

On paper this does not look like much competition for the All Blacks but take into consideration the following:

1) Most of the NZ boys have not played a test match in almost 7 weeks.
2) Italy had an impressive lead up to the World Cup almost beating Ireland
who is seen as the dark horse to upset France in their Pool.
3) Overconfidence vs. a team with nothing to lose

These are just three things that the AB’s have to contend with, oh and also don’t get excited and take silly penalties.

All this being said I am excited that the games are about to begin and we can all look forward to 7 weeks of rugby, 3 of which I will be in Europe top experience live. Hopefully this will culminate in the AB’s hoisting Bill into the air October 20th in St. Denis!