Rugby World Cup 2011

[whitegoodman]

Dinny are you sure ur not an Oz with that confidence?

Whilst I hope your right I have a bad feeling about this one.  Wales are a very dangerous side and in Warburton and North they have 2 potential world stars.  Warburton and O Brien are 2 completely different 7's but both are very effective in different ways.  If he is allowed to play his game he will do a lot of damage to any clean ball Ireland are looking for.

Surprised Hook isnt starting myself but both Jones's are well past their best and Byrne hasnt shown form since their grandslam year so there is no surprise there.    The front rows are equally matched, Ireland have a better 2nd row and the back row as well as half backs will be an interesting tustle.  Wales outside backs are very dangerous and given quick ball can tear any team apart and I give them a slight edge here.  The fact that a lot of this team hasnt been involved in too many of those defeats to Ireland in the past 10 year means that stat is irrelevant imo.

My biggest fear is that Ireland dont do favourites tag very well, at any sport.  They even crawled over the line in the grand slam year against Wales.

Heres hoping Dinny is right and Im talking complete shite

[Dinny Breen]

The grand slam was a razorback gorilla on their backs, they achieved it though.They were favourites against Italy last week in a do or die game and won comfortably.

I'm not been cocky, I just believe that this team are better than Wales and I firmly believe they will deliver Saturday morning.

Rugby is very much about the mental side and mentally this Irish side have made all the right noises since the victory over Oz and backed it up against Italy. Wales do not have that mental strength in their locker.

[sans pessimism]

hon Ireland

[gawa316]

Can't wait for this now and Dinny's post has give the old confidence a boost. The Flynns is in the fridge ready for the pan, the strong coffee has been bought, all I need now is to set the alarm for 5.30 and away we go...c'mon top feck Ireland!!

[sammymaguire]

Sky+ it!! 6am my back side, get up at 9am and just turn on the TV Guide, green button and away you go!

[Boycey]

Sky+ it!! 6am my back side, get up at 9am and just turn on the TV Guide, green button and away you go!

lightweight

[Denn Forever]

Anyone have Sammy's number so we could give him a heads up?

[Puckoon]

Sky+ it!! 6am my back side, get up at 9am and just turn on the TV Guide, green button and away you go!

lightweight

light, wait?

[gawa316]

Sky+ it!! 6am my back side, get up at 9am and just turn on the TV Guide, green button and away you go!

Not a chance, sure the England France game will be on at that time...and anyway the kid will have me up from around 6 am, may as well make the most of it

[Rouge_Diablo]

Can't wait for this now and Dinny's post has give the old confidence a boost. The Flynns is in the fridge ready for the pan, the strong coffee has been bought, all I need now is to set the alarm for 5.30 and away we go...c'mon top feck Ireland!!

Have any of the recent decenters over on your other forum jumped back on the bandwagon yet?

The major issue for sat morning is whether or not to drink straight through !

[gawa316]

Have any of the recent decenters over on your other forum jumped back on the bandwagon yet?

By 'your other forum' I assume you OWC? 

Haven't posted on there or even had a look in I don't know how long so sorry can't answer your question.

The major issue for sat morning is whether or not to drink straight through !

Would love to and once upon a time it wouldn't have been an issue at all but sadly times change . I've a wedding to go after so probably best not to turn up blocked at the church

[sans pessimism]

Anyone have Sammy's number so we could give him a heads up?

text him with the score at 8.55!

[ludermor]

i doubt we will get 55 points.

[Dinny Breen]

http://aseriesofterribledecisions.blogspot.com/2011/09/if-irish-rugby-profiles-were-more.html?m=0

Paul O'Connell: Paul O'Connell is someone who looks like God designed him as a drunk bet using an experimental 'Minotaur' template. He is a terrifyingly large man and the only player that requires a Heavy Vehicles licence to run from one end of the pitch to the other. At 6ft 7 and 18 stone he isn't the fastest player but this just adds to his, already considerable, intimidation factor. Those extra few moments it takes him to make the tackle give ball-carriers ample time to realize what a spectacularly bad choice it was to take up professional rugby.
He's a proponent of the new 'choke tackle' system of defense, because apparently he didn't feel that normal tackles were violent enough.

Ronan O'Gara: Many people, including myself, have said nasty things about O'Gara but in his defence he's always had the perfect comeback: 1039 points! O'Gara is like a custom video game character who put all his points into kicking power and accuracy but didn't have enough left over to cover running or tackling. The Cork man may not be able to tackle or carry the ball but to be completely fair to him it's hard to do either of those things when you have a f**king sniper rifle instead of a leg.

Cian Healy: Cian Healy is the kind of forward that ball-carriers have nightmares about. His nickname is apparently 'Church'. I'm assuming because many a poor player has hurriedly made their peace with God in the face of his rapidly approaching figure.Healy is known for having to constantly replace his contact lenses during the match, presumably so he can better see the looks of fear on players faces as bears down upon them. When he's not making attacking players immediately regret ever touching the ball he enjoys DJing. I have no idea whether he's any good or not but even if his set was two hours of vuvuzela music I still wouldn't be brave enough to criticize him.

Stephen Ferris: Stephen Ferris is.....actually you know what? f**k it! A picture says a thousand words (all of which in this case are some variation on 'Holy f**king Christ!' and 'Aaaarggh!')


That's Ferris picking up the Australian scrum half Will Genia and running with him for 15 yards. You'd think that carrying a fully grown man would slow him down but it actually took two of Genia's teammates to rescue him before Ferris could kick the poor f**ker over the bar in a drop goal attempt. I think it's a testament to the bravery of the Australian team that they kept playing after seeing one of their players being used as an executive squeeze toy.

Sean O'Brien: Sean O'Brien worked out long ago that running around players is tiring and inefficient so he much prefers to just run through them instead. Getting hit by Sean O'Brien is marginally less painful than being hit by a train but at least the train doesn't wait for you to get up so it can do the exact same thing again 5 minutes later. The only reason he wears a scrum cap is so he doesn't have to pick bits of defender's teeth out of his hair. Wheelchair salesmen send him Christmas cards.

Jonathan Sexton: Sexton is a racehorse cleverly disguised as a human being.  It's whispered that he's the successful end result of Irish scientists trying to create an O'Gara/O'Driscoll hybrid. He's stronger and faster than any Fly Half has a right to be and while he can't consistently match O'Gara's terrifying accuracy he makes up for this by occasionally showing up and winning matches single handedly. His  28 points (including two tries) in last year's Heineken cup final was one of the most spectacular comebacks in rugby history. The only reason the Catholic church didn't declare it a miracle is because they were afraid of the competition. Despite his game changing abilities Sexton has often had some confidence issues when it comes to big international matches, which, to be honest, is something I find a little bit endearing in someone who's clearly the son of Zeus.

Brian O'Driscoll: Ireland's captain, star center, leading try scorer and all-round general messiah O'Driscoll is who Batman dresses up as for Halloween. He moves at speeds more usually associated with sports cars than human beings and generally does so with his nose brushing the turf since his centre of gravity is apparently somewhere around his ankles. For the first two years of his career he was just known to defenders as 'a green blur that went past me at knee height and filled me feelings of inadequacy'. He had a nearly career ending injury in 2005 when he dislocated his shoulder but then decided that playing with two shoulders was for pussies anyway and went onto become the player of the tournament in the 2006, 2007 and 2009 6 Nations championships. That's not beating injury, that's kicking injury to death and then f**king injury's girlfriend on it's still warm corpse.
He broke the Irish try scoring record and then decided that that just wasn't impressive enough and went ahead and broke the 6 Nations try scoring record as well. I could list all his other accomplishments but doing so would make me and every single other human being look incredibly inadequate suffice to say that the only reason  he let the Irish team play so badly in the Autumn internationals is so he could show Jesus that isn't such a big deal to come back from the dead.

[Main Street]

These Rugby fellahs are getting way ahead of themselves.
Win the feckin' quarter final first, then eulogize afterwards.

Lose against Wales and it's all for nothing.