Great game. The end was weird. First Mogg misses the kick to touch, then the Chiefs give them the ball back rather than running off the minute that was left on the clock.

pretty crazy game between SA and NZ right now. I don't quite know all the nuances but I'm enjoying this sport.

If you don't watch rugby often then you definitely picked a good one. Up until the 4th NZ try killed it off as a contest I thought that was going to be the greatest game I'd ever seen. Some amazing hands for the tries in the first half.

Helps when there was a heap of incentive to score tries

KidColin, this match was part of "The Rugby Championship" a four team tournament. As well as getting championship points for winning games, you can get bonus points for scoring 4 tries, as well as losing by less then 7 points.

To win the championship, South Africa had to not only win the game, but had to collect a bonus point for scoring 4 tries. As such, they took some risks that they otherwise might not have taken in an attempt to win the title.

It made for quite a great spectacle, and is a good example of perhaps why we need to inject more value into tries (perhaps by making it 7 points for a try, or by reducing the value of penalties.

yeah, I knew it was the rugby championship and I'm aware of how scoring works and the bonus points. NZ sealed the win with their try about 5 minutes after I posted. I like how the bonus points provide some incentive during lopsided games.

My roommate is a little more into it than I am and he's explained some of the rules. Some of the stuff I don't get is exactly what is a penalty and what isn't, and which penalties result in scrums vs. free kicks. I know knock ons result in scrums. Anything else?

Things I like about the sport:
- fairly continuous play (other than scrums taking for ****ing ever to set up)
- the athleticism on display
- the refereeing: seriously, best refereeing in any sport by a country mile. Always fair, reviews are quick, they take no guff from the players. There's really only one beef I have with them and I'll address that below.
- having to touch the ball down on tries. brilliant. adds a lot of excitement.

Don't like:
- the length of time scrums take
- sometimes the play does get fairly stagnant with barely any advancement in either direction
- it seems like a lot of borderline forward passes are given the benefit of the doubt, even when reviewed. I thought one of SA's tries (the long one up the wing) was the result of a forward pass. But if a guy is at least trying to throw parallel, if the ball carries a bit forward they let it slide.

Rugby is pretty awesome.

NZ are just unreal to watch, they just make it look ridiculously easy.

Roll on the Autumn internationals, can't wait to see Ireland under new management.

oh forgot to mention my biggest dislike: how costly penalties are. Not sure what the true %s are, but any penalty in their own 3rd results in a fair bit of expected points for the other team.

Personally as a fan of rugby for over 30 years I would like to see this addressed. Maybe 2 points for a pen kick inside a certain distance and 3 for say a much longer kick. this might encourage more touch finder pens from say around 30 yards, but i could be way off.

I personally dont think you can have varying points for the distance of a penalty. It would probably involving the drawing of an arc around the field that would be a bit of a pain to police.

I definately agree with penalties on the whole being made less valuable relative to a try.

Thats because a huge chunk of penalties committed were intentional. It's pretty easy to go a whole game without committing a penalty, but in order to be the best, you have to play on the line of whats legal

This so much.

Also ref cam is pretty cool when its scrum time.

I know this is the Rugby as in Union thread, but since most of the posters who care about Union will also have a strong correlation with those who follow League I guess I can post this here.

Rugby League world Cup starts now.

First match Australia vs England. Australia odds on to win the tournament.

Opening game is now at Cardiff which is pretty lol, surely this game should have been at Wembley or something.

Anyway, cant be F'd making a good OP for League World Cup, so I will care about this for a week or two until the Autumn Internationals start.

heh, not sure that could be any less true.

anyway, watching yeah. and no not worth doing an OP, i have done origin ones in the past and they died.

Major countries involved in League World Cup

Australia
NZ
A bunch of UK countries
France
Islands

Union

Australia
NZ
A bunch of UK
France
Islands
A few others (Argies, South Africa)

Even if the Union fans don't follow, the nationalities are going to have a solid cross over.

Anyway.

Australia down 10-0.

In a way, I want to see us lose so we get a really weird NZ trying to lose a game vibe to avoid having to play both a semi-final vs Australia and final vs presumably England. Going to be Olympic badminton all over again.

Bump for Autumn internationals

England v Australia on now.

Aussies lead 13-6. Won't know what to make of this tbh, England's first game in a while, while the Aussies have been together for a a few months. Think the line opened up at England -5, closed to -3 at KO. Probably says it all.

LOLSTRALIA

Who decided that having both England teams kick off at the exact same time was a good idea?

**** you George Clancy you ****ing potato eating irish ****,open your ****ing eyes you wanker and that ****ing TMO can get ****ed, clear obstruction you **** and not to mention the touch judge who missed the obvious foot on the sideline. The Northern hemisphere are a ****ing disgrace cheating **** ****s

u mad

The jealousy from you pommy pricks is obvious, I cant wait for the ashes and Bay 13 at the MCG get stuck into that little cheating **** Stuart Broad

he mad

We just need to lose to Fiji in the league for maximum rustling

lol AussieJack.

We should nuke you from orbit for daring to spawn Steve Dai Walsh. And for being utter ****s.

Gonna enjoy watching the French get destroyed

French crowd booing the Haka, wow they are ******ed