There's a difference between having belief in certain fairy stories and repeating the inflammatory sides of them to all and sundry as a high profile individual on social media when your employer has told you to shut the **** up about it and stop bringing us into disrepute previously

Rugby Australia is also fairly busto at the moment and facing threats from other sports and to an extent Twiggy Forrests new start up league (Perth lost their Super Rugby team, he started a series with them and some Asian/Island teams.

Major sponsor of RA is Qantas, Qantas CEO is gay, and he had been told previously to knock it off.

Alledgedly offered 1mill pre trial to walk away and said no. So LOL all around.

https://rawling.github.io/wr-calc/

So Wales were #1 for a little over 24 hours in the live rankings but in the official rankings miss out on knocking NZ off the top spot for the first time since 2009.

The USA needs to get into an annual league. Either a Pacific League with Fiji/Japan/Tonga/Samoa or if the Six Nations introduces promotion and relegation add them to the Euro leagues. The former idea would probably be great for the Pacific Islands.

I liked your table - although I have no idea what the basis for the ratings are and what the numbers "mean". I don't see why a 24-team (ratings based) World Cup wouldn't be viable, and it would be good for the game imo.

rank Team Points

1 New Zealand 89.04

2 Wales 88.89

3 Ireland 88.69

4 England 87.34

5 South Africa 86.83

6 Australia 84.41

7 Scotland 80.17

8 France 79.42

9 Japan 77.21

10 Fiji 76.98

11 Argentina 76.29

12 Georgia 74.42

13 Italy 72.04

14 USA 71.93

15 Tonga 71.49

16 Samoa 69.08

17 Spain 68.15

18 Romania 66.69

19 Uruguay 65.18

20 Russia 64.81

21 Canada 61.36

22 Portugal 61.33

23 Namibia 61.01

24 Hong Kong 59.64

This upcoming World Cup is going to be amazing and super competitive

Hopefully the refs aren't ****ing useless and ruin in like the last few.

England are not good

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

Embarrassing England meltdown.

Amazing defense by Ireland yesterday. Exciting finish.

Close

Rumours South Africa joining up with the Northern 6 nations and leaving the Rugby Championship. If they do that would probably have to beg Japan to come back and eventually create a Southern Super Rugby comp of 8x NZ teams, 4x Aus (prefer 5 with Force back). Sunwolves Jags and maybe an Islander team.

Have the RC become a "6 nations" of Aus/NZ/Argentina/Japan/one or two islands etc probably

This is like watching two Scotlands play each other.

.

Sexton had a nightmare. England defended like monsters. A shame, losing bonus point was definitely possible there and could be key at the end.

Almost a necro bump, but how England almost managed to blow this one was almost impressive. Thought after their third try that the bonus point was in reach, but nope.

Almost managed to blow it is a bit of a stretch. After the third try I don't think there was any point at which they weren't massive favourites. Probably should have gone on and got the bonus point but they were never in any real danger of not winning.

I'm curious what people's thoughts on the red card are though. I lean on the side of thinking that it was probably correct. Had Tuilagi actually made any attempt at all to use his arms in the tackle then the fact that North was so low would be enough mitigation to make it a yellow or possibly even just a penalty.

Scotland with all the luck in the world today, but still, famous victory. Lol France, no points for you.

Also nice imagery with a rainbow over Murrayfield.

Just re the red card - I discussed this today as it goes with a former international referee who works in the game. If no arms are used (they clearly weren't here) and there was force (not sure what the proper phrase is but it clearly was here) and contact is made with the head or neck then it's 100% a red card, so this was the correct all. All referees and coaches were given a flowchart to cover these kind of situations before the world cup and Eddie Jones is talking crap - he knows it was 100% a red card.

Frankly, if he had caught North flush he'd have left the ground in the ambulance and - given his history - that may have been his final game. This is exactly the sort of challenge that the IRB is trying to cut out as that was insanely dangerous.

Argentina!

This autumn tournament thingy isn't being broadcast by anyone in Germany... Any rugby regs able to helpfully direct me to a solution of this problem?

Thought Amazon picked it up?

Sexy try

Didn't find it yesterday, at least. Maybe in other countries or maybe I'm just a moron