Rugby League World Cup

Wane doing wane things. It’s a tragedy that Leeming was left out.

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Yeah, he’s looking really good. Can’t believe how sparingly they used him yesterday. Looking forward to him lining up in blue and amber next year.

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Still annoyed that Hicks bottled giving Waerea-Hargreaves the red there. Ireland giving as good as they’ve got, even if NZ’s class is evident.

All today’s games look a bit one sided don’t they?

Even as an England fan, great to see Greece score a try.

Greece out on their feet for the last 20 minutes and it wasn’t even a decent training exercise for England at that point.

Good that thye’re at the world cup, but you wonder if there had been a bit of funding for conditioning coaches for some of the minor teams it might have made for better spectacles.

Too many one-sided games in this stage of the tournament. Not a great advert for the game.

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Most world cups in sporte have them though and the hope is you have a system in place that can try to start to address the disparities.

I.e. It’s not that long since the All Blacks put 145 points on Japan at the Union World Cup and today they’ve only beaten them on the back of a massive forward pass being ignored for a try.

You definitely get the same thing in Union and I’d always rather watch League because it’s just a better game. It’s fair to say that there is a slightly bigger pool of competitive nations in Union than League though (6 or 7 in Union, 3 or 4 in League). A 16 nation World Cup is a stretch for either sport but especially for League.

I think the jury is out on whether being repeatedly thrashed in a high-profile tournament actually encourages the growth of a sport in a country.

Over the years I’ve been watching League I’ve not seen much sign of the game improving outside of its core nations. You could say the same of Union with the possible exception of Japan. In contrast, in cricket the likes of Ireland, Afghanistan and Bangladesh have definitely become much more competitive with the core nations in the short forms of the game.

Looking forward to the knock-out stages of this tournament anyway. Really interested in seeing this England’s team’s defence tested a bit more than it has been so far.

Yeah, it was a terrible call. I was at the game and it was fair to say Hicks got a fair bit of stick from the crowd. He was very happy to ping Ireland for all sorts of technical nonsense, but bottled the easiest decision of the night.

Anyway, I’ve seen some great atmospheres at headingley and last night was up there with them. The noise when Senior took that interception was something else.

Not sure why I thought Australia would be weaker this time around. Latrell is just an absolute joy to watch….

Hoping for closer contests today, but expecting the favourites to win fairly comfortably.

However, Samoa v Tonga tomorrow……

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Going to the match this afternoon. First rugby match for my son

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Ah that’s great. Hope you both have a great time! Already looks a great atmosphere at the women’s game.

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Yeah we will set of soon and hopefully catch the end of it

Pretty good start!

This is pretty extraordinary from England.

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Attendance looks a bit pathetic? Should really be geting your own Qf full as a host nation

I wish Vossy was doing all of the big games. Dave Woods is absolute cringe

Pretty sure it was announced as a sell out. Looks to be the first few rows where there is a bit of space so maybe a few have ducked it due to the weather.