{"id":5936,"date":"2011-10-09T19:57:59","date_gmt":"2011-10-09T09:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=5936"},"modified":"2011-10-09T20:03:13","modified_gmt":"2011-10-09T10:03:13","slug":"rugby-world-cup-2011-quarter-finals-quade-coopers-day-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=5936","title":{"rendered":"Rugby World Cup 2011 Quarter Finals – Quade Cooper’s Day Off"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The RWC - Causing 4 million Kiwis to simultaneously cry every four years since 1987<\/p><\/div>\n

The last time we reached the World Cup Quarter Finals, I was an All Blacks supporter and it was a night that Southern hemisphere rugby would rather forget with France and England dumping New Zealand and Australia out of the tournament.\u00a0 This time around, Ireland’s win over the Wallabies meant that the quarter final bracket was split into hemispheres.\u00a0 Here’s how they went down.<\/p>\n

IRELAND 10 WALES 22<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I caught the second half of this game at the pub before Brisbane Roar played their season opener.\u00a0 Apparently the Irish only caught the second half of the game as well.\u00a0 They let the Welsh run out to an early lead and never fully recovered.\u00a0 They conceded three tries and two of them had some rather soft defence.\u00a0 Why didn’t you play this rubbish against the Wallabies dammit<\/em>.\u00a0 A real crash back down to Earth for the Irish who were flying high after an undefeated group stage.\u00a0 Wales meanwhile lost their first game against the Springboks but have built from there and continued to improve with each game.\u00a0 A dark horse to make the final.<\/p>\n

FRANCE 19 ENGLAND 12<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It was pretty funny seeing all the despondent Irish supporters at the pub sticking around and throwing their support behind France, including a raucous rendition of their national anthem.\u00a0 France did That Usual World Cup France thing of playing like garbage during the group stage and then inexplicably finding a fifth gear when its counts.\u00a0 They absolutely blitzed a shellshocked English side in the opening thirty minutes.\u00a0 They ran out of gas in the second half but it was enough to see them through and end Johnny Wilkinson’s run on rugby’s biggest stage.\u00a0 It’s been hard to assess England’s performance in this tournament.\u00a0 They clearly have a talented squad but played pretty poorly in several games (notably against Scotland and Argentina).\u00a0 Not unlike the Wallabies I guess.<\/p>\n

SOUTH AFRICA 9 AUSTRALIA 11<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The most nerve wracking and intense game of rugby that I can recall seeing.\u00a0 This match will be remember for South Africa’s incredible statistical dominance and Quade Cooper possibly playing the worst game that anyone in a Wallabie jumper has played.\u00a0 First the numbers.\u00a0 80% of the game was played in the Wallabies’ half.\u00a0 The Wallabies completed zero 5+ phases of play.\u00a0 They lost five of their own lineouts.\u00a0 <\/strong>They made over 100 tackles compared to the Springbok’s 30.\u00a0 And yet somehow, they managed to knock out the defending champs.\u00a0 Cooper was horrendous and had one of those games where nothing<\/em> goes right.\u00a0 He probably missed a double digit number of tackles, kicked the ball out on the full a couple of times, had a kick charged down and basically looked completely limp in attack.\u00a0 What saved the squad was Genia’s cool defensive work in the backline and David Pocock who must have turned over the possession for the Wallabies about five or six times.\u00a0 An incredible game to watch.<\/p>\n

South African coach Peter De Villier’s resigned shortly after the game.\u00a0 I’ll miss that crazy fella with his immaculate moustache and his weird, occasional racist outbursts.<\/p>\n

NEW ZEALAND 33 ARGENTINA 10
\n“Read it and Weepu”<\/em><\/em>
\n<\/strong><\/h2>\n

When Argentina scored the opening try of the game and converted it to take the lead, All Blacks fans were in for a shock.\u00a0 They were actually witnessing an All Blacks game that was still somewhat competitive after the opening twenty minutes.\u00a0 It really took until around the <\/strong>hour mark for the ABs to run away with it.\u00a0 An impressive showing from the Pumas who have really come a long way in the last four years.<\/p>\n

An interesting note to the game was that Colin Slade appeared to pick up an injury effectively giving Aaron Cruden the coveted Number 10 spot by default.<\/p>\n

Next week:<\/p>\n

New Zealand vs Australia<\/em><\/h2>\n

Wales vs France<\/em><\/h2>\n

Wales are the form team heading into the semis.\u00a0 Wales.\u00a0 \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last time we reached the World Cup Quarter Finals, I was an All Blacks supporter and it was a night that Southern hemisphere rugby would rather forget with France and England dumping New Zealand and Australia out of the tournament.\u00a0 This time around, Ireland’s win over the Wallabies meant that the quarter final bracket …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[149,114,1071,1073,1042,1044,1072,150],"class_list":["post-5936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-all-blacks","tag-england","tag-france","tag-ireland","tag-rugby-world-cup-2011","tag-springboks","tag-wales","tag-wallabies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5936"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5944,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5936\/revisions\/5944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}