Whoo Hoo Hoo! That was too close for comfort! I had been critical of Jake White’s plan to rest all the best Springboks and to allow Bob Skinstad and his “dirt trackers” to tackle Tonga. I felt it foolish to take more than 8 players out of the team at once and to under estimate the Tongans. Tonga have performed better than any other team in the World Cup and have elevated their world ranking in the last couple of weeks. South Africa were very lucky to win this match.

From the outset, the Tongans were settled, determined and on the attack. The Springbok B team were lacklustre, unimaginative and unsettled. I do not rate Pretorius or Skinstad very highly and both had a poor day. Skinstad failed to lead his troops and Pretorius would have battled in schoolboy rugby. South Africa were doomed to lose. Only Pienaar impressed and scored an individual try.

Fortunately White had some powerful reserves on the bench and after 30 minutes of play, was forced to bring them all on. Captain Smit led the reserves out on to the field. Matfield, Habana, Smith, Botha, Steyn and Montgomery arrived, to save the day and a probable loss. Montgomery made history, as the most capped Springbok of all time. Immediately these 7 replacements made a difference and the Springboks looked capable of winning.

But, both Steyn and Habana were yellow carded and South Africa were forced to play with only 13 men. The Tongans quickly capitalised and brought the score to 27 - 22, to the ‘Boks, with only 6 minutes left. Within 4 minutes the Tongans scored 2 tries and the ‘Boks retaliated with a try of their own and with 4 minutes to go the score was 30 - 22. The last 10 minutes were nail biting with it being anybody’s game. With 2 minutes left, the Tongans reduced the deficit to 30 - 25 and looked menacing with a last attack. Fortunately for South Africa the final whistle blew and the game was over. South Africa won by 30 - 25 and scored 4 tries to the Tongans 3, but this was a huge effort by Tonga and they must be upset by not winning. The South Africans must have got a huge fright and surely consider themselves lucky.

We mentioned, a few weeks ago, that not all the referees were on the same page and Barnes was a bit too whistle happy. He was also a bit harsh for sin binning Steyn and Habana and we hope this does not result in any further citings. Although South Africa have an excellent first team and a wealth of individual talent amongst some of the young players like Steyn and Pienaar, it is very worrying that they do not have sufficient depth in the second team. The dirt trackers would have battled to beat a junior side on a Sunday school picnic. Anyway South Africa picked up the bonus point and so did Tonga.

The next match and the 25th of the Rugby World Cup 2007 was the game between England and Samoa. England had not had a very good campaign and must have been very happy at the return of Jonny Wilkinson. The big, tough Samoans gave the English a hard time, but were not up to scratch and England beat them 44 - 22. England scored 4 tries to Samoa’s 1.

The 26th match was Argentina versus Namibia. Namibia are a small club and do not have the depth that other countries enjoy. If the suffer injuries to their top players, they don’t have worth substitutes and are left with a mish mash of a team. None the less, they are a proud team and never give up, but could not match the skills of Argentina. Argentina smashed them for a victory of 63 - 3. The Argentinians ran in 9 tries.

Next game on the fixture list was Australia and Fiji. Like Tonga, Fiji must never be laughed off as a threat, but were no match for Australia, who ran in 7 tries to Fiji’s 2, winning by 55 - 12.

The 28th match was between Scotland and New Zealand. Scotland were playing at home, in Edinburgh and should have had some home ground advantage, but were dismally disappointing, in not scoring one solitary point. New Zealand were comfortable winners, with a final score of 40 - 0. The All Blacks scored 6 tries.

Canada faced Japan in the 29th match and these evenly matched teams played their hearts out. Canada were happy to be sitting at 12 - 5, with only a few minutes of playing time left, but the Japs never gave up and with only 2 minutes left, they managed to barge their way over the try line for 5 points. They kicked the conversion on the blow for fulltime, levelling the scores at 12 - 12. Each team scored a try.

Two minnow teams were next, but fairly evenly matched. Romania played Portugal in this match. The Romanians are big tough fellows and far superior to Portugal. The Portugese flyhalf had an excellent game, but it was not enough to see victory. Romania won by 14 - 10, with 2 tries to 1.

The 31st match of the Rugby World Cup tournament was between another 2 minnow teams, Georgia and Namibia. Namibia are a game side, but injury and lack of depth left them with a vulnerable team and it showed. They were unable to put any points on the board and were beaten convincingly by Georgia. The final score was 30 - 0, with Georgia scoring 3 tries.

Samoa played USA in the 32nd match and the 9th of the 3rd week. USA were never expected to put up much resistance to the Samoan onslaught and

The last match of the third week and the 33rd match of the contest, was England versus Tonga. Tonga have been one of the highlights in this year’s contest and the English, by contrast have never looked like defending champions. On the night however, England found better form and whipped Tonga to a 36 - 13 drubbing. England scored 4 tries, to give them a bonus point. They are lucky to have Jonny Wilkinson back, as even with missing 3 kicks, he still scored 16 individual points.

At the end of the third week of the Rugby World Cup 2007, the pools look like this:

Pool A: South Africa 15, England 14, Tonga 9, Samoa 5, USA 1
Pool B: Australia 15, Wales 10, Fiji 10, Japan 3, Canada 2
Pool C: New Zealand 15, Scotland 10, Italy 8, Romania 5, Portugal 1
Pool D: Argentina 14, France 10, Ireland 9, Georgia 5, Namibia 0

In the next week of rugby, it seems that New Zealand will pick up 5 points, taking them to 20 and top of Pool C. Australia should get 5 more points, also to 20 and top of Pool B. In a tighter match, Wales should be able to grab 4 points, giving them a total of 14 and placing them second in Pool B. Scotland should be able to pick up 4 points, taking them to 14 and placing them second in Pool C. France will get 4 and maybe even 5 points, emerging second in Pool D, on 14, or 15 points. Then a toss up, with Ireland and Argentina. I think Argentina will get themselves an extra 4 points, which would take them to 18 and top of Pool D. And in the last match, South Africa should get a full 5 points, staying top of Pool A, with 19 points.

These results would then create quarter finals as such:

Australia (20) vs. England (14)
New Zealand (20) vs. France (15)
South Africa (19) vs. Wales (14)
Argentina (18) vs. Scotland (14)

By the time we reach the semi finals, I think the 4 Southern Hemisphere teams will emerge victorious, creating these playoffs:

Australia vs. New Zealand and South Africa vs. Argentina.

The 2 teams reaching the finals, I think will be New Zealand and South Africa.

Derek Robson is an up and coming, South African, internet marketer, with a vision of empowering all fellow South Africans and non U.S folk, to have equal opportunity and success, on the internet. He is a syndicated article writer. He and his wife Sally, have started a string of sites, resources, courses and articles, as part of Dersalsites. For daily postings and articles, on Internet marketing, South African business, list building, affiliate marketing, the law of attraction, rugby and general topics, check his blogsite, at: http://dersalsites.com/southafricanbusiness  

To remain informed of our progress, in trying to find satisfactory alternatives, by newsletter and mail and to get recommended tools and lessons and to start your journey to wealth, sign up here. It’s free. Click this link: http://www.dersalsites.com/newsletter/  We will even throw in some free software for you, when you join.

Make sure you get our course on Internet Marketing. This is a comprehensive course, comprising of over 243 pages, with pictures and videos, to help explain exactly what to do. This is a fantastic e-course and is broken into 13 lessons. To get your free course, click here :  http://dersalsites.com/course/  

Visit our new site on fitness and bodybuilding at http://dersalsites.com/clintstraining/

The Secret is no longer a secret. Find out more about the Law Of Attraction and how you can apply it in your life, to get anything you want. Look at this http://dersalsites.com/loa/

Bookmark to: