Rugby Day (pt 1)

Nice snowfall last night meant a reasonably chilly day. It was also ball-numbingly cold last night, a whisky and cigar had seemed a good idea. At the time.

But onto Rugby Day.

Scotland v Samoa
The Scottish resurgence, after the massacre by NZ, did rest on following up the Sth Afr victory with a win over Samoa. Samoa are ranked below Scotland, and as pointed out on the commentary, have a population of 178,000. Which you can halve, since it is a men's sport.
Good game, very tight traditional rugger. I did feel a bit sorry for the Samoan's, Aberdeen wasn't very warm, and even the lights came on at 230pm. Yes. At late lunch time, they switched the lights on.
I enjoyed the game, both teams were messy, but it was good. Scotland's quick lead was eaten away by Samoa who were kicking penalities over (would have helped a bit last week against England). Samoa crawled back to level, and with a couple of minutes to go the game was headed for a draw - which would have been a good, reaosnable result. Sadly, Samoa couldn't keep themselves penalty free, and so Scotland escaped with a, largely undeserved, win.

Wales v New Zealand
 The press has been saying Wales are a good team playing badly. Signs recently haven't convinced me of that. And the Welsh at work were not feeling too happy. Bumped into one of them this morning at the bottlestore before he headed to the game. Either way, I was confident. But the Welsh came to play, even if it was a very ugly game. Boring even. Couple of moments of brilliance, but having to listen to Jonathan Davies whinge about pretty much everything does get to you...
Having a player sent off seemed to fire the team and we scored, and at that point the tide changed. Was all a bit close until the last bit. Didn't help that the unthinkable happened, and Dan missed kicks.

England v South Africa
Heartily sick of the newspapers claiming this is the English rennaissance. Sure they are running the ball, but really a loss to NZ, win against a limited Aus team, and a struggling win over Samoa.
Sth Afr haven't been playing too well, and have suffered thanks to drugs tests and injuries. So the English were confident that they'd clean this one up. First half, Sth Afr forwards were certainly out muscling the english, leading to a two penalties apiece at halftime. Sth Afr defence is playing much better than it has recently, even if players are collapsing at a rate of knots due to injury. But their backs are running nicely, and scoring tries. Yes, I'm liking this result.

Me.