England got the job done but it wasn’t pretty. It’s a results business though. One foot in the QF.
The game is in a real mess at the moment with 4 or 5 huge issues which aren’t being sorted as they should be.
The head contact interpretations are hugely inconsistent. I could rant but we all know the mess that it is.
Players are too big and too many replacements are permitted. If they all had to play 80 mins (say 2-3 replacements max) they’d have to be more agile and less bulky and the game would be better to watch, more skilful, as it used to be. Sir Ian McGeechan and Sir Gareth Edwards suggested this 5 years back to WR in an open letter and it fell on deaf ears.
Players at all but pro level have new laws this season, ill thought out and clearly made by lawyers. The head injury and early onset dementia that
@Gooner mentions is a concern, but the sport has done a great deal in the last 10-15 years to protect players and minimise risk. It has gone about as far as it can, but in doing so has spoiled the purity of the game and now games are won and lost on a head knock slo-mo.
Re
@jonny mentioning MND, Joost, Doddie, Ed Slater, Rob Burrow et al hasn’t been attributed to rugby. If MND were, there’d likely be 100’s of ex players suffering.
And final one, and by far the most ridiculous is players who play for a country which is clearly not theirs.
I have zero issue with folk like Billy, Manu, Mako who moved here at primary school age. I’ve a massive problem with unions signing centrally contracted players for their regions and waiting 5 years for their nationality to change. ‘Scotland’ is a joke at present, WP Nel, Schoeman, Steyn, Van Der Merwe, Tuipulotu, Dempsey…. I could go on. And the best Irish side ever….. has 3 Kiwis Aki, JGP, Lowe and an Aussie (Mack) in it. Been with Irish and Scottish mates this weekend and they’re embarrassed by it. Decide your nationality at 15-16 years of age, set in stone, simple.
The game I’ve always loved is in a bit of a mess after 30 years of professionalism, it could learn a lot from Rugby League. I’ll still watch the RWC for the next few weeks, I can’t see us winning it, but I do hope it’s won by a nation who haven’t bent the laws, and are represented by men who play for THEIR country; and a moment of brilliance to win it not a red card from a TMO that they’ll rescind 3 days later when it’s too late.
Rant over, but I think we are too far down the tracks to get back to what it once was. Now roll on the cricket in India