World Cup warm ups!

Welsh through and through, however in my humble opinion the result was to be expected!! England have big powerful boys, Wales have the guile. Lets see what happens today! 

Hard physical game, thank goodness no serious injuries, in either camp. It would be nice to see these two in World Cup Final!!!!

Look at what England had on the bench! This was treated similar to an old fashioned Probables v Possibles match as far as England were concerned in my opinion. Last week we saw the probables, this week the possibles. Just the kind of game England need to encounter in the build up to the WC. Did the yellow card card determine this week's outcome? The excitement is building!

Better performance from England yesterday against a rather poor Ireland in my opinion. The future is looking promising. Just one last 'warm up' against Italy before The World Cup competition starts. Let's hope for an injury free encounter. Will also be interested in the Ireland v Wales warm up game. 

Not long now micky till it all kicks off for real. I think that a couple of the "possibles" from a two game ago have now ensure that they are penciled in for the first game, Curry and Underhill.

A very powerful performance from England against a good, but 'rusty' Irish side, who no doubt will be more adept when they play Wales. Scotland also played well enough to beat France.

If England play with the same ferocity and remain largely injury free, they have the game to beat anyone. Bring it on!

Well, I wasn't. totally convinced by Wales, Ireland or Scotland yesterday. Let's hope England don't slip up against Italy next weekend and their confidence continues to build. Less than three weeks to go to the 'real' thing starts! The excitement is building.

All the results have shown what a farce the world rankings are. With Wales relegated to 4th and Ireland, who lost heavily to England last week, going above both of them into 2nd place, with New Zealand replacing Wales in 1st place. The permutations for the last of the warm up matches are mind boggling.

Agreed, they are pretty meaningless for those very reasons mentioned. Don't think these warm up games should really be included in rankings as they are only opportunities for coaches to view possibles, probables and combinations. They are not full on 'test' matches! However, I do find them interesting!

So the Irish did the business in Cardiff. What will be interesting for me, is the return match in Dublin, particularly as Gatland has announced his squad.

England/Italy? The Azzuri will do well not to concede 50 points