Loose Pass: An eventful Rugby World Cup weekend and pool round awards

Lawrence Nolan
Loose Pass image 9 October 2023.jpg

Portugal celebrate their win over Fiji, Japan scrum-half Naoto Saito’s overhead kick and Wallabies coach Eddie Jones.

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with the end of the Rugby World Cup pool stages…

An eventful weekend

It was the weekend when 20 formally became eight, and also when nine became two. The weekend when the tours ended, when last-minute plans started being made and when knockout round tickets started changing hands for eye-watering prices. The fun is toned down now. The weekend about going big or going home. About going to either Marseille or Paris. Or not. And then Portugal beat Fiji, and everything else became ordinary.

It’s been a fun five weeks even before Portugal’s triumph, punctuated in Nantes and Toulouse by two superb matches, played in breathtaking weather and in an incandescent atmosphere, and culminating in a moment of sheer, unadulterated joy. How now can anybody turn around and tell Portugal to go away – or Georgia, or Uruguay, or Samoa? Rugby’s system needs to change, it cannot wait any more. Throw the doors open, let the boys play. Give them the stage. Give them the chance. Help them find the resource, help them become something regular on the menu, instead of the same, tired old dishes.

There wasn’t much danger to most of the teams playing this weekend, yet some have been recipients of some most unfortunate damage which could have lasting repercussions in the knockout rounds. The lop-sided nature of the draw means also that once next weekend’s quarter-finals are over, the make-up of the final will look like a formality. This weekend was the last chance for teams to display signs of a late run of form, but it was jarringly absent from any of the qualifiers from pools C or D.

The easy stuff was wrapped up before the weekend. France and New Zealand – especially the latter – looked ominously precise in dispatching Italy and Uruguay respectively, even if it took New Zealand a while to get going. That it did so was far more due to Uruguay putting in a terrific shift before tiring. Uruguay were good enough in terms of talent, but were clearly years behind in conditioning and developing the decision-making mentality that top international teams have. But if the next time they are likely to play another tier one nation is in Australia in 2027, what chance is there to develop it in the meantime?

Italy were given that chance over two decades ago and have come and gone several times in between. But their own problems have become clear in this tournament – and may have been festering for some time, given Kieran Crowley’s disgusted broadside at his former employers. Italy has perhaps its most skilful generation of players yet at the moment, and it’s young – most of these players will still be here in four years. It would be a dreadful shame if poor administrators were to waste it.

Saturday delivered too. Georgia and Wales played a fun game in glorious sunshine, with the latter’s balloon burst by the injury to Taulupe Faletau and, possibly, Gareth Anscombe. Liam Williams also limped through the closing stages, although having just got up from the incident that caused it he was still fit enough to accelerate onto a pass and chip through for Louis Rees-Zammit. But Wales’ squad depth may be found wanting; the second string did not impress in the way the first did.

Nantes itself did impress, not only with the weather but also the ease of getting to and from the stadium. Having the Welsh, Argentinean and Japanese fans all in one city as all three prepared for a possible mutual quarter-final the following week brought out the best in rugby too; the sing/chant-off in the Place du Bouffay between the three groups of fans was something else. A lot of new friends made in Nantes will be catching up next week in Marseille.

That sing-off followed another event that was something else too: Samoa’s near-defeat of England. England may have manoeuvred their way to the top of their pool, but few are deceived. If a player of the calibre of Owen Farrell can do something as shambolic as let a shot clock run down, you know something is up. Samoa offered Fiji the blueprint for victory over England next week: stop the mauls, be patient with the kicking game, and punish the transition moments. Of a plan B there was zero evidence. A sprinkling of English present were not impressed, pertinently they were even less impressed with the interview given by Bill Sweeney during the week.

That some of the group were from Jersey may have skewed balanced opinion a little, but another was a Leicesterman who was as direct as England’s game plan but far more cutting in his criticism: “that guy’s overseen declining player numbers, bankrupt clubs, increasing ticket prices and downhill performance levels across the board. He’s got nothing to claim and he should keep his trap shut until he’s done something good.”

Welsh, Argentinean and Japanese to a man were cheering the Samoans on in the bars of Nantes. Support was more divided for the Scotland-Ireland game, but the verdict on it was unanimous: Ireland are quite good and will be hard for anyone to stop. The verdict on Finn Russell was unanimous too: he’s exceptional.

And then Sunday. A big Saturday party followed by a 1pm kick-off meant that there were a lot of bleary eyes heading up the ligne 1 to the stadium, not to mention a run on coffee that saw a stadium locale run out, but this was a golden ambiance. A local brass band got the pulses racing, interspersed with singers from Japan belting out the Argentinean national anthem and a group of Argentineans gamely attempting to reciprocate.

It was the Argentinean fans who won the shout off in the stadium. A lot has been made of the larger-than-average sacrifices many have made to be over here, so there’s perhaps some extra added motivation to treat every moment as if it’s the last, but these fans make everywhere they go a home game. ‘Nantes sees red’ was the headline in the local paper on the Sunday, a nod to the dominant number and colour of the Welsh fans. They’re excellent too, but they’ll need to turn it up a notch to match their opponents next Saturday.

A great ambience, great weather and the teams duly delivered a great game, although – whisper it – neither team defended in a manner likely to see them through a knockout round at a World Cup. But through to the quarters Argentina go, with next week’s head to head surely the match-up between the weekend’s hat-trick heroes: Mateo Carreras and Rees-Zammit. Shane Williams, asked for what Wales would need to do to win, gave a succinct answer: stop Carreras getting the ball.

There was all sorts of great about the weather, the ambience and the game in Lille too, as Romania and Tonga gave us an enjoyable romp in the penultimate match. But the ultimate game, well, that was everything. It was how we all want rugby to be played, how we all play it in our heads before the coaches and pragmatists remind us that it’s about collisions and pressure. Chaos. Errors. Breaks, offloads. Tries. Raw emotion. Limits pushed.

Despite it all, we do bid Portugal farewell. There’s little doubt they would be back in normal circumstances, but rugby below tier one is not normal circumstances. A fair few of these players have probably played their last World Cup, will the next generation be able to capitalise? Will they get a stage or a platform to work off? Or will this simply be a high point that is remembered, cherished, but ultimately unexploited? The ball here is very much in World Rugby’s and the Six Nations’ courts.

But the best argument could well be written by Fiji next week against England – they’ll have to be a lot tighter and more clinical than they were on Sunday.

Loose Pass’ pool round awards

Best match: South Africa v Ireland was epic, Argentina v Japan was breathless, but for the sheer drama of it all, the ebb and flow throughout the game and the final-move denouement, Wales v Fiji wins this one. And then it didn’t. Because with the last 40 minutes of pool play in this World Cup, Portugal’s defeat of Fiji nicked it.

Best individual skill moments: Naoto Saito’s overhead kick in the Japan-Argentina match is tied with Portugal hooker’s magnificent touchline clearance.

Best venue: Lyon. Great food, great wine, plentiful bars, a magnificent stadium and… actually, that’s about all we need, right?

Most French moment: The bar owner in Nantes who decided he’d had enough of it all and shut up shop at half-time (!) in the England-Samoa game. Fortunately his neighbour was not so tired…

Least popular person: Eddie Jones. We’re all a bit tired of it.

Hardest done-by: Tom Curry. Still no idea how he gets a two-game suspension for standing in the way of a ball-catcher. He shares the award with Johan Deysel, who got five games for a kind of tackle that others were not even yellow-carded for, seemingly just because of who he injured.

Thing that needs improving the most: The consistency in judging foul-play tackles. It’s been so tiresome.

Things for the hosts to bear in mind next time: Rugby fans eat and drink. A lot. The food service especially at this World Cup – only in and around the stadia – has been lamentably slow and mostly poor quality. The restaurants and bars in the host venues have, by contrast been superb – so why the disparity?

Also, while it was laudable to change the anthems, they still don’t seem to be all right. Often the tempo is too fast, just as often the changes in tempo often used for musical emphasis were not there – most pertinent in the Welsh national anthem but in others too. Why not let countries select their versions of the anthems to be played?

Most irritating gameday aspect: The length of time and amount of drivel between the end of said anthems and the start of the matches, especially that pointless countdown thing. The Argentineans were cooking up a storm a minute before the game on Sunday, which the countdown and deafening stadium announcer put an unwelcome end to.

Best referee intervention: The infuriated touch judge scolding Carreras for kicking the ball into the crowd in celebration, telling him to get it back himself (it went a good 30 rows in) and reminding him that the shot clock was already running. NB: that Carreras managed to retrieve said ball and give it to Emiliano Boffelli for the latter to kick with around 11 seconds remaining on the clock gives you a good idea of just how long Farrell faffed around on Saturday.

Best kitted-out fans: Japan. All the nations did colours well, but Japan had the monopoly on supporter accessories.

Most indulgent pre-match routine: Samoa. Allowing them to do the Siva Tau is fine. Allowing them to have a team discussion, engage in prayer, huddle up and THEN do the Siva Tau is a little much.

Most impressive sup-strainer: Shalva Mamukashvili. Semi Radradra’s is impressive, but it’s the silver prevalent in Mamukashvili’s luxuriant foliage which clinches him this one.

READ MORE: Who’s hot and who’s not: Portugal, Ireland and France shine, early exits and World Cup-ending injuries

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