Zinny.

It's definitely within the realms of possibility.

There's some speculation that France might send out their dirt trackers against us for a slaughter in pool play given that the other 3 teams are Canada, Tonga & 1 other hopeless side, it'll mean we'd have had 4 easy games in a row heading into the QF before finally meeting a real team.
The shameless French, imagine how crap it'd be to be one of them. They need a bomb.

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Zinny.

That's the 6Ns goldfish bowl mentality though. You can win it with daylight in 2nd, all it means is that you're better than the 5 other hopeless teams. Test footy would be far better off it the 6Ns came to an end for something more global.

If we meet Ireland in the final I'll be stoked, it'd be the softest WC win of all time. England on the other hand would be tougher, but Ireland are a better team, bloody weirdness of it all.

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Yrrab

Its all the mental thing, that whole..erm not beating new zealand thing is probably quite intimidating, how can anyone not be effected by it?

Lionsfan

I wouldn't lose any sleep playing the 6N sides, apart from France.

Wales, Ireland and England will not beat NZ in NZ. I'd gladly chuck 10K on a bet against those teams.

France scares me, they've beaten us 3 times here in my rugby watching life and on their day can beat anyone.

But seriously, the team with the best chance is SA. I'm not worried about Aussie, they can't win at Eden Park.

This cup is NZs to lose.

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"Well, George, we've knocked the bastard off" Sir Ed Hillary, May 1953.

Yrrab

Is that new?

Lionsfan

Not really, we are always favorites, even though in the past I think we shouldn’t have been.

In 91 Aussie were the best side in the world, they had beaten us 2-3 times.

95 in SA in front of those crowds with Mandela there was a huge obstacle. We probably would have won if half the team didn’t get sick.

99, yeah we blew that one! Although our team wasa actually quite weak, we had just lost the core of our team with Fitzpatrick, Brooke, Bunce etc retiring.

03 England were clearly the best side, the also beat us on our home patch.

07, we pretty much blew that one.

The fact we are at home this time makes me more confident than ever before.

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"Well, George, we've knocked the bastard off" Sir Ed Hillary, May 1953.

Zinny.

Im more worried about the Aussies. They're a young team who'd have gone through the school of hard knocks by the time WC comes around. Deans is also a smart operator, he'll find some chinks between now & then.

SA will rely on their old fellas like Matfield, Botha & Smit when it starts getting tough & I doubt whether they'll be as good as they were in 2007.

Given the circumstances I dont think France will be able to beat us at home on such an occasion. We need Richie & Dan to be 100% fit, that'll pretty much guarantee it, Hayman will also provide a bit of a boost.

To be honest, Im not even gonna be that happy when we win, it's gonna take 3 in a row to make up for losing the other 5 we choked out on. If we lose this one, someones gonna get friggin stabbed!

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Zinny.

It's safe to mark 2003 down to a choke, the big Carlos Spencer brainfart.

England weren't "clearly" the best side, if they were they wouldnt have nearly lost to Aussie in the final. They held onto a couple of bloody close ones which could have gone either way but it wasn't exactly daylight separating NZ, Aussie & England.

One day, a rugby world cup will be won by the team which plays the best footy. It hasn't happened for a while.

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sslazio11

In theory, yeah, maybe we should be aiming higher, but the facts are that we've never once made it past the quarter finals, and have been knocked out at the group stage in 2 of the past 3 World Cups. So I think making the semi-finals would be an achievement.