Officials at home nation matches have fans baffled | Rugby World Cup
The first Kick and Chase episode after a weekend of action from the home nations have Martyn, Phil and James questioning refereeing decisions.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hello and welcome to National World Kick and Chase podcast
00:10 where we'll be breaking down the latest results
00:13 from the 2020 Rugby World Cup.
00:15 I'm your host Martin Simpson.
00:17 I'm once again joined by Phil Bramley and James Copley.
00:20 And we're gonna be looking back
00:21 at the first round of fixtures, which have just concluded.
00:24 And of course, Phil,
00:25 I think there's only one place to start.
00:28 We'll start with England and you know what?
00:31 I like drop goals.
00:33 I didn't realize until after this game,
00:35 looking online that people seemingly
00:39 have something against drop goals.
00:41 I love drop goals.
00:42 What's that about?
00:43 - I think it's because they've come out of fashion.
00:46 And so people quite like them now because they're new things
00:50 but I definitely didn't like them
00:51 when Yanni De Beers was kicking us to death back in 1999.
00:55 But yeah, I think it's part of the mentality's changed
00:59 and it's more these days that particularly
01:01 in the premiership, people see the value
01:03 of that the try bonus point and all the rest of it.
01:05 And who knows that may come back to haunt at some point
01:07 but in a World Cup series,
01:10 when it comes to getting through your group,
01:12 it's all that matters is about winning.
01:15 And that comes by any means necessary.
01:17 So I thought it was a much better performance by England.
01:21 I thought Ford was fantastic, really controlled the game,
01:25 very professional, very calm, very cool.
01:27 Minus the conditions, I think England minus the conditions
01:29 and possibly the pressure is quite interesting
01:32 how England always seem to perform so much better
01:35 when they're the underdog.
01:36 And then when they pile even more pressure on themselves
01:39 with cards, be it the warmup game against Wales
01:43 where they were handing out cards
01:44 like it was Christmas morning.
01:45 And then all of a sudden they start to play
01:47 or when they lose Tom Curry
01:48 and then they start to play a bit more
01:50 or even going back to New Zealand and the draw,
01:53 let's give the All Blacks nearly 20 points ahead
01:55 and then we'll start to play.
01:56 For some reason, England like to paint themselves
01:58 into a corner.
01:59 And I wonder, I mean, to be fair,
02:01 I think the performance was helped massively
02:03 because the Pumas just didn't turn up.
02:05 I think it was a very poor performance from Argentina
02:07 but you can't take away from England the fact
02:09 that this was their best performance for a long time.
02:13 Mario Batoja had one of his best games
02:16 in a white shirt for a long time.
02:17 I thought Ben O looked back to his very best in his days
02:21 in his Saracen shirt, he's destructive.
02:23 Thought Courtney Laws was immense.
02:25 And then Ford was just pulling the strings,
02:27 putting them in the right place,
02:28 taking the pressure off.
02:29 It was a slippery, sweaty ball.
02:31 Let's not play with it.
02:32 Let's just bang it to the post,
02:33 take the three points, turn around and do it again.
02:35 So yeah, fantastic performance, great step forward.
02:38 There are some caveats to it.
02:40 I mean, I'm not quite prepared to put my house
02:42 on England winning the World Cup just yet.
02:44 And it's obviously that lack of tries, I think,
02:46 is gonna be important the further we get
02:48 to this competition.
02:50 And England still butchered overlaps.
02:53 They still drifted like a schoolboy team
02:55 instead of running straight
02:56 and drawing a defender and passing.
02:58 So they've still got a lot to work on,
03:00 but I think defensively, they were much, much better.
03:03 Whether they wore the underdog tag much better
03:07 and that the pressure of being a favourite
03:08 has kind of made Argentina crumble,
03:11 but definitely improvement.
03:13 And definitely something to look forward to now
03:15 for the rest of the tournament,
03:16 because now this was the big banana skin.
03:18 You'd have to think it'd be pretty catastrophic
03:20 for them not to get out of the group.
03:21 And then we can look forward to kind of building
03:23 on those layers of the foundation that they've built.
03:26 - Yeah, I mean, I just think it's a huge caveat,
03:29 the fact that Argentina just didn't bother
03:31 to show up for some reason.
03:32 I mean, you look at how many fantastic players they have.
03:35 I mean, Matera, his name was barely mentioned
03:38 for the match.
03:39 Befelli, in my opinion, one of the best wingers
03:42 in world rugby doesn't get on the ball nearly enough.
03:46 And it's just, it's a real shame from their point of view,
03:48 but I think you have to give England
03:49 all the credit in the world,
03:51 'cause they just managed the game exceptionally.
03:53 They go down to 14 men and it's absolutely clear
03:57 from that point on what the game plan is.
03:59 It's if three points are on offer, take the three points.
04:02 And I thought, you know,
04:04 that they did that absolutely fantastically.
04:06 I mean, just, does anyone have anything to add
04:09 on the red card?
04:10 Any dispute, anything like that?
04:12 Does anyone think it was maybe a bit harsh?
04:14 In this day and age, I think it was a clear red, right?
04:17 - I think the issue is less about whether Curry's was,
04:21 but then the rest of the stuff that happened
04:23 over the weekend.
04:24 - We'll get to that, yeah.
04:25 - When we get to the top.
04:25 - We'll get to that, don't worry.
04:28 - I'm sure we will.
04:30 And the Chile game as well.
04:31 So I don't think it's a problem that Curry was red carded.
04:35 What I think is a problem is that the game's gotten itself
04:39 into a real tangle now where, you know,
04:41 even commentators and pundits are kind of saying
04:45 that they don't know what's going to happen.
04:46 And is it, I mean, this situation this weekend,
04:49 we had three very similar incidents.
04:50 One wasn't even picked up.
04:51 One was a yellow card, one was a red card.
04:53 How on earth can you hope to attract a casual fan
04:56 if we can't understand what's going on
04:57 or what the consequences are going to be?
04:59 So the game has got itself into a problem.
05:01 I understand why, you know, player safety is important
05:04 and we do need to kind of reduce those head injuries,
05:06 but I'm not sure that this is working.
05:09 Whether they need to go back and look at that,
05:10 the red card framework and tying it up to make it,
05:13 I don't know, just to kind of put in
05:14 some sort of understanding,
05:15 'cause it feels very, very, very subjective at the moment.
05:19 And the last thing you want to do,
05:20 you get a situation where before the game starts,
05:22 your first question is, who's the referee?
05:24 Because that's going to make an outcome
05:26 as who's going to win, and we don't want that.
05:27 And I do have a hell of a lot of sympathy for the referees
05:30 because they're being asked to kind of adjudicate
05:33 on kind of split second decisions
05:34 and work out exactly where that person was,
05:37 what the mitigation is.
05:39 The game's getting set up into a bit of a tangle, to be honest.
05:42 - Sorry if I'm stealing your thunder a bit, Martin,
05:44 but just a question towards Phil.
05:47 It was a mesmeric performance by George Ford,
05:49 world-class, you know, utterly sublime, really,
05:52 to do that and that pressure to take control of the game.
05:55 What happens with that 10 and 12 axis now
05:57 with Farrell coming back?
05:58 That's the real interesting question, isn't it?
06:00 Because does George Ford do that if Farrell's on the pitch?
06:03 - Ford's, yes. - I don't think so.
06:05 - I'm sorry, but you can't have a player
06:06 have a performance that good and then drop him,
06:09 no matter who the guy behind him is.
06:11 I don't think, I think Ford has taken it to a certain degree.
06:15 - Exactly. I think Borfolk's painted himself
06:17 into a little bit of a corner.
06:18 And for me personally, I still think that
06:21 England's problem has been who's going to play 12.
06:25 It has been the perennial problem,
06:27 especially when, because they've tended to shift Manu out.
06:29 And I personally think you're better sticking with a 10,
06:32 be it Ford or Farrell,
06:33 and it'd be very hard to drop Ford after this performance.
06:35 And then you play with a proper hard ball carrying 12,
06:39 be it Lawrence or Tuolangi, and then a 13.
06:43 I mean, for me, I think England's most potent centres
06:45 have been, you know, a Cudgel and a Rapier.
06:47 You have a hard, big ball carrier, Manuel Lawrence.
06:49 And then I think Marchant's been really good
06:52 in that 13 channel, both in attack and defence,
06:55 and how you can play a bit of Flenker about it as well.
06:57 So, you know, I personally would stick with that,
07:01 but quite what Borfolk does, I don't know.
07:03 I suspect we may end up with a Ford-Farrell 10-12.
07:07 - My opinion is that there's a handful of players
07:10 in international rugby right now that are untouchable.
07:14 I'd say Anton DuPont's there, Sia Khaleesi, Finn Russell,
07:19 maybe Johnny Sexton, guys that,
07:22 if they drop out of the team,
07:23 it's irrelevant how well the guy behind them does
07:25 in the next game.
07:26 They are coming back in because they're on another level.
07:29 And I think Farrell is right on the periphery
07:32 of that group of players.
07:34 And I do think you could argue one way or the other
07:36 that Farrell starts if he's fit,
07:38 or like you said, Ford's coming.
07:40 In my opinion, Ford's done so well in that game
07:42 that you just don't drop him after that.
07:46 That's just my take on it.
07:48 Just finally on England, just to both of you, I suppose,
07:52 do you think this Steve Borthwick,
07:55 whether or not potentially he has shares in tackle school,
07:58 the way things are going, I don't know,
08:00 but do you think he's maybe answered some critics
08:02 just with the way he managed that game tactically
08:05 and just took advantage,
08:08 reacted to going down with the red cards?
08:10 Do you think he's sort of answered a lot of the critics
08:13 that he had going into it?
08:14 - I think if you're an English fan,
08:17 you've got to be pretty curmudgeonly not to say
08:19 that was a big step forward.
08:20 And the defensive performance was phenomenal.
08:22 So I had a bit of a criticism of Kevin Sinfield last week
08:26 or saying that he wasn't working
08:27 and that players weren't trusting each other.
08:29 They definitely did trust each other.
08:31 They held the line, they performed really well.
08:34 What would be interesting to find out,
08:35 and we may never know until 20 years time
08:37 when one of them retires and writes his memoirs,
08:39 is where that kind of game plan came from.
08:41 I suspect it was just forward instinctively,
08:43 just saying, it's not on,
08:45 let's just take the three points and go back.
08:47 In which case, you know,
08:48 Borthwick definitely wants to put him
08:49 on his Christmas card list
08:50 because he's got him out of the hole.
08:51 It didn't feel like they implemented a different game plan.
08:54 It felt like somebody put a rocket up some backsides
08:56 and England came off and said,
08:58 you know, we've got to put a bit of pride in this shirt.
08:59 Let's get off the line and hit somebody.
09:01 And that was enough to deter Argentina,
09:03 who I think perhaps cracked a bit under the pressure
09:05 of being favourites in this game.
09:06 So I still think there are questions to answer.
09:09 I think the true answer will come
09:10 in the next two or three games.
09:11 Can they keep that intensity in defence,
09:14 but build on a level of attack, which we haven't seen yet?
09:17 - Before we move on to the last two games of the weekend,
09:21 where there will be a lot to talk about,
09:22 let's just touch on the rest of the first round as a whole.
09:28 Obviously France with a very big win
09:30 to open it against New Zealand.
09:33 Ireland absolutely decimated Romania, no surprises there.
09:36 Italy comfortable against Namibia.
09:38 Again, no surprises there.
09:40 Japan and Chile.
09:42 Chile put in a very brave performance in my opinion,
09:44 but in Japan, you know, there's still flickers of that team
09:49 from the last World Cup in there somewhere,
09:51 but it just doesn't feel like they're quite at that level.
09:54 And then Australia, Georgia, that was an interesting one.
09:57 It looked like Australia were sort of going to run away
10:00 with that a bit, but Georgia,
10:02 they just came back a little, didn't they?
10:04 - There were a couple of key moments
10:06 where there's like a 14 point flip,
10:08 where if just that pass had gone to hand,
10:10 you know, Romania would bag a try.
10:12 As it happened, it gets picked up by the way
10:14 and Australia get a random score.
10:15 So yeah, I think they'll be kicking themselves
10:18 because I think they missed a couple of opportunities
10:21 that could have put it closer than the scoreboard
10:23 suggested at full time anyway.
10:25 - I think it's been a really, really good opening
10:28 sort of set of fixtures in the Rugby World Cup.
10:30 I thought France, New Zealand on the opening night
10:32 was sublime, but I think the one thing it's really lacked
10:35 is being that shock,
10:36 just thinking back to the Football World Cup
10:39 when Saudi Arabia beat Argentina,
10:41 the eventual winners in one of the first games.
10:44 It's, I think if you could accuse the Rugby World Cup
10:46 of like one thing, it's been that sort of,
10:48 that initial shock, that upset result.
10:50 We nearly got it with Fiji, Wales,
10:52 which we'll come on to, obviously Romania,
10:53 we're never going to do anything against Ireland,
10:56 but you looked at Georgia against Australia
10:58 and you thought, could that happen?
10:59 Maybe Chile against Japan.
11:00 And of course, the big shock that people
11:05 were looking towards was perhaps Scotland
11:07 doing something against South Africa,
11:08 but it didn't quite work out like that.
11:10 - Yeah, well, it brings us nicely onto Scotland.
11:12 Well, before we get fully into it,
11:15 I guess we'll just, we'll talk about Jesse Creel
11:17 real quickly.
11:18 Obviously, as you mentioned earlier on, Philip,
11:20 blatant red cards by,
11:23 now in the past, it was more debatable
11:25 whether that would have been a red cards,
11:27 but I think given what we saw with Tom Curry
11:30 and just the way we understand the rules at the moment
11:32 and for the TMO to not even look at it,
11:36 I just, does anyone understand
11:39 what has happened in this situation?
11:41 Is it quite simply that the TMO just didn't look at it
11:44 and that was that?
11:45 - I think you just missed out on the-
11:47 - If it was, yeah, if it was France playing,
11:49 you could say, well, the TV directors
11:52 definitely decided to hide that angle
11:53 and bury it somewhere, but it wasn't.
11:56 And so whether he didn't see it,
11:58 whether it wasn't shown to him,
12:00 I can't believe that if he did see it
12:02 and from what he could see on the pitch,
12:04 that the Scotland players were saying to the referee,
12:05 are you not checking that?
12:06 - Yeah, well, exactly.
12:07 - That's very strange.
12:09 - Jamie Richie and Finn Russell both asked,
12:12 both asked Angus Gardiner if it was being looked at
12:16 and all he can say is,
12:17 I've not heard anything from the TMO.
12:19 I'm sorry, why isn't Angus Gardiner
12:21 seeing it in real time?
12:22 That's another question
12:23 because it was clear head contact.
12:27 And I just don't fully understand why
12:30 if the TMO has missed it, fair enough,
12:33 but the referee surely must've said to him,
12:36 is there something to look at there?
12:38 There's also two touch judges.
12:40 Look, we're not gonna achieve anything by going on.
12:44 I think we're all baffled by it.
12:48 What I will say is, look,
12:50 if South Africa had played that whole game with 14 men,
12:53 I still think they would've won.
12:54 At this stage as a Scotland fan,
12:58 we'll take an apology from Ben Whitehouse
13:02 as soon as he's ready and we'll move on.
13:04 Sorry, I'm being, of course, joke.
13:09 But yeah, I don't think Scotland are winning that
13:13 even if South Africa play the full game with 14 men.
13:16 Look, South Africa are just that good.
13:18 We'll put that out there and get that right
13:21 before we will break this down.
13:22 But I mean, I felt like Scotland,
13:25 there was a part of me that felt like Scotland
13:28 were showing them a bit too much respect
13:31 'cause we know when Scotland play their own game
13:34 and play without fear,
13:35 we know how effective they can be.
13:36 And they showed that like at Twickenham
13:40 in the past, the last six nations,
13:42 they didn't go down there with fear.
13:43 They didn't sort of like try and counteract
13:46 how they fought England were gonna approach the game.
13:49 They just went out and played their game
13:50 and they were outstanding.
13:52 The way they attempted to play that game
13:54 against South Africa,
13:55 it felt like they were reacting to what they fought
13:57 South Africa were gonna do
13:59 before a ball had even been kicked.
14:01 And that was how it set up.
14:02 Now, it's also worth saying in my opinion
14:06 that Gregor Townsend got that spot on
14:08 and that South Africa did do exactly
14:10 what he thought they were gonna do.
14:11 And Scotland's game plan around that,
14:15 it's sort of,
14:17 it worked, I mean, we could see
14:18 there was just these couple of little moments,
14:20 Darcy Graham's break being the big one
14:23 'cause South Africa's line speed was just phenomenal.
14:26 You're sitting there and you're thinking
14:28 they must be offside
14:29 and then you're looking for it
14:30 and you can see, no, they're not.
14:31 They are just off their line that quickly
14:33 and they're in your face.
14:34 And I think the other thing as well
14:36 that decided the game clearly was the set piece.
14:38 Scotland's line out was just nowhere to be seen.
14:41 I don't know,
14:43 and it's been like that for a while now.
14:45 And I don't really know where that's coming from.
14:48 At one point in the commentary,
14:50 they mentioned that you've got
14:52 the height of the South African locks there to contend with
14:55 when Richie Gray's the tallest player on the pitch anyway.
14:58 So that doesn't really make sense to me.
15:01 And then of course the scrum,
15:02 when Scotland won that scrum penalty
15:05 against the head just on halftime,
15:07 personally, I celebrated that like a tribe,
15:09 but it was a very brief moment in the match
15:15 where Scotland sort of stood up to that dominance.
15:17 And I mean, what can you do?
15:19 I think it's going to be really interesting in my opinion
15:23 to see how Ireland front up to that physicality.
15:25 - I just thought you were saying about
15:30 maybe Scotland showing South Africa too much respect
15:32 and perhaps there was an element of that,
15:34 but I just thought, as you say,
15:35 South Africa and so fast off the line,
15:38 they were so dominant, got physical lumps,
15:40 you know, the bomb squad coming off the bench as well.
15:42 They're so dominant in the forward pack
15:44 and I think with Scotland as well,
15:46 we've said it over six nations in the past
15:48 and Scotland's game under Townsend
15:50 has developed beyond this, I think.
15:52 But in big test matches, if you can keep the 10 quiet,
15:57 if you can keep Finn Russell quiet
16:00 and sort of restrict the ball he's getting,
16:02 make sure he doesn't get fast ball.
16:04 And he's having possibly slightly
16:07 a little bit of an off day as well,
16:08 because there was a couple of little wayward passes.
16:11 In fairness to him, he didn't get much time,
16:12 but if you can sort of curtail his activities,
16:15 then you're going to keep Scotland's score down.
16:17 And I think South Africa, in terms of their tactics,
16:19 got that spot on, as well as just being
16:21 an absolutely magnificent rugby side.
16:23 - Yeah, I think part of the problem is,
16:26 and it's what Ian McGeehan said before kickoff,
16:28 is that, you know, you have to,
16:29 they always say you have to meet South Africa up front.
16:32 And I think that gets into people's heads,
16:33 so that they sort of worry too much
16:34 about trying to play their game.
16:36 And the one time, the last time that England
16:38 played well against them in South Africa,
16:39 you know, picking Bevan Rod in the front row,
16:41 who isn't a monster prop, but it's a case of,
16:43 we can't beat these people up front,
16:45 so let's try and work round them.
16:46 And I think to your point, that was exactly it.
16:47 There were sort of two key moments for me,
16:50 is, you know, Finn gets a cross field kick,
16:52 just puts it into touch,
16:53 Le Boc doesn't even look,
16:54 the Reds are on the money,
16:55 and it's just those tiny little moments
16:57 where you just felt Scotland,
16:58 if they'd been at their game,
17:00 I think they could have been a lot closer.
17:01 I tend to think you're right,
17:02 that probably South Africa did have too much
17:05 in the tank for them,
17:05 but it's just a shame that Scotland didn't quite click
17:08 and have the perfect game,
17:09 otherwise it would have been a phenomenal match.
17:11 - Yeah, I mean, Manu Le Boc gets player of the match,
17:14 which I'm not gonna lie, I had a chuckle at that,
17:17 I thought that was ridiculous,
17:19 mainly because I don't think you can miss
17:20 that many penalties and conversions.
17:24 And then, but if you want to give a man of the match
17:27 for that one cross field kick,
17:28 which yeah, was pretty special,
17:30 doing that was a moment of brilliance.
17:32 - Just on that note as well,
17:34 I personally think Faf to Clerc's the best nine in the world
17:36 for the way he controls the game and the way he kicks.
17:38 I think he's second to none.
17:39 You saw it in the last World Cup against Wales,
17:41 he absolutely murdered Wales.
17:43 Okay, second behind Anton Dupont, yeah that's a reference.
17:49 I think in terms of what Faf to Clerc does though,
17:51 and I think Dupont and Faf to Clerc are very different players,
17:54 Dupont's explosive, he can break lines,
17:56 whereas Faf to Clerc, talking of controlling the game
18:00 from the boot, from the nine position,
18:01 I think he's definitely up there.
18:03 - Yeah, that was very nearly a order
18:05 another round claim there, James, do you know what I mean?
18:07 We're going to be here a while lads, dissecting that one.
18:10 But yeah, Faf to Clerc, another player who stood out.
18:14 Anyway, James, Wales, I mean,
18:17 do you want to just take us through the roller coaster
18:20 of emotions that must have been that match
18:22 from a Welsh point of view?
18:24 - Yeah, I think certainly the best rugby game
18:28 of the weekend, although I think you could argue
18:30 that it was slightly spoiled by the officiating as well.
18:34 And I say that with my Wales hat on,
18:37 obviously Wales went into an early lead,
18:39 collapsed, Fiji came back.
18:42 I thought there was some great rugby played at times,
18:46 but just some sort of,
18:48 some stupid careless penalties as well,
18:50 and some real brain dead moments from Wales.
18:52 I think we've all seen the clips of Dan Biggar
18:55 going absolutely nuts.
18:56 And in real time, when I was watching that,
18:58 I was like, which young pup is Dan Biggar chewing out here?
19:01 And it wasn't, it was George North.
19:03 He's practically slapping him on the head.
19:06 And it was brainless.
19:07 I mean, Wales are pinned back.
19:09 The clock's gone 40 minutes and Wales try to run it out.
19:13 It's insanity.
19:15 It's so brain dead.
19:17 So I think the whole of Wales could understand
19:19 Dan Biggar's frustration in that moment.
19:21 And there was elements of naivety to Wales' performances.
19:25 And yeah, the second half sort of picked up
19:30 as the first left off.
19:33 Wales at one point led 32-14
19:36 and Fiji staged a brilliant comeback.
19:39 The tackle count, Wales made 248 tackles to Fiji, 70,
19:45 which shows you just how under the cosh Wales were
19:48 at some points.
19:48 And in that regard, it was sort of very Gatland-esque
19:54 in a way, is that Fiji were coming onto Wales
19:56 and Wales were putting up the mean defence,
19:59 the good defence.
20:00 Matt Morgan was instrumental.
20:02 But then Wales' discipline started
20:06 to seriously let them down.
20:08 There was a sin bin.
20:09 There should have been another one
20:11 and there should have been another one after that.
20:14 I think Fiji will have to look at themselves
20:16 because they did miss some real good opportunities
20:19 and Wales did present them with some real good opportunities.
20:21 Obviously the one that sticks out is the one right
20:23 at the end, which you'd expect them to catch
20:26 and go over them.
20:27 Fiji have the opportunity to kick for the game.
20:30 But yeah, I thought the referee,
20:35 if I was Fijian, I would be extremely annoyed.
20:38 I think it didn't really make much sense.
20:41 I know a lot of those penalty calls were sort of 50-50
20:43 towards the end, but there's nothing in the real book
20:47 that says that if you're on the wrong side of the 50-50
20:50 repeatedly, then it means that your players
20:53 aren't allowed to be sin binned.
20:54 I thought it was poor.
20:55 I thought it was really poor actually.
20:58 - Yeah, I thought it was, I mean,
21:00 I think Wales dodged a bullet.
21:01 And having said that, I mean, fair play to them.
21:04 As a Sale fan, I'm always going to find my six squeeze
21:06 of separation and hats off to Mike Foreshaw,
21:08 Sale defensive coach, because whatever he said to them,
21:11 and Josh Adams, I like what he had for breakfast that morning
21:13 and some of those hits he was putting in.
21:15 Fair play, you know, they absolutely put the bodies
21:18 on the line and defending those Fijians, you have to,
21:20 because there's some huge men.
21:22 I did feel for Fiji, I think a couple of times
21:24 they definitely got the wrong end of the stick
21:26 of the referee.
21:27 A couple of times I think, card should have come.
21:30 I think there were times when Wales were defending
21:31 the line and they were repeatedly offside
21:33 and he wasn't giving it even the offside,
21:34 even the one where they spilled the ball over the line.
21:36 I think they should have gone back
21:37 and possibly called it a penalty try
21:39 because they were offside.
21:41 But fair play to Wales, you know, digging in there,
21:44 real defensive grit and what a game to watch, you know,
21:47 on the edge of your seat all the way through.
21:50 Yeah, I'm sure 99 times out of a hundred,
21:53 Randrenda catches that and then we have to kick,
21:55 which he would probably have missed, to be fair,
21:57 looking at the game record,
21:58 which would have given it even more than 99.
21:59 - We'll give the referee a...
22:01 Sorry, James, do you want to take the referee
22:02 up a small piece of credit?
22:04 I liked the way towards the end of the game
22:06 where he was keeping the clock off
22:08 so that there was time to set for the...
22:11 I do like when referees do that
22:12 because it gave Fiji the chance
22:14 to just compete that little bit more.
22:16 - I think there are positives to take for Wales, obviously.
22:20 You know, the defensive performance was good.
22:22 They've proved they can score points,
22:25 they can score tries.
22:26 They possibly left a couple out there on the field as well.
22:29 I thought Nick Tompkins in centre was really good.
22:31 And in terms of the pool,
22:33 beating Fiji was so massive.
22:35 Obviously with Portugal to come next time,
22:37 it would be a major, major, major World Cup upset,
22:40 probably one of the biggest ever
22:42 if Portugal were to beat Wales.
22:43 You'd expect them to beat that.
22:45 And then it's sort of plain sailing, really.
22:47 I thought it is interesting, though,
22:49 that Fiji managed to get those two bonus points.
22:51 And I just wonder if that could prove significant
22:53 at the end of the pool stages.
22:56 You never quite know,
22:57 but I think obviously they've come away without the win,
23:00 but those two bonus points could have an impact at some point.
23:04 - But we've got a lot to think about.
23:07 We'll be honest and say
23:08 there's probably not a whole lot to speak about
23:10 this weekend coming up,
23:11 but we'll just run down the fixtures.
23:12 We've got France against Uruguay.
23:14 We are going to get a first look at a couple of teams
23:17 in this tournament, including Uruguay,
23:18 New Zealand, Namibia, Samoa, Chile.
23:20 That could be an interesting contest.
23:22 Wales, Portugal, Ireland, Tonga.
23:25 A first look at Tonga.
23:26 South Africa against Romania.
23:27 That's going to be interesting
23:29 in a sort of blood sport kind of way, I imagine.
23:32 Australia against Fiji,
23:35 definitely the match of that round.
23:37 England against Japan, again, another match,
23:39 which will be another challenge for England.
23:42 But that is all we've got time for this week.
23:45 So thanks very much for joining me, James, Phil,
23:48 and we'll be back next week to discuss
23:50 the latest round of action.
23:52 (upbeat music)
23:54 (upbeat music)
23:57 (upbeat music)