The comments I talk about has nothing to do with this loss directly... SA fully deserved to lose; I`m actually quite happy they did, because it gave them an important lesson in game management and a certain level of humiliation in terms of never taking the eye off the ball and/or under rating your opponent.
I really want the Aussies to do well, it great for the 4 nations and the rugby world. I also really want Wales and Scotland to pick there game up...
Maybe not here, but this is such a small rugby community. Off the Ball tries to put out the message that I am basically a murderer.
I've read some think it would be good to get those 2 sides into the English Premiership, would get a lot more interest back into the game playing there.
Rugby is the biggest sport in Madagascar, for the record. Georgia is pretty close between rugby and football.
I guess I meant of those with significant playing numbers. Fiji and Samoa would probably count too I guess?
Madagascar has 40,000 registered players. Sri Lanka has had over 100,000 at various points too. Those are pretty decent playing numbers really. Wikipedia's quite interesting (if accurate) about Madagascan rugby - regular attendances over 10,000 and with 40,000 for the grand final. Popular with women as well as men.
Which are the 2 nations ?
The Canadian women deserve that ranking - their last two games against NZ have been a win and a draw. I wonder if the North American sports appeal more to Canadian men than women - gridiron and ice hockey primarily. There's definitely been some decent Canadian men - we've had a few play in our NPC, such as Adam Kleeberger. Interestingly, across the board in Canada, sport participation rates are significantly lower for women than men, but there's articles going back more than 2 decades highlighting growth in participation rates for women's rugby in Canada.
On the men's side when professionalism happened there were a bunch of teams in that second tier - Canada, Argentina, Italy, Japan, Romania, USA - that ended up going very different ways. While Argentina, and to a less successful extent Japan and Italy, have managed to thrive in the professional era, Canada and Romania sunk without trace. The US seemed to have focused more on the 7s side. Canada even made the men's WC QFs in 1991.
NZ and Australia
Yeah I watched the highlights of those 2 games and was wondering what the beep is Canada doing to get these results
Yeah, Canada were always a Top 16 Team but have seemingly dropped right away. Meanwhile, the women have flourished and the predicted semi with NZ in the World Cup really could go either way. I just find it odd that there should be such a discrepancy between the two teams.
) the Canucks used to punch well above their weight, including a quarter-final place in the 91 WC (secured with wins over Fiji and Romania) and a rib-tickling (for those of us of a non-Leekist bent) win at the old Arms Park back in 1993 with Gareth Rees (who definitely sounds like he should've been playing for the home side) slotting a last minute conversion to secure a two point win.
