The DD Experience: Rugby World Cupdate: Tournament Review

My apologies in advance for the wacky formatting - Blogger changed my interface and I'm still getting used it it, and accidentally tripped the "highlight background" function on about half of the text, which got messed up and will take too long to correct. But try to enjoy the photos despite this.

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This post is significantly overdue, but since I haven't really addressed the World Cup in detail I better put some thoughts to it. The Rugby World Cup was, in all, a success. For a tiny little nation at the edge of the world, New Zealand did right by itself by throwing a national event across 12 host cities, with only one little mishap at the start.

My precious . . . The Webb Ellis cup

Here's a few background facts on International Rugby Board (IRB) competition leading up to the 2011 Rugby World Cup (RWC) in New Zealand

Tournament Structure

the tournament occurs ever 4 years
20 teams compete in four pools of five
The teams selected are the top 12 IRB ranked teams at the end of 2009, plus 8 qualifiers
All teams play four pool games, and the top two teams in each pool qualify for quarterfinals
Teams cross pools so you won't replay a team in your pool until the finals

New Zealand History

The first RWC was held in New Zealand in 1987, which New Zealand won
New Zealand had not won since the inaugural championship in New Zealand, despite being the #1 ranked team for much of the past 24 years
New Zealand had not made a final since 1995 (which was held in South Africa, and was made into a little movie by the name of Invictus)

[In Team America voice] Matt Damon

Loves me some Matt Damon (Photo per Warner Brothers)

Pools are sorted so the teams ranked 1-4, 5-8, 9-12 are placed in separate pools
Lead teams were New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and England

Who to Cheer For

If you live in New Zealand, it is not difficult to figure out who to cheer for. Here's a handy guide in case you find yourself in a Kiwi pub during a rugby match.

Rule #1 - If the All Blacks are playing, you cheer for them

It is not uncommon for fans to participate in the
pre-game haka,regardless of how public the bar they're in

Also, for kicks: worst haka ever.

Rule #2 - If Australia are playing, you cheer against them

We hates Australia, trying to takes our precious

I personally have some mixed feelings

This Recovery Session photo courtesy of Zimbio

Rule #3 - In descending order, you cheer against England, France, and South Africa

Results

Here's what the IRB rankings look like today, 7 July 2012, which are largely unchanged since 2010.

IRB World Rankings - 02 July 2012

Position (last week)	Member Union	Rating Point
1(1)	NEW ZEALAND	91.43
2(2)	AUSTRALIA	87.05
3(3)	SOUTH AFRICA	84.87
4(4)	ENGLAND	83.09
5(5)	FRANCE	83.03
6(6)	WALES	82.26
7(7)	IRELAND	79.85
8(8)	ARGENTINA	79.25
9(9)	SCOTLAND	77.97
10(10)	SAMOA	76.23
11(11)	ITALY	76.03
12(12)	TONGA	74.79

The five top teams are the only ones to have ever played in the final, thus the other 15 teams in the tournament essentially have no hope of winning. What makes the pool play fun is that upsets from the number 6-12 ranked teams can dramatically affect later rounds.

Results

Ireland beat Australia 15-6, becoming the #1 team in their pool
South Africa narrowly beat Wales 17-16, retaining the #1 spot in their pool
New Zealand and England swept their pools
France was in New Zealand's pool, and crossed as the #2 team

Quarterfinals

New Zealand walked over Argentina
Wales defeated evenly matched Ireland
France squeaked one over England 19-12
Because Australia lost to Ireland, they had to play South Africa in the quarterfinals and escaped 11-9

Semifinals

New Zealand played Australia and won 20-6. Tickets were extremely hard to come by, and several cruise ships docked in Auckland and offered rooms for a cool five or six hundred a night
France played Wales

Wales was winning 3-0, but had possession, momentum and all that other good stuff going. Then, in the 17th minute, this happened. It's the equivalent of Zennadine Zidane getting sent off during the Soccer World Cup final in 2010. Down a player for the rest of the match, Wales lost 9-8 and their 23-year old captain Sam Warburton joined Sad Keanu and Sad Tom Brady on the bench.

Photo pulled from the Telegraph.co.uk

Hilariously, the two would run into each other again courtesy of Air New Zealand.

Finals
The World Cup Final featuring hosts New Zealand versus those cheese-eating surrender monkeys who infamously [in New Zealand] knocked them out in the quarterfinals at the 2007 RWC in France.

It was, for you Canadians, the USA versus Canada at home for the Gold Medal game in Vancouver 2010. Except if Canada hadn't won a single other medal at the games, and it was generally acknowledged that this would be the last Olympics held in Canada.

Photo from Getty Images here

Right, so it was the All Blacks against the French, and it was dangerous because France had just squeaked out two wins by fewer than 7 points each. And they were a notoriously sneaky bunch.

We went to a real Kiwi bar to watch the final in the big screen, and it was a pretty harrowing adventure. 15-minutes in, the All Blacks got on the scoreboard when Loosehead Prop #1 Tony Woodcock slid across the try-line on a set play from a line out. In NFL terms, this is the equivalent of throwing the ball to an offensive lineman because the defense won't expect it (except legal). Conversion was missed and New Zealand was up 5-0. Just after halftime in the 46th minute, Steven "the Beaver" Donald extended the All Black's lead to 8-0, which put France out of range from one score, and success seemed assured for New Zealand.

A minute later France's captain scored a converted try, leaving the score 8-7 for a spectacular 33 minutes of back-and forth rugby.

In the end, New Zealand held out for victory, and two of their more adorable players made confetti angels.

Pic from Yahoo! UK here

Then, we got the single most fascinating moment that John Key has delivered in his stint as Prime Minister, including his stint doing the Top 10 List on Letterman.

If you thought the worst haka ever featured above was bad, have a look as our Prime Minister (the investment banker on the left) tried to hijack this handshake.