Like No.10 let’s get behind Wales

Posted at 15:16 on Oct 14, 2011 by Muscle Blog

A BATTLE OF STYLES

Prediction: Wales 23-16 France

Despite England’s appalling exit, I’d love Wales to win the Rugby World Cup. They’ve been awesome throughout the tournament. Wales is a massive rugby nation, not in terms of its size, but it’s their religion. Winning the Rugby World Cup for them is the equivalent of England doing the same in football.

France will be relying on their scrum going forwards on the right-hand side, so they can attack where they’ve naturally got numbers and space. Nicolas Mas, who was pivotal against England, has to do a job on Gethin Jenkins in the scrum and France will need their world class line-out functioning at its imperious best.

Imanol Harinordoquay and Julien Bonnaire are outstanding operators in the air and equally as devastating feasting on scraps at the ruck, so Wales will need to keep their error count down and look after their ball.

Make no mistake, if Wales perform to the same standards as they did last week, they will beat France, but to get the better of Australia or New Zealand, they’ll have to play the game of their lives.

TITANIC TASMAN TUSSLE ON THE CARDS

Prediction: New Zealand 18-24 Australia

A lot is being made of the battles at No.7 and No.10 in the Tasman battle and the key clashes will certainly decide who goes through to the final.

Ideally we need New Zealand and Austrlaia to become embroiled in brutal warfare on Sunday. Dan Carter’s obviously out injured, but Wales could do with Richie McCaw’s foot getting a little bit worse too.

Australia’s key man will be David Pocock. He is so powerful and arguably a better specialist poacher at the breakdown than McCaw, but the All-Black captain’s all-round game is more effective. He is a better link up player and makes more yards as a ball carrier.

Credit to McCaw, the only way to reach 100 caps as an openside flanker is to learn how to cheat and he’s perfected that art. You see him more than any other No.7 in the world, lying in awkward positions and slowing down ball. He is a class apart! What’s more impressive is how often he gets away with it.

Carter is a huge loss for New Zealand. You want someone inspirational at fly-half and Carter excels in his position because he makes very few errors and does the basics very well.  Aaron Cruden will be given strict orders to play the percentages and use Conrad Smith and Ma’a Nonu to get them on the front foot.

Cruden is facing up against the mercurially talented, Quade Cooper. He does other worldly things exceptionally well now and again, but all of the attention on his reverse passes five metres out masks other basic errors in his game. He could win or lose a Rugby World Cup on his own and that’s not what the All-Blacks would want at fly-half, so will be interesting to watch him go on Sunday.