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Who will the Wallabies play in their World Cup quarter-final?
By Nick Turnbull
Post their dramatic loss to 25-29 to a deserved Welsh side in Tokyo last weekend, it is anticipated that the Wallabies will now meet the might of England as the Australians appear destined to finish runners-up of Pool D, thus putting them on a collision course with the winner of Pool C.
Yet a clear path to an English conquest of Pool C will be challenged by Argentina and France, both of whom would relish in defeating this venerable English side as each has ‘history’ with the men in white.
Argentina will be the first hurdle for the English when they square off at Tokyo Stadium this Saturday, and it is destined to be attritional rugby at its finest.
“Saturday is going to be like a war, it's like a final for us," legendary Argentinian hooker Agustin Creevey said.
"It’s going to be really hard with the forwards. I think the battle with the forwards will be the game. We need to win the scrum, win the line-out, win the maul, win the breakdown.”
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England has not lost to Argentina since 2009, which bodes well for Eddie Jones’ men, while they haven't played against each other since 2017, where Los Pumas were defeated at Twickenham 21-8.
However, since they last met, Argentina have defeated South Africa and Australia and narrowly lost to New Zealand.
This, coupled with the Jaguares finishing runners-up in Super Rugby this year is indicative that there have been encouraging results for Argentinean rugby despite their inconsistencies.
Argentina is not a team to be trifled with.
" he said.
"If England want to win the World Cup they have got five knockout games. They have got Argentina, France, quarter-final, semi-final, final and I don’t think they have got the mentality in the squad at the moment to be able to back that up five weeks in a row.”
England have not strung together four successive wins over tier one nations since 2017, those being against France, Wales, Italy and Scotland, which gives factual credibility to Thompson's assertions.
However, I differ from Thompson as I think England could still win the World Cup if they were to lose to either Argentina or France in the pool stage.
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Latest Comments
Yeah well you guys couldn't do it at home could you, never mind in Italia. Theyve been good for a few years now, 23' when France and Ireland were at their best were arguably better Italian performances than this years 6N results.
My point was of course they don't want to get ahead of themselves and then lose against teams that they should be beating. That's the difficulty with getting better and better.
Go to commentsThey’re being dressed as midfielders. Neither of them is a natural midfielder, they’re both converts.
You can call a rose by any other name, yada yada, as Billy Shakespeare says. Semantics.
New Zealand went all the way from having a surplus of midfielders in about 2015 to having to convert wingers and two different utility backs (Havili, Jordie). How did that happen?
All the while actual specialist 12s and 13s are not even getting a proper shot. Laumape lost patience with that nonsense. Big Leicester as well (now that’s a winger convert that would actually make sense at 13). It’s literally stupid not to try players out.
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