chickenfeet

I'm not seeing much reason to change my prediction of an all southern hemisphere semifinals. Ireland were pretty dismal against France and Argentina are sticking it to Namibia. I really fancy Argentina to win the group which would give them a quarter final against Scotland or Italy, both of whom I'd expect them to beat.

Scotland aren't even fielding their full strength side tomorrow against New Zealand, preferring to effectively concede without a fight so as to conserve their strength for their crunch match with Italy. Yes, it makes sense but read that sentence again and imagine what Ian McGeechan or Gavin Hastings or anyone of Scotland's former greats would have thought of it.

England finally looked like a decent side against Samoa. They should be good enough for second place in the group but that means a quarter final against Australia. They'll have to keep improving at a pretty good lick to have even a hope there.