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'England will kick Fiji to death, and it's France by one – Adam Jones
I’m going with England to reach the Rugby World Cup semi-finals. You saw in that first pool game against Argentina that they have got a big win in them. They also played Fiji in the summer and while they lost, they will have done their analysis and will have worked out any weakness in their armour.
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England will kick Fiji to death. Maul, scrum, points, and then their little superstar, Marcus Smith, will come in for a couple of tries from full-back. Smith is going to add an extra spark to the England attack, which is brilliant.
Traditionally when you play Fiji if you get thrown into that sling-the-ball-around type of game, it suits them. England will have to be a little bit more scrum for penalties, maul for penalties, and be very English with that extra bit of gold dust coming in at full-back. It will be interesting to see. England will win but not much.
Fiji have a lot of threats but if they can take care of the nuts and bolts, get their maul and scrum firing to just even get parity, and not let England get on top there, they can win.
Not having their first-choice 10 [Caleb Muntz] at the World Cup is a problem but they can still break the England attack down due to their personnel and talent.
The Fijians kind of look like they did well in their two big pool games and they have just tried to get through the other two. They knew they would have had to do something seriously bad not to qualify, shall we say, and all eyes would have been straight on the quarter-final despite the loss to Portugal.
You could tell from that match Fiji were already focused on the quarter-final and they could come out flying against England.
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There is a lot of emotion in that camp now for different reasons and there is a lot of playing for different things. Emotionally they are going to be there or thereabouts and if they bring their game, of course they can beat England. But I just fancy England to grind it down and squeeze the life out of it.
Turning to Sunday’s other quarter-final, we had a sweepstake in work at Harlequins and I said France but it’s such a 50/50 against South Africa. The French pack is not as big as it used to be. They have got big players but they are missing Paul Willemse.
It’s going to be a huge physical battle and I imagine it will be similar to the Ireland-South Africa pool game, a lot of running into each other, real brick wall stuff. But home advantage, the nine [Antoine Dupont] coming back in, I’ll give it to France.
There is a lot of talk about Dupont and the cheekbone he fractured last month. When I was playing 10, 15 years ago players would certainly have played with a few more knocks. I remember seeing Colin Charvis having his face strapped, Olivier Magne, it went on a bit.
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The medical side of rugby has gotten much better since then and players are way more looked after. But Dupont is the talisman, he is the head guy and if France are to win this World Cup, they need him fit and firing. There is a lot of pressure on him but he doesn’t seem to mind.
Handre Pollard only makes the South African bench and while he is the better kicker, Manie Libbok seems to get their attack moving which is something you haven’t seen a lot of over the last 10 years.
The fact they have got a massive pack of forwards and a backline whose attack is frightening will certainly have kept Shaun Edwards up this week.
But even if Libbok gets the attack flowing, you still have to score points to win. I’m sure he has done a lot of work on his kicking, but a converted try is worth more than two penalties so it would be all the better for South Africa if they can score more tries.
However, it’s home advantage for France, the whole country is looking for them to go and do it. They have talked about this World Cup for so long now, they will expect a good result. I’m going to France by one.
- This Rugby World Cup guest column is brought to you in association with the renewed partnership between Harlequins and official trading partner Saxo, a global leader in online investing, for the 2023/2024 Gallagher Premiership season;
- Aside from Wales legend and Harlequins coach Adam Jones, ex-Ireland hooker-turned-coach Jerry Flannery and England lock Joe Launchbury will also be writing columns over the course of the tournament.
Comments on RugbyPass
Think it was a great defensive performance by Northampton. They didn't have stage fright in the first half, the Nienaber defense smothered them. They limited Leinster to 15-3 in the first half. It could have been over by then. A great try from Leinster in the start of the second half looked to have sealed it. But Byrne missed another conversion. Northampton started trying little kicks behind the Leinster wingers. Leinster messed one and Smith brilliantly made the conversion. Leinster decided to tighten the game after Byrne missed a straight forward penalty. A few errors got NH into the 22 and they scored and converted with a few minutes left. Another brilliant steal from Lawes saw NH have a final attack which was turned over by Conan. A classic semi final. World record attendance of 82,300. Leinsters 3 week preparation warranted for this one.
1 Go to commentsJust came back from the game and the atmosphere was amazing. Players stayed afterwards for more than a hour to sign stuff and take photos with fans. Great day out.
5 Go to commentsA great game. The Sharks without Etsebeth are a shadow of the team compared to when he plays. The limitations of Some of the expensive Sharks players are being exposed. Credit to Clermont for some exhilaration play at times.
5 Go to comments100% Mr Owens. But who would want to be a referee.? It must be the most difficult job on earth.
1 Go to commentsStarts to be overdone and oversold this systematic SA narrative…which nevertheless has the merit in this case to recognise blatant refereeing mistakes in their favor
5 Go to commentsNice article. Shades of Steinbeck. They can win the final if they take the game seriously; but only if they take it seriously.
5 Go to commentsWhat a sad way to end a glittering career. Somebody should tell him to delete his social media accounts and face the consequences of what he's done. Then he should slip away quietly into obscurity. This isn't likely to happen, something tells me he'll be back in The Sun / Daily Mail sooner rather than later.
3 Go to commentsguys its fine! he understands why he did what he did and has taken accountability for it; why should he have to be accountable to a court? after all he did was abuse people in person - its not as if he was engaging in _online_ abuse!
3 Go to commentsChiefs flanker Kaylum Boshier yellow-carded for collapsing the scrum as it rolled towards the line. It was a maul….
1 Go to commentsyou know, i’m a leinster fan so I want Northampton to lose and it is gonna be tuff with Cortney lawes, Alex michell and the other guys🏉 lets go leinster🏉
1 Go to commentsWelcome to the Pro ranks. Those hard teams of old do hit the sole better though. its a dog fight at the top.
6 Go to commentsCan someone fill me in please, I've read a number of Ben Smith articles now and it seems he's got something again South Africa? Surely, this game was over and done with 7 months ago. Can't we have something a bit more interesting and relevant, or is this the calibre of journalist on this site?
235 Go to commentsNot sure what the Welsh are moaning about. They’ve had far more players off England, than England have had off Wales. Guys like Josh Hathaway and Kane James will play for Wales in the end. And they’ll be fsr better players for having played in the Gallagher Premiership, than they ever would have been had they stayed mired in the shambles that is Welsh rugby.
4 Go to commentsThis is all being blown totally out of proportion. First of all, since half the Irish team isn’t Irish - it’s very likely that none of the Irish players said that at all and, thus, we’re not being arrogant. Second, since half the Irish team is Kiwi - it’s very likely the Kiwi players were predicting a NZ SA World Cup final. Which they got spot on. Good on them!
163 Go to commentsAha. An Irishman with logic! Follow the flow: - Ireland peaks with a >80% win record between 2020 and 2023. And then… - crashes out of another QF at the WC; - Beat a poor French Team; - Beat 6N wooden spoonists Italy; - Play shite against eventual wooden spoonists Wales; - Lose against the most boring, “the worst English team ever” , a team widely regarded as unable to attack; - scrape through against Scotland. This article, No - Trimble, is on the money! Except for one glaring statement: _The Springboks have a few aces in the hole in this debate being the reigning world champions and official world number ones_ There is no debate, boys and girls. There it is. In black and white. “Reigning World Champions and OFFICIAL world number ones”. Come July, the overrated Andy Farrell and this overhyped team are going to enter into a world of hurt.
90 Go to commentsI’d like to know what homoerotic events Daniel enjoyed at 8th man. I clearly missed out!
20 Go to commentsThis article is missing some detail, like some actual context or info about what led to him abusing the ref.
2 Go to comments*They used to say that football is a gentleman sport watched by hooligans and rugby is a hooligan sport watched by gentlemen. How times have changed.*
3 Go to commentsexcept ot wasnt late wasnt late at all so dont know why you all saying its late he commits early and its your fault fir not paying attention
30 Go to commentsNot sure the Bulls need another average utility back in their ranks. Chamberlain has been ok for the Sharks but is by no means an X-Factor player. Bulls bought several utility backs which they barely use. A typical example would be Henry Immelman who plays mostly Fullback. The Bulls however have rarely played him this year and he has played wing or centre. Bulls want to build depth but seems like they have too many surplus players
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