Starting to show your true colours - RWC Day 10

After rising at 4:25am to watch Wales vs Samoa I was reassured to see the true Wales turn up in the second game of the campaign. Stuttering in attack, beaten at the breakdown and general nervousness; this is the Wales that I have been use to seeing for the past couple of years. Luckily for the Welsh this time Samoa could not finish their chances, if they had Wales would be out at the group stages for the second tournament in a row. If I was a Fijian I would be licking my lips at the thought of playing Wales in a possible winner takes all match at the end of the group stages.

With Hook and Lydiate possibly out for the games against Namibia and Fiji Wales cannot afford to rest players, first choice combinations need to be picked against Namibia so that they do not end up underdone against Fiji. If nothing else it was certainly worth getting up at 4:30 for.

After that starter came the main course. St George vs St George as England took on the gigantic Georgians. England's penalty count was a disgrace, for the second game in a row they seem ill prepared to deal with the competition at the breakdown and were lucky to again be facing a below par kicker. James Haskell has asked for players to be singled out, this will be easy to do and could be done at the next forwards meeting they have. Matt Stevens seemed to catch a case of 'penaltyitus' even though the ref told him what he was doing wrong, Corbisiero will be taking his place against Romania! As for Dylan Hartley (club allegiances aside) the man is well known idiot and his sin binning and general performance has sealed a spot on the bench for him for the rest of the tournament.

In the ITV studio afterwards the pundits seem to have an agenda against the 'young guns', especially the backs. I thought Flood and Youngs did well, Flood grew into the game and will be better against Romania if given the chance. It was good to see Ashton get a couple of tries and Tuilagi's score was try of the game. It was the definition of beautiful simplicity, ball off the top two quick passes and a good run from deep from Tuilagi and he was not touched. It's so so simple to score tries, I think England are just over-complicating it at the moment. It was still a step forward from the Argentina game just not the big step we all wanted.

As for desert there were some sumptuous tries for France against Canada but it was still less than convincing from them. The point France have on their side is that it is almost expected that they blow hot and cold!!