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Rugby World XV

vek on 2002-03-13T18:59:25

The great Bill Mclaren is retiring and he's assembled his choice of a World XV.

For the record, here's mine:

15 - Serge Blanco (France) 14 - John Kirwan (New Zealand) 13 - Philippe Sella (France) 12 - Tim Horan (Australia) 11 - David Campese (Australia) 10 - Jonny Wilkinson (England) 9 - Nick Farr-Jones (Australia) 8 - Zinzan Brooke (New Zealand) 7 - Michael Jones (New Zealand) 6 - Richard Hill (England) 5 - John Eales (Australia) 4 - Martin Johnson (England) 3 - Richard Loe (New Zealand) 2 - Sean Fitzpatrick (New Zealand) 1 - Jason Leonard (England)

My goodness!

mir on 2002-04-17T09:29:09

Poor Johnny Wilkinson at fly-half and no Gareth Edwards at scrum-half?

I can't believe it (nor can I believe it took me so long to find a post talking about rugby here!)

Comme on, Wilkinson is just at the beginning of his career and has still to that prove he can last, and that he can play well when his forwards aren't dominating (did you see the France-Emgland game? Betsen put so much pressure on Wilkinson that he had to stand much further from the scrum than usually and completely lost his game. OK, I'm French ;--)

So what about Grant Fox, Michael Linagh, Barry John, Phil Bennet or Mark Ella at 10?

Re:My goodness!

vek on 2002-04-17T15:27:18

Actually you wouldn't believe how long it took me to come up with that bloody list, I must have changed my mind 50 times before settling on the final XV :-) Fly-half was one of the positions that caused me the most grief in fact. After much debate I was left with two - Michael Lynagh and Jonny Wilkinson - Ok, I'm English :-) (What, no Rob Andrew then??)

Grant Fox was very overrated in my opinion. In fact the very point you mention about Wilkinson can be applied very easily to Mr Fox i.e didn't really 'cut-the-mustard' when his forwards didn't dominate up front. In fact I would have loved to have been a fly-half if I had a pack composed of Steve Mcdowell, Sean Fitzpatrick, Richard Loe, Ian Jones, the Whetton brothers, Michael Jones & Wayne Shelford!! Although having said that the bloke was a human points machine when he was on form.

Unfortunately Barry John, Phil Bennet and Mark Ella (the bloke that Lynagh replaced in the Aussie team if memory serves) were a tad before my time as I grew up with the Rugby of the mid 80's onwards. I'm sure they're all bloody great players but I don't really know much about them.

Nice to hear from someone else in 'Perl-land' with an interest in Rugby :-)