2015 RUGBY WORLD CUP
QUARTER FINALS
| Sat 17-Oct | SOUTH AFRICA | 23-19 | WALES | Twickenham |
| 4pm | T: du Preez P: Pollard 6 | T: G Davies P: Biggar 3 C: Biggar DG: Biggar | ||
| Sat 17-Oct | NEW ZEALAND | 62-13 | FRANCE | Cardiff |
| 8pm | T: Retallick, Milner-Skudder, Savea 3, Kaino, Read, Kerr-Barlow 2 P: Carter C: Carter 7 | T: Picamoles P: Spedding, Parra C: Parra | ||
| Sun 18-Oct | IRELAND | 20-43 | ARGENTINA | Cardiff |
| 1pm | T: Fitzgerald, Murphy P: Madigan 2 C: Madigan 2 | T: Moroni, Imhoff 2, Tuculet P: Sanchez 5 C: Sanchez 4 | ||
| Sun 18-Oct | AUSTRALIA | 35-34 | SCOTLAND | Twickenham |
| 4pm | T: Ashley-Cooper, Mitchell 2, Hooper, Kuridrani P: Foley 2 C: Foley 2 | T: Horne, Seymour, Bennett P: Laidlaw 5 C: Laidlaw |
SCOTLAND suffered Rugby World Cup heartbreak as a controversial late Australia penalty confirmed an all-southern hemisphere semi final line-up for the first time ever.
Bernard Foley kicked the three points to give the Wallabies a 34-32 victory - but, in a rare move, governing body World Rugby has since admitted South African referee Craig Joubert got his decision wrong.
Originally, Joubert gave the penalty after ruling Scottish prop Jon Welsh was ruled deliberately offside for playing the ball after a knock-on by a team-mate.
Instead, though, Australia should have only had a scrum for the knock-on as their scrum-half Nick Phipps had also touched the ball before Welsh.
Unfortunately, the situation has now got rather messy with Joubert being somewhat hung out to dry despite the rules of the game preventing him from referring the incident to the television match official.
Indeed, it is a shame that such an unexpectedly thrilling close contest will now likely only be truly remembered for a single moment in it.
Elsewhere in the quarter finals, Wales fell similarly just short against South Africa, despite having led 13-12 at half time and 19-18 with five minutes left in a thriller at Twickenham.
But, just as it looked as if the Welsh might hold out against immense pressure from the Springboks, Fourie du Preez's ran off the back of a scrum to score a match-winning try.
Later that evening, France were humiliated by a rampant New Zealand performance featuring nine tries - before, on Sunday afternoon, Argentina shocked an Ireland team ravaged by injuries.
Undoubtedly, that defeat would have still come as a hell of a shock for an Irish outfit which had won the last two Six Nations Championships and were generally considered the north's best chance of deep progress in this competition.
Then again, the Pumas have now won three of their four World Cup matches against Ireland who themselves have never made it beyond the last eight.
By contrast, Sunday will see Argentina play their second World Cup semi final following 37-13 defeat to South Africa in 2007 after which the South Americans applied to join the Six Nations Championship.
The application was flatly rejected and, five years later, the Argentines instead joined up with the big three southern hemisphere giants in what is now called the Rugby Championship.
There, the Pumas have found it tough going at times, winning just twice and finishing bottom in three of the four years in which they have competed.
Nevertheless, the regular exposure to the highest level of rugby in the world certainly seems to have improved their game - as Joe Schmidt's Ireland found to their cost.
Of course, the biggest failure from the north still undoubtedly lies with the hosts England.
Hoping at the very least for a glorious Euro 96-style failure in the semi finals, which nevertheless won the heart of the nation, England instead fell to successive devastating defeats to Wales and Australia.
Consequently, they became the first ever host nation to go out of its own World Cup in the Pool stages.
Somehow, for now, head coach Stuart Lancaster remains in position ahead of an official review which has been requested by Rugby Football Union chief Bill Beaumont.
Already, though, the reputation of the whole of this coaching set-up surely cannot be recovered.
In terms of selection, there has been little consistency with the worst of the confusion in centre pairing as England reverted to conservatism over flair.
On top of this, there was also the decidedly ill-thought-out - and possibly even pig-headed - policy of refusing to pick players currently playing outside of England. It was something which left a world-class player in Steffon Armitage sitting in France.
And, indeed, it was amidst this mess that skipper Chris Robshaw demonstrated totally muddled thinking when he opted to kick to the corner rather than the posts in the dying minutes of the match against Wales.
Unflustered fly-half Owen Farrell had, after all, produced an infallible performance off the tee and those likely three points would have kept England in their own tournament at the expense of the Welsh.
So the only forgivable reasoning behind Robshaw's decision to head for the corner came from a misguided attempt to repeat Japan's thrilling win over South Africa on the opening weekend.
In that match, Japan - trailing by three points - somehow won their first Rugby World Cup game for 24 years after turning down the chance of a draw by kicking for the corner.
Instead, Karne Hesketh crossed the line off the line-out to give the Cherry Blossoms a win - and assure World Cup infamy for this group of Japanese players.
The difference between the two situations was pretty stark, however.
While England were expected to challenge strongly on home turf for a second lift of the William Webb Ellis Cup, Japan were merely expected to put up a respectable showing ahead of their hosting of the next tournament in 2019.
Therefore, even though they were obviously losing on the pitch with seconds left, the Japanese - by pushing the Springboks so close - had already achieved their pre-tournament aim. They were effectively in a no-lose situation.
By contrast, England surely needed to take a purely pragmatic long-term view by not reducing their chances to a death-or-glory match against Australia. Any romanticism could come later, flushed with success.
Ironically then, it was ultimately Japan - and not England - who captured the heart of the host nation - and they were indeed desperately unlucky to be eliminated in the Pool stages.
The victim of rotten scheduling - their match against Scotland came only four days after that momentous win over South Africa - Japan were, in fact, the first ever team to go out at the Pool stage having won three matches.
Undoubtedly, the scheduling in this competition has left a lot to be desired - and the draw, which took place way back in December 2012, was also ridiculously early.
Otherwise, though, the organisers can consider the tournament to be a success with capacity crowds and lively fan parks enjoying games featuring all 20 of the teams.
The competitiveness of the Tier II nations is much improved with every team crossing the try-line and only one complete shut-out by South Africa against United States.
Inevitably, there have still been a few one-sided games but none has threatened to be a repeat of Australia 142-0 Namibia in 2003 or New Zealand 145-17 Japan in 1995. Yes, the Japanese have certainly come along way since then.
Naturally, none of this anaesthetises the pain felt by England, the hurt felt by France or go some way to solving the mystery of why Ireland never perform to their best at a World Cup.
Nor will it shine further light on still utterly unconvincing Tier I status of Italy - or soften the blow for the disappointed Welsh and the dejected Scots.
Instead, the final two weeks of the 2015 Rugby World Cup belong to the stronger south. Now for the biggest games in the rugby union calendar:
SEMI FINALS
| Sat 24-Oct | SOUTH AFRICA | 18-20 | NEW ZEALAND | Twickenham |
| 4pm | P: Pollard 5, Lambie | T: Kaino, Barrett P: Carter C: Carter 2 DG: Carter | ||
| Sun 25-Oct | ARGENTINA | 15-29 | AUSTRALIA | Twickenham |
| 4pm | P: Sanchez 5 | T: Simmons, Ashley-Cooper 3 P: Foley C: Foley 3 |
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