Well, rugby history was made when Rugby World Cup hosts France became the first side to defeat New Zealand (Who Ian Foster (The father of female New Zealand footballer Michaela who wasn't used as she didn't play all her matches for the Football Ferns at the most recent Football Women's World Cup this year in Australia & New Zealand through injury) should've & could've brought the bench on earlier (Similar to the Blues - Crusaders final from last year in which the Blues should've won if they chose to bring on Luke Romano earlier, but the Crusaders were in fact dominant from start to finish), well that would've made the difference, but how unfortunate that the AB's had lost to France for the first time at a Rugby World Cup since 2007, & in counter point that for the 1st time in the tournament's 36 year history that New Zealand began the Rugby World Cup with a loss) in pool play in which both the Irish & the South Africans are feeling generous about the All Blacks unfortunate defeat against the French (Who played like the Boks in London, England (That was the day before Fiji pulled off the unthinkable as they claim the biggest boilover in international rugby history by claiming the mother of all upsets with a win against England, also in a test match prior to the World Cup (Compared to Japan's upset win over South Africa at the 2015 tournament billed as 'the Miracle of Brighton' then Tonga shocking the rugby world over France in 2011 during the World Cup while also the biggest upset in world rugby before the Brighton Miracle in 1999 as the French torn sky blast New Zealand apart by having an insane amount of rugby as they were on a points scoring spree according to the previous blogs that I did as well as James 'Buster' Douglas who pulled the grandaddy of them all with a win over 'Iron' Mike Tyson in a boxing bout in Tokyo in 1990 just 23 days after his mother passed away when at that moment that Douglas became the Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World, & the most infamous of them all, the Miracle on Ice as the strictly amateur United States team pulled off a memorable win against the fully professional Soviet Union side during the Winter Olympics ice hockey medal round game at Lake Placid, New York in 1980 (The same year amidst the backdrop of the Iranian hostage crisis & the Soviet Union's war on Afghanistan took place but Al Michaels's thoughts of the Americans beating the Soviets echoed across television sets in America "Do you believe in miracles?!") in one of by far, the greatest moments in sporting history as well as the top sports moments of the 20th century with both sporting stories that I did also according to my blog in 2021) in a pre-Rugby World Cup friendly) in front of a packed Stade de France crowd (And the headlines would probably say: RUGBY WORLD CUP HOSTS TOPPLE ALL BLACKS IN OPENER, or more like: KIWI EXPRESS CRUSHED BY MAGNIFICENT FROGS IN THE RWC) although we still got a better chance according to the comment made from Pops to me, but we fear that we might face the reigning champs South Africa in the quarterfinal after our dismal result from our NZ point of view (And now that we're on a back of a 2 match losing streak (It was the Springboks first at Twickenham (The home of rugby in England) before the tournament had even begun, now France (Who are now on a 4 match winning streak dating back to Scotland (Who last beat the French at Murrayfield in Edinburgh by leaving out their first choice players for France (Who had both defeats this year such as the eventual Six Nations champions Ireland & the aforementioned Scottish in Edinburgh) at home) in Saint-Etienne followed by Fiji in Nantes then the Wallabies of Australia in Saint-Denis & now they stunned the AB's (Who had unfortunately lost our captain Sam Cane in which he had to be pulled out/withdrawn with a back spasm, allowing Ardie Savea to take over the skipper's role then moving Dalton Papali'i to the openside flanker position while Tupou Vaa'i takes Papali'i's place at blindside flanker & Brodie Retallick had to appear on the bench as he returns from injury that he might have an outside chance of playing by being on the pine, & that hurts because this is like 1999 & 2007 all over again (And I mean what went wrong for the AB's to lose a pool game for the first time at a RWC like this? Is that we did not get it right against the hosts because consistency is always the key to success & we were inconsistent that time on that occasion mainly due to a lack of depth (And I mean that was heartbreaking stuff that we suffered our first defeat in pool play for which I was totally gutted about the result I have to say about the 1st time the All Blacks have had back to back losses since the end of 2021, but the standout of the RWC opening game would be one of the designated goal kickers for France of Thomas Ramos of Stade Toulousain who had a blinder of a match but the kicking game from New Zealand was in fact poor as we didn't get it done right at the end, but the standout player of the game went to one of France's loose forwards of Gregory Alldritt), so let's hope that we can turn around against the Namibians in our next pool game, but we would be able to bring back our first choice players such as Sam Cane, Shannon Frizell, Jordie Barrett & Tyrel Lomax for the knockouts), but can we go all the way for New Zealand of becoming the 2nd side to win the tournament after South Africa in 2019 to begin our campaign with defeat in the opening game? I literally think so, but we might have also an outside chance of toppling the world champion Springboks side in the quarters) in the opening match of the tournament) in the Rugby World Cup opener at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis) going into the next game against Namibia in which we have played before in international rugby not once but twice) & there has been sad news as Emoni Narawa is ruled out of the tournament through a broken back meaning that Ethan Blackadder of both the Crusaders & Tasman Mako is called up to the squad as injury replacement to compensate with the depleted loose forward department.
And here are the other results from the pool matches of the 2023 Rugby World Cup that have just come in:
Italy 52 - 8 Namibia (It was Italy's day as they begin their campaign with a hammering over Namibia in Saint-Etienne)
Ireland 82 - 8 Romania (And it was the luck of the Irish (Who haven't lost a test since last year against New Zealand during the 1st test at Eden Park in Auckland) as they begin their chase of their historic first ever RWC championship with a really comprehensive win over the Romanians in Johnny Sexton's comeback game in Bordeaux which was held under sweltering hot conditions over there (And the Irish (Whose 100% winning record in 2023, remains intact) are now on a 13 match winning run going into the next World Cup game against Tonga)
Australia 35 - 15 Georgia (It was the Wallabies joy as they start their hopes of winning their first Rugby World Cup since 1999 with a thrashing against Georgia in their 2nd ever meeting at the tournament between both sides in Saint-Denis)
England 27 - 10 Argentina (It was England's night as they begin their campaign of lifting their 1st William Webb Ellis cup in 20 years with a victory despite shrugging off with 14 players against Argentina in Marseille after a red card being given to Tom Curry (Who originally being given a yellow card then an off field review by the bunker which resulted in a sending off in which there was no mitigating factor about the illegal tackle but he will be suspended (Along with captain Owen Farrell & Billy Vunipola as part of the suspended players list for England) for his actions caused by it regarding foul play) for a high shot with George Ford providing the heroics as he scored all of the team's points at 27 (Including 6 penalty goals & 3 drop goals)
Japan 42 - 12 Chile (And it was Japan's joy as they roll over tournament debutants Chile on that fateful day in Toulouse)
South Africa 18 - 3 Scotland (It was the dominant Springboks (Who are now on a 3 game winning streak since their last defeat against the AB's at Go Media Stadium Mount Smart in Auckland going into the next match against Romania) day as they begin their title defence with a resounding win over Scotland in Marseille)
& Wales 32 - 26 Fiji (It was Wales who cling on by taking victory in Bordeaux against the high flying Fijians who came agonizingly close of beating the Welsh for the first time at a RWC since 2007 in the end)
And the latest on Indycar as New Zealander Scott Dixon who missed out on keeping his hopes of winning his record equalling 7th American open wheel championship (And also with the championship being already decided on that occasion at the previous race in Portland, needless to say), has taken victory in the season finale at Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca in Salinas, California for his first win at the venue when 'the Iceman' had broken the drought as he claimed 1 million American dollars for his victory after overcoming a double penalty for causing a collision on Dutchman Rinus Veekay while fellow countryman Scott McLaughlin finished in 2nd while the newly crowned twice Indycar champion & one of Dixon's teammates of Alex Palou has rounded out the podium, in one of Indycar's most wildest races that they had this year fuelled with incidents which brought out the full course yellow countless number of times such as collisions as well as drivers going off & getting mad at each other, & it was ridiculous in a drama filled with chaos in which a whopping 8 caution periods came out during the race in a instant knee-jerk reaction (And I mean you are joking about it, but you're absolutely kidding right?), similar to Road America in 1996 according to the previous blogs that I did.
And I hadn't mentioned on my blog that there has been many incidents involving aviation such as close calls & near misses which resulted in an alarming pattern being found of safety lapses in the skies as commercial airlines experienced at least 46 close-call incidents in July with the Biden administration expected to move towards new funding to cut close calls regarding to aviation by introducing improvments to avation safety, focusing on preventing close-call incidents in American airports, but there's also the emphasis of mitigating runway close calls as the FAA (Who'll spend $10 million American dollars to improvements being made on the awareness about controller situations & reduce runway close calls by deploying surface surveillance to added airports) being issued a safety call to action as well as there'll be runway safety meetings at about roughly 90 airports.
And I also haven't mentioned that there's a new study about there are calls for white shorts in women's sports to be eliminated in a bid to emphasize on player comfort (Unlike the PS4/PS5 game of Gran Turismo 7 has gone online exclusive to all modes in a bid to stamp out cheating), especially the match officials in the NPC rugby here in New Zealand being told to wear black shorts according to the research on wearing coloured shorts other than white as well as most Farah Palmer Cup teams ditch the white shorts for coloured ones such as Auckland Storm, Waikato women & others like the Northland Kauri, so too is the Football Ferns wearing all black as their home kit for the Football Women's World Cup this year that they had (While the away kit consists of white shirt & socks, but wear different colour of shorts such as teal), & the Irish women's rugby team in a move of wearing dark blue shorts instead of white.
And in tennis news such as Coco Gauff becomes the first American woman since Sofia Kenin for their achievement of becoming a grand slam winner when she won her home grand slam at the US Tennis Open (For which I haven't mentioned in my blogs which is the last tennis grand slam event of the year as they celebrated 50 years of equal pay regarding to prize money of both the men & women according to Billy Jean King's post match victory speech in 1972 while Gauff is the 1st American to win the US tennis open since Sloane Stephens in 2017 while Andy Roddick is the last male to win the US open which was 20 years ago) at Flushing Meadows in New York City, New York in front of her adoring home fans against the Australian Open women's singles champion & new women's world No.1 of Aryna Sabalenka, but the men's singles crown went to Serbia's Novak Djokovic (In which he takes over from Spain's young sensation of Carlos Alcaraz to be on top of the men's tennis world rankings again) who had dispatched the 2021 US Open men's singles champion Daniil Medvedev in which Djokovic redeemed himself after losing to Alcaraz at Wimbeldon in July, a day later on centre court, but it's been 22 years since the 9/11 attacks had occurred in New York City, New York along with the Pentagon at Arlington county in Virginia & at the wooded area in Pennsylvania in America in a horrific but tragic event being unfolded way back in 2001 (Same year that Kiwi America's Cup hero of the late Sir Peter 'Blakey' Blake (One of the late rally driver Possum Bourne's sporting heroes growing up along with one of New Zealand cricket's all-time greats of Sir Richard 'Paddles' Hadlee) who was tragically killed by Brazilian pirates in Macapa, Brazil a week after the late Beatle of George Harrison passed away in Los Angeles, California in the United States after a short battle with cancer to join with the late John Lennon as the other Beatle to have lost their life in which Paul McCartney & Ringo Starr are both the surviving members of the famous British pop rock band the Beatles according to the previous blogs that I did) which was in fact one of the darkest days in history which shocked the world (And just only 18 have survived in the World Trade Centre tower collapse according to the story that I remember from Carole in which we were on our way to mint Cafe on Friday) in which the war on terror had been declared).
And finally that it's happening that I'm going to Palmerston North during the 1st week of the school holidays with Dad & Raewyn for the 1st time in 10 months (The last time I went was last year with Pops) to go shopping at JB Hi-Fi in the Plaza where we'll have lunch there as well as going to Harvey Norman & me paying my first visit to the New Zealand rugby museum since late 2016.
So that is my 518th blog of the year 2023 (MMXXIII) & my 42nd of this year, viva Ukraine.
P.S. And the All Blacks team has been revealed ahead of our next pool game against Namibia (Our 1st meeting between the two sides was in 2015 which resulted in a comprehensive win for New Zealand but the last time we met the Namibians was in 2019 in which we hammered them including an incredible acrobatic try scored in the corner from TJ Perenara, was in fact the try of the tournament as well as being awarded the try of the year in 2019) for our chance to end that wretched 2 match losing streak dating back to the Springboks test at Twickenham in London, England, then against the tournament hosts France at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis in the World Cup opener in which we finally lost a game in pool play (Our last win for the AB's was in Dunedin last month in a hard fought battle against the Wallabies in Bledisloe II), so here is the starting lineup according to coach Fozzy (Ian Foster):
STARTING XV
FORWARD PACK
FRONT ROW
1 (Loose head prop): Ofa Tu'ungafasi (Blues/Northland)
2 (Hooker): Samisoni Taukei'aho (Chiefs/Waikato)
3 (Tight head prop): Nepo Laulala (Blues/Counties Manukau)
SECOND ROW
4 (No.4 lock): Brodie Retallick (Chiefs/Hawke's Bay)
5 (No.5 lock): Sam Whitelock (Crusaders/Canterbury)
LOOSE FORWARDS
6 (Blind side flanker): Luke Jacobson (Chiefs/Waikato)
7 (Open side flanker): Dalton Papali'i (Blues/Counties Manukau)
8 (Number 8): Ardie Savea (Captain, Hurricanes/Wellington)
BACK LINE
HALVES
9 (Half-back): Cam Roigard (Hurricanes/Counties Manukau)
10 (First five-eighth): Damian McKenzie (Chiefs/Waikato)
MIDFIELD
12 (Second five-eighth): David Havili (Crusaders/Tasman)
13 (Centre): Anton Lienert-Brown (Chiefs/Waikato)
OUTSIDE BACKS
11 (Left wing): Leicester Fainga'anuku (Crusaders/Tasman)
14 (Right wing): Caleb Clarke (Blues/Auckland)
& 15 (Fullback): Beauden Barrett (Blues/Taranaki)
& REPLACEMENT PLAYERS
16 (Reserve hooker): Dane Coles (Who replaces Samisoni Taukei'aho with Taukei'aho elevated to the starting lineup to replace Codie Taylor to start at hooker)
17 (Reserve loose head prop): Ethan de Groot (Who is dropped to the bench as the reserve loose head prop position with Ofa Tu'ungafasi making way to the starting lineup to start in the loosehead prop position)
18 (Reserve tight head prop): Fletcher Newell
19 (Reserve lock): Scott Barrett (Who is dropped to the bench with Retallick elevated to the starting lineup to start as the number 4 lock)
20 (Reserve loose forward): Tupou Vaa'i
21 (Reserve half-back): Aaron Smith (Who is dropped to the bench to replace Finlay Christie to cover the halfback position)
22 (Reserve first-five eighth): Richie Mo'unga (Who is making way to replace David Havili to cover the first five position with Havili making way to the starting lineup, taking Anton Lienert-Brown's place at second five with Lienert-Brown moving to his preferred position as the starting centre)
& 23 (Reserve back): Rieko Ioane (Who has replaced Leicester Fainga'anuku to cover the reserve back position with Fainga'anuku elevated to the starting lineup to replace Will Jordan as the starting right winger)
And Namibia led by their veteran Johan Deysel have named their team so here is the starting lineup according to South African born coach Allister Coetzee:
STARTING XV
FORWARD PACK
FRONT ROW
1 (Loose head prop): Jason Benade (University of Namibia)
2 (Hooker): Torsten van Jaarsveld (Bayonne)
3 (Tight head prop): Johan Coetzee (Cheetahs)
SECOND ROW
4 (No.4 lock): Johan Retief (Griquas)
5 (No.5 lock): Tjiuee Uanivi (Montauban)
LOOSE FORWARDS
6 (Blind side flanker): Wian Conradie (New England Free Jacks)
7 (Open side flanker): Prince Gaoseb (Tel Aviv Heat)
8 (Number 8): Richard Hardwick (Melbourne Rebels)
BACK LINE
HALVES
9 (Half-back/Scrum-half): Damian Stevens (New Orleans Gold)
10 (First five-eighth/Fly-half): Tiaan Swanepoel (Lions)
MIDFIELD
12 (Second five-eighth/Inside centre): Le Roux Malan (New England Free Jacks)
13 (Centre/Outside centre): Johan Deysel (Captain, Colomiers)
OUTSIDE BACKS
11 (Left wing): Divan Rossouw (Krasny Yar)
14 (Right wing): Gerswin Mouton (Wits University)
& 15 (Fullback): Cliven Loubser (Utah Warriors)
& REPLACEMENT PLAYERS
16 (Reserve hooker): Louis van der Westhuizen
17 (Reserve loose head prop): Desiderius Sethie
18 (Reserve tight head prop): Haitembu Shikufa
19 (Reserve lock): PJ van Lill
20 (Reserve loose forward): Adriaan Booysen
21 (Reserve loose forward): Max Katjijeko
22 (Reserve half-back/scrum-half): Jacques Theron
& 23 (Reserve back): JC Greyling.
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