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Victor Matfield and Jean de Villiers predict all southern hemisphere semifinals at RWC
By Ned Lester
Whether it’s through the RugbyPass road to the final predictor or a debate over dinner, everyone is selecting their World Cup favourites with the tournament kicking off in just one week’s time.
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Springbok legends Victor Matfield and Jean de Villiers have voiced their predictions, with an unsurprising conclusion but some huge calls through the knockout stages.
The pair, speaking on Betway South Africa’s Youtube, offered some blunt punditry when assessing the pools, with de Villiers claiming “all the teams that could actually win the World Cup” were in Pools A and B.
All of the top five teams in World Rugby’s rankings sit in those two pools, with France and New Zealand in Pool A and Ireland, South Africa and Scotland in Pool B.
Matfield selected Australia as the winner of Pool C with Wales finishing as runner-up. It was an admittedly “conservative” selection given Fiji’s recent form and Georgia’s potential.
Argentina and England were picked from the field of Pool D, with Los Pumas claiming the top spot. Samoa, Japan and Chile would be eliminated.
The selections mean England would play Australia and Wales would play Argentina in the first round of the knockout stages.
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Of course, the pair picked South Africa to progress undefeated from Pool B, while they also hesitated to name Ireland as the runner-up given Scotland’s recent form: “I think that’s where the upset is going to come, (but) let’s go safe.”
New Zealand was given the nod ahead of France for Pool A, meaning the Kiwis would topple the hosts in the Rugby World Cup opening match.
Those predictions set up Ireland vs New Zealand and South Africa vs France in the quarter-finals. Both Matfield and de Villiers were happy with the outcome, stating they “prefer France” to New Zealand as a quarter-final opponent.
Both southern hemisphere sides were tipped to emerge victorious.
Similarly, in the Australia vs England and Argentina vs Wales quarter-finals, it was the southern hemisphere sides who were picked as winners.
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Of the four Rugby Championship nations, New Zealand and South Africa were decided to be the finalists with the Springboks taking home the Webb Ellis Cup for the second consecutive tournament.
Commenting on their prediction of all northern hemisphere teams being eliminated prior to the semi-finals, de Villers said there is a lot of focus on the European teams winning the tournament, but “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
The one thing that most agree on is that the AB's getting a fair dinkum ass kicking by the Boks was the best thing that could have happened to them. NZ have better backs than Sth Africa so just need the ball in space and BANG ....different result. 😀
Their No 1 priority is to keep all their players on the pitch for the entire 80. We do that and it'll go a long way toward getting the win.
Vs England last November, Barrett gets yellow'd (again) for the last 10 minutes and England score 2 tries as a direct result of channels the 15th man would have been defending - being a 'last defender' absent.
We always need 8 forwards playing against 8 Bok forwards to be competitive. End of story.
2nd test vs Ireland in Dunedin, Taavao got a red for accidental head-clash and we were down to 14 men for 50 minutes.
I'm picking the officials to be the big winners.
Its a guess at best, any of the top7 can lift the cup.
💣 u
Neither jdv or matfield are recognized rugby brains, so... The S. Hemisphere is somewhat ignorant of N Hemisphere progress and will find both France and Ireland extremely challenging. Certainly I would rate the coaches of these teams above those of the South, except Eddie Jones, and that's where things get interesting. Australia are the dark horses this year and have the easiest run up to the play offs, so will be the freshest of the SH teams. I would put France into the final against the Springboks, on current form. I would expect the books to attempt to crush Scotland and Ireland up front with their backs running through holes after the forwards dominate. But both Ireland and Scotland have devastating backs, Ireland have the trickiest/edgiest players meaning the refs will be instrumental in their matches. If SA can't dominate (up and unders, penalties, 15-22 gains) then they could well lose (Libbok doesn't enjoy pressure), so it could be France v Ireland in the final, which would be a fair indication of performance over the past 2 years...but I doubt that will happen.
South africa are kidding themselves. They god hammered a few weeks ago ireland will have a very easy time putting them to the sword. They live in their own bubble rugby wise .remember what munster did to them
Careful, you may dine on your own words.
The All Blacks will either be stopped at the quarter final or they’ll win the whole thing.
They would have to get past the QF's in 1 piece, I do get a sense they do not have same quality in the 2nd stringers.
Argies top of the pool beating Eng no brainer. Argies will then destroy Wales. Eng get Aus and I have seen enough in the first half of the Bled to think if they can do that for the full 80 Eng won't know what hit them. Add the usual anti Eng diatribe and a scorned Jones firing the wallabies sup and Eng will lose. Can't see the Argies beating the ABs in the Semis so agree what that half. As for the other. SA semi easy and as already noted Aus could be the fourth team in the semi. Totally doable.
Well now that England are raging hot favorites again, the Boks will fly under the radar I guess.
These guys know their stuff. Generally the north have got one team into at least the semi's except once so they're due another shut out. France choke every time and Ireland are even worse as the premier chokers of world rugby. England are terrible just terrible. Boks are the obvious raging hot favorites. Unfortunately for them raging hot favourites don't go all the way.
Well now that England are raging hot favorites again, the Boks will fly under the radar I guess.
What else does your crystal ball have to say oh Oracle?
Me too. With ABs to win Bill for a 4th time.
As with any predictions, don’t count for much.
But I agree with Jean de Villiers. I don’t think a NH team will win the World Cup. Based on history and stats alone. They don’t have the squad depth, they don’t have the experience of winning two to three big games in a row and they have been talked up which will add significant pressure.
The ABs will be switched on. The Boks will grind it out and Australia or Argentina can upset anyone on the day.
I know this is true of all the NH teams too - but there’s this bogey of each of them not progressing beyond quarters and semis (apart from England) which does plays a role. Choking is like a disease.
I’m not sure which NH teams you’re referring to, but in the Six Nations there are some teams which definitely have experience winning several games in a row.
Obviously France will go deep and if they get to the final will be VERY hard to roll .....so we have to get rid of them by the semi's which is easier said than done. The Boks should be favs now ....but for some reason the Bookies insist on making the AB's 3.5 favs. Like most rugby enthusiasts I am hoping beyond hope that the TMO doesn't wreck every game with consistent interference.
Unlikely it would be funny
Wouldn’t take these predictions seriously, as any legend will when asked predict their own country to succeed. Probably a big call to list all S hemisphere as semi finalists. Their predictions probably in a discussion and taken out of context by a journalist. What I can say is that the last 2 years all the talk and hype has been about France and Ireland. While deserved in many ways, to discard the chances of the ABs and Boks is a bit foolish.
Did they make these predictions before the Twickenham test against the AB's? After that you'd think they'd much rather play NZ than France.
The game at Twickenham is irrelevant to both teams, I expect the Bokke & ABS to be full on come the start ! Yes France are the favourites but have the potential to overplay their game with the weight of a whole country behind them. Happened in 2011 with the ABs. Also 1995 when SA v ABS we’re down to one penalty to win. Any team can win but discipline will be paramount as we saw in the AB v SA game! That was World Rugby showing all teams going forward will need to be aware of the need to play by their rules which unfortunately favours the NH!
It appears they are capable of thinking back more than 5min to when they were outplayed in Auckland recently and beaten at Ellis Park last year. NZ beats SA more than anyone else (and vice versa) and these guys are smart enough not to see one result in complete isolation. Last world cup people saw NZ beat the Boks in pool play and thrash Ireland in the quarters and said "no way England can win the semi", then saw England dominate NZ and SA squeak past Wales and said "no way England loses this final" and now say "I knew SA were the best". Smart observers of rugby see that history is full of big week to week swings. NZ weren't unbeatable on their recent 11-match unbeaten run and they're not a rabble a week later.
As usual, the northern hemisphere is written off
Rightly so, one RWC win versus eight.
Well, to be fair, they don’t usually win....
And they’re calling us the arrogant ones this cycle…