The Samoans have lost another of their forwards. Filipo Levi will not be playing in this years Rugby World Cup. Filipo Levi sustained the injury in Samoa’s warm up match against Sale. He has received eye surgery over the weekend.

Filipo Levi is not the only Samoan forward who has been injured in their warm up campaign. Prop forward Donald Kerslake broke a rib in the match against Northampton. Samoa’s first game is against the Springboks who are well know for their mighty forwards. Samoan coach Michael Jones was clearly not happy but who would be after loosing both a lock and a prop in their warm up matches.

Samoa will meet the Boks in Paris 9th Sept

PaddyPower.com will be providing a wide range of bets for this years RWC. See below for some odds that they will have on offer for you!
It’s been all bad news for the home Nations. Wales were well and truly put in their place by France and Paddy Power have today pushed their odds out to 100/1 to win the World Cup. England also suffered two defeats at the hands of France and are now 25/1 to retain their crown.

Scotland remain 300/1 outsiders despite beating Ireland, while Ireland’s odds have drifted out to 20/1 from 16/1 following a pretty disastrous warm up campaign.

France have been the big winners in the build up, looking like a team more settled than in the Six Nations. Home advantage and a watertight defence sees them as mere 6/1 shots to lift the Cup.

New Zealand are obvious favourites, but have drifted ever so slightly to a still red hot 4/7. The other nations will be hoping that the All Blacks have once again peaked a year too soon with their impressive Tri Nations campaign not quite hitting the heights of 12 months ago.

Outright winner:
4/7 New Zealand
11/2 South Africa
6/1 France
9/1 Australia
20/1 Ireland
more at PaddyPower.com

w/o New Zealand
7/4 South Africa
2/1 France
4/1 Australia
8/1 Ireland
12/1 England
more at PaddyPower.com
Will New Zealand Win Or Choke?
4/7 New Zealand win
5/4 Any other country

North or South
4/1 Northern Hemisphere win
1/7 Southern Hemisphere win

Top Tryscorer
4/1 Rokocoko
9/2 Siviatu
6/1 Howlett
14/1 Habana
20/1 Heymans
more at PaddyPower.com

In a shot time all the rugby world will have their eyes on the youngster from New Zealand Dan Carter. Dan Carter is widely regarded as the world best number 10. However his form has not been out standing this season so far. All Black coach Graham Henry withdrew 22 All Black players from first half of the Super 14 this year. The players were sent to a reconditioning camp.

Will this reconditioning camp shine though for the All Blacks who have a pretty easy group? Will we see a Dan Carter in better form? The Springboks also took out their players from the Tri Nations for reconditioning and rest.

Some say this is spoiling the game as to much focus is set on the world cup. I cannot agree. All the players have an extremely tense season and alot of traveling especially in the Southern hemisphere. In a world cup year i do believe that it is necessary for teams to take reconditioning periods so that they can truly be ready for the world cup. Granted we may not see the best bok side available or the best Super 14 team available but there are more than capable replacements waiting in the wings to prove themselves. The world cup is the biggest event on the Rugby calender and of course it should be. Not long now Rugby fans………. not long now

Friday:
Tonight we will see the Irish take on the Italians. This should be a rather interesting match to see exactly how far Italy and Ireland have come with regards to their world cup preparations. Ireland has a near full strength side for this warm up. Irish Capitan O’Driscoll however will be sitting this one out. The main battle will take place up front where the Italian forwards will try dominate. However i think that Ireland’s forward and back will contain the Italians and they will enjoy a win.

Saturday:
South Africa will be wanting to make up for their absolute shocker of a game earlier this week. A different team will take the field this weekend and lets hope the boks attitudes will be different. The mighty forwards for South Africa will in my opinion dominate and starve the Scots of the ball.

Sunday:
The French team will travel to Wales this weekend to play against the welsh dragons at Cardiff. Wales who have not had such great warm up matches so far will be hoping to turn that trend around. The host nation France managed to keep the English tryless in their last encounter. France is looking strong and ready to take on what ever the world can throw at them.

Francois Steyn will be playing in the number 12 jersey this weekend 

Brian O’Driscoll will retain the captaincy for the Ireland’s Rugby World Cup campaign. Shane Horgan has been named in the squad of 16 forwards and 14 backs however there are still worries about the knee ligament strain that he suffered against the Scotland. On the 24th of August the Irish will take on the Italians at Ravenhill in a world cup warm up test match.

Ireland’s Rugby World Cup Squad:

Forwards: Neil Best, Rory Best, Simon Best, Simon Easterby, Stephen Ferris, Jerry Flannery, John Hayes, Marcus Horan, Denis Leamy, Donncha O’Callaghan, Paul O’Connell, Malcolm O’Kelly, Alan Quinlan, Frankie Sheahan, David Wallace, Bryan Young.

Backs: Isaac Boss, Brian Carney, Gordon D’Arcy, Girvan Dempsey, Gavin Duffy, Denis Hickie, Shane Horgan, Geordan Murphy, Brian O’Driscoll (C), Ronan O’Gara, Eoin Reddan, Peter Stringer, Andrew Trimble, Paddy Wallace.

Brian O’Driscoll will be Ireland’s leader for the 2007 RWC 

After thrashing the Namibians, the Springbok team received a major wake up call last night in Ireland against Connacht. The Spring Boks beat Connacht with only 18 points to 3. The Boks seemed to just presume that this match would be a walk over and unfortunately didn’t show up. No matter who the opponent is an attitude like that is not good for any team from school boys to international test matches.

Ruan Pienaar was played at fly half, while Butch James moved to inside center. At half time the score board showed 0-3 to the visitors thanks to the boot of Butch James in the 3rd min of play. Soon at the second half began Ashwin Willemse went over for a try making the score 0-8. Loose Forward Jacques Cronje gave the Boks their second try which was converted by James. Andre Pretorius kicked over a penalty to give the Boks their 18 points.

Will this game be a wake up call for the Springboks? All teams can and will have bad performances, thats why there is no real clear winner for the world cup as it is such a long tournament. The Sringboks will play 4 Irish provincial teams including Connacht. They will face the Brave Scotts before their official World Cup campaign starts.

The Samoan National Rugby Team has begun their Rugby World Cup Warm up camp in Leicester, England. Samoa will face the Harlequins, Northampton and the Sale Sharks over the next 2 weeks. After which they will depart for Paris. Samoa’s first pool game will be against pool A’s favorites the Springboks. Samoa’s coach is the legendary Michael Jones. Samoa is well known for their hard tackling and I am sure that they will not disappoint!

France 22 England 9

In an all together pretty boring we saw the defending world champs take on this years world cup hosts. The French forward pack seemed to have something to prove after having had many hard criticisms through out last week. England’s defense could have been there most exciting parts of the game. There seemed to be no attack strategy however one cannot say that they didn’t play with passion. Jauzion ran in a great try for the French, the only try of the match in fact. Yannick Nyanga managed to cross the line however lost the ball in the tackle and did not ground the ball. Things are not looking good for defending world champs. Brian Ashton has his worl cut out for him. Well done France.

Wales 25 Argentina 20
The Welsh played host to the Pumas at Millennium Stadium. Many people are taking Argentina as a bit of a dark horse for this years rugby world cup. The Pumas have improved leaps and bounds and therefore have worked there way up to the 5th spot on the IRB world rankings. This was not evident on Saturday. Wales created a comfortable lead for themselves in the first half with 24-7 going into the break. The second half was to be a different story as Wales managed to keep the pumas at bay just long enough to enyo the victory on home soil. This could have been a very different story if the Pumas had not fumbled the ball when they crossed the Welsh try line right at the death of the match. Well done to both teams, great game to watch.

South Africa out classed Namibia last night at Newlands Stadium. The Springbok flankers both managed to score 3 ties a piece. The final score was South Africa 105 to Namibia’s 13.

Percy Montgomery who now has played his last international test match on home soil broke Jannie De Beers scoring record by racking up 35 points for himself. Percy slotted 12 conversions, 2 penalties and of course scored a try. Os Du Randt also played his final Bok test match at home last night. Os managed to give the crowd some entertainment when he crossed the try line which was followed by a huge roar from his fans.

In patches the Namibians showed they has the salts however they were totally out classed. Langenhoven made his way in for a try , with Wessels slotting the conversion. Wessels also kicked over 2 penalties to give them a total of 13 points against the Springboks.

The Springboks didn’t seem to be in the best of form and their all round play seemed slightly disrupted but it was truly. However against the Namibians they did the job!

Fare well Percy and Os. We will miss both of you!

Os Du Randt played his final home test match last night

Welsh fly-half James Hook has come forward and told everyone that the Argentinean Pumas are worthy proponents. Argentina has climbed up the IRB to fifth place. A place that hook said was well deserved. This is all before the World Cup Warm Up match this Saturday between the Welsh and Argentina.

Hook reveled that Wales will want to spread it out across the field and not get into a forward battle. He continued to say that if Wales can get nice quick ball from the forwards they will do just fine.

Contepomi was singled out by Hook also. He said that the Pumas rely on him and that the Welsh will try keep him contained.

Will Contepomi be a thorn in Wales side this weekend?