Rugby World Cup 2015

[Master]

England ready to kick-start World Cup. England will kick off the eighth Rugby World Cup on Friday when they take on Fiji at Twickenham 8pm.

The hosts are aiming to repeat their success of 2003, when Jonny Wilkinson's dramatic drop-goal saw them become champions for the only time.

About 2.3 million of the 2.45 million tickets have been sold for 48 games.
New Zealand are defending champions, Wales are in a competitive pool with England and Australia, while Ireland and Scotland also hope to progress.

In addition to fourth-ranked England and fifth-ranked Wales, who meet in a hugely important match on the second weekend of the tournament, Pool A contains two more sides in the top nine of the world rankings - second-placed Australia and Fiji.

The 20-team World Cup, which runs until 31 October, will take place in stadiums across England and at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

Eight of the 13 venues are football stadiums, while Twickenham, the Millennium Stadium, Gloucester's Kingsholm and Exeter's Sandy Park are the traditional rugby grounds to host matches.

With Wembley and the Olympic Stadium also World Cup venues, 17 games will take place in London.

Global governing body World Rugby says almost 500,000 overseas fans are expected to visit England and Wales during the tournament, with the World Cup bringing £1bn to the economy.

A total of 102 nations entered the tournament, which will be broadcast to 772 million households - 15% up on 2011 - with games being shown live in both Germany and China for the first time.

Reigning champions New Zealand go into the tournament as favourites, with England, South Africa and Australia - all former champions - among those tipped to do well.

Ireland, France and Wales have also been touted as potential winners, although one of England, Wales or Australia will fail to reach the last eight as they are in the same pool.

[superheavyrhun]

Come on FIJI!!!!

[Britkid]

Wales seem to be struggling; too little depth in the squad, those senior players who are not injured have seen better days, I think even Fiji will beat them with the Welsh crashing out fourth in the group!

[Master]

Fiji lost.

[superheavyrhun]

Fiji lost.

Sometimes the ref can be the 16th man out there...can we call the TMO the 17th man? I'm not sure if I like ITV's rugby commentary team less than I like their football commentary team for England games.

[Britkid]

Fiji lost.

Sometimes the ref can be the 16th man out there...can we call the TMO the 17th man? I'm not sure if I like ITV's rugby commentary team less than I like their football commentary team for England games.

Agreed; and for a Welshman to admit the bias towards Fijians; shows how bad things got!

LOL, England are the Millwall of Rugby...

But you are right about commentary, I actually think in due course I will need to turn it off if that continues. I understand that there are people watching who do not really understand Rugby, but as well as being patronizing, the amount of stuff they got wrong too boot, even simple stuff when they were not listening to the ref, was ridiculous.

[Britkid]

Fiji lost.

But England will be overall disappointed; there is much to improve.

On the bad side:

Scrum was terrible.

Lineout was no match winner.

Turnovers were truly awful.

On the good side:

Did not panic.

Discipline was generally sound.

And most pleasing: When it came to the crunch and they had to get the final try (for the bonus point), unlike in the past when they have fallen short, this time they found a way to do it.

So roll on Wales; if you get past Uruguay!