Thanks Wales for a great match.

Wales have done the NH proud - there really arnt many easy games anymore - I wouldnt be too bothtered about Ireland - we only beat the USA 28-10 in 07 - but the way people and the press went on you would thinbk we sent out 15 child molesters - People now realise a win will do - even the reaction to England was WAY over the top - onto the next round boys - keep the faith

Lydneyian
absolutely correct regarding England, someone said yesterday "you dont win a world cup after the first pool match"
Never a more true word. On to the next.

Tho from a personal point of view, i think we have some serious issues. I think that ireland performance was perhaps the worst i have ever seen us play. At least in 07 we could fall back on the fact that Georgia were in fact very good and gave us a beating in the tight exchanges and played out of their skins. But today we were in total control, 70% possession when the final whistle blew, we dominated everything, we beat them like bold children in the scrum, hammered them in fact. POC was the master of the lineout. our Maul was unstoppable, and yet we could not score. it should have been a 40 to 50 point win. any other team would have completely destroyed the USA with that much possession, territory and dominance in every area of the pitch.

Its bloody embarrassing. If wales had played that USA team today they would have put 70 points on them with relative ease

Wales were unlucky today, I thought that kick call was wrong personally. They will need that level of performance against the south sea boys too.
As for Ireland, well they have been poor all year apart from the England game (6 Nations). To put it in perspective today, the Saxons put 90 past USA in June (I think it was). Australia will destroy them next week.

Gutted. Really disappointed that we as a team weren't strong or smart enough to overturn a 1-point deficit with 15 minutes to play.

I'm really sore. I feel like that was the end of Wales' world cup campaign. We won't play another game as important as that (playing the world champions, and if we'd won that we'd be eyeing ourselfs up as group leaders - now we've got to have a completely different mindset in that it'll take alot of commitment, effort and luck just to get out of the group).

I'm trying not to be such a killjoy, but I can no longer take any comfort from running teams close. There needs to be a serious overhaul of the mental strength and stamina of rugby in Wales.

Gecko
"running teams close"

I understand what you mean, but this time was different. in other games where you ran teams close they were still the better team on the day but not by much.

This time however you were clearly the better team and thats something to take heart from. The other teams will now look at you and think they were better then SA and should have won, and they will fear that. It was a good match for a neutral and as you can see from peoples comments above, nobody argues that Wales were not the better team. Some times thats just the way it goes, but in that game you were better then the World Champions and your next opponents will be all to aware that wales should have topped the group at this stage.

Wales must use this defeat to generate fury and blind determination and flatten all before them to progress!

This team is special, no changeas for Samoa, more of the same, put everyone to the sword!
That game was ours in asll but the final result.
Well done the Boks for being a litte more clever, Wales must learn this trait, win at all costs!

Come on Wales!

although I draw the line at tap on the head Thomas saying he would rather be in the Welsh Dressing Room than the Boks after the game - that is just dumb

Ding - me and WWW have joined your league on the GURU - sort it out will ya - you need to approve us

Lydneyian done that. kind of forgot about it there. :D

Shame. I felt bad for Wales, sometimes as an underdog you can take the lead too early then panic about losing what you have. It looked as though, after barely letting SA out of their half for a chunk of the 2nd period, that Wales suddenly thought "hang on we might acutally win this, we'd better hold on" and let SA get some impetus back.

When is jones going to be fit? Will do well to get a place back. Thought Preistland was very good. Him and Warburton were very impressive.