And now for something completely different: Rugby World Cup 2007

The Rugby World Cup kicked off in Paris today with the opening game between hosts France and Argentina. A highly anticipated match between two teams who are both in so so called "Death" Pool A along with Ireland. With only the top two teams advancing to the quarterfinals there will be at least one big name out of the competition after the group stages. And also will the 2nd place team face the winner of Pool B which most likely will be the All Blacks from New Zealand who were on fire for the past few years and are the ones to beat in this competition.
The expectations were high in France and their team, "Les Bleues" could not live up to that. The "Pumas" from Argetina held the in check for most of the time. Only for the minutes after half time was France advancing and looking for a try. But the Argentinian defense stood firm and prevented the strong French offense from scoring a try. In the first half Argentina controlled the game at will and was able to score a try after a huge error from France when "Les Bleues" were on the attack. So the World Cup has its first surprise on the opening day. Although it wasn't really surprising that the "Pumas" won, since they did so in four of the last five games against France. Maybe "Les Bleues" would have done better had they only played with their star player Sébastien Chabal right from the start. (France 12 Argentina 17).
Tomorrow will see the All Blacks (against the "Gli Azzuri" from Italy), the Wallabies (against the "Cherry Blossoms" from Japan) and the English (against the "Eagles" from the USA) take action in their pools. With one contender already struggling it will be interesting to see how they will do.