England Storm into Rugby World Cup Final with Win over World No. 1 Side

England 19-7 New Zealand

England dominated the mighty All Blacks to qualify for the Rugby World Cup final, in Japan today.

They played New Zealand at their own game, with a highly mobile pack who tossed the ball around between them. Lock Itoje and flankers Underhill and Curry were exceptional, but all over the park England players defended robustly and created breakthroughs.

Sam Underhill ball carrying and punishing tackling

Manu Tuilagi opened the scoring, with a try, only one minute and forty seconds after the kick off. It was the result of a fast build up and the ball moving quickly through the hands from one side of the pitch to the other. When New Zealand halted the England movement, five metres short of their line, England quickly recycled the ball and Tuilagi bulldozed through their defenders to finish a spectacular opening phase.

Manu Tuilagi opens the England account.

England managed to cross the New Zealand line twice more, once either side of half time, but both times the TMO was called upon and he disallowed both tries.

Aside from a single glaring error, when England completely messed up their own line out, on their own 5 metre line, resulting in New Zealand's only score of the match, England ruled all over the pitch.

Once again, as in the case against Australia last week, England's defence was more than impressive. But as was required against the All Blacks, England defended very high up the field and all over the ground, winning the ball at breakdowns and quickly putting an end to all New Zealand attacks.

Owen Farrell picked up an early injury. He stayed on the field, but handed spot kicking duties over to George Ford, who was up to the task. Ford converted four penalties, which proved to be the final difference in the scoreline. But this was no boring England kicking game and if the number of tries did not reflect the difference in the performance of the teams, the final scoreline nearly did.

England celebrate beating New Zealand for the first time since 2012

England have put in two superb performances in the last two weekends, against two of the southern hemisphere juggernauts. They are peaking at the right time and it really doesn't matter who they meet from the second semi-final, they will more than have their work cut out to stop England going all the way and carrying home the Webb Ellis Cup.

The Webb Ellis Cup. It's coming home, oops wrong code. England look to be carrying it home.

Rugby World Cup Coverage Pathetic for Fans in Australia

Once again Australian sports fans have been shortchanged in the availability of a major world sporting event. The Rugby World Cup began on Friday and only 11 of the 48 games will be shown live on free to air television in Australia, despite the tournament taking place in their own timezone.

The control of major sporting events by pay TV channels is now almost complete. Fans who can not afford their monthly fees have limited, or no, access to world championships in the most popular sports, We have seen this in Soccer, Cricket and now Rugby Union.

Australia is known as a multicultural country, but if you wish to see any national team, other than Australia, take part in a major championship, your chances are very limited.

Rugby World Cup free to air TV Schedule. 

Free to air provider Channel 10 have chosen to only pick up the games in which Australia are taking part, from the pool rounds of the competition. The opening match of the tournament between Russia and the hosts, Japan, was added as a late afterthought.

It is very disappointing coverage of a major world sporting event. The All Blacks fearsome battle against South Africa was not seen by most Rugby fans in Australia. There are more than enough ex-pat Kiwis, South Africans and Brits, of all persuasions, in Australia to warrant showing all of their games live.

There are 20 national teams taking part in the Rugby World Cup in Japan. 

You will be lucky to see many of them on TV in Australia

It seems obvious that controlling bodies for these sports have little influence and even less interest in growing their sports. When they award exclusive coverage of most of the games to the pay TV channels, for a quick buck, they are ensuring that the majority of the public will not see the games and and the chances of the World Cup generating more interest in their sport is negligible.

We know that Rugby Australia has a pathetic record in growing their sport, having allowed the successful Western Force to be eliminated from the Super Rugby competition, while New Zealand, with less than a fifth of Australia's population, have more teams than anyone else. Argentina, over 12,000Kms away, field a national team and Japan, from the wrong hemisphere, has a less than adequate team taking part. 

Only Wallabies fans can be happy with free to air TV coverage of the 2019 Rugby World Cup

For the FIFA World Cup last year, the pay channel that monopolised it could not support the demand and released all of the matches to the multicultural, free to air channel SBS who did an excellent job of covering the tournament. Dare we hope for a similar change in fortune for Rugby fans in Australia?