Rugby World Cup

laugh hard my friend

Mokers - you think Syracuse is going to the FF?
If so, you coming here to Indy?

I think Syracuse is going to the FF. I would probably no go to Indy. If I could afford the tickets, perhaps. Sadly, I owe taxes this year.

hey sports (and dartmouth) fans, just got this email:

"Greetings cyclists,

We just wanted to write to you quickly to say that MIT Cycling is having another very strong collegiate road season. We are currently ranked #1 overall in the ECCC (1135 points), followed closely by University of Vermont (1095 points) and University of Pennsylvania (1091 points). Results and finishing photos are available online at http://www.velocityresults.net, including a very excited MIT cyclist (Brent Parham) featured at the top of the Army results [1].

Next weekend is Easterns at Dartmouth, where we will see whether we can maintain our lead. We are bringing 31 members from the MIT team and fielding full TTT squads in almost every category! There's also a hilly road race, as well as a six-corner crit [2]. After Easterns, we have a weekend of rest, followed by Nationals in Madison, WI from May 7-9, where our team will be (tentatively) represented by:
Women: Martha Buckley, Yuri Matsumoto, Laura Ralston, and Zuzana Trnovcova
Men: Jon Dreher, Mike Garrett, Tim Humpton, Zach LaBry, and John Rhoden

Thanks for all of your support past and present, including hosting us at races, being amazing officers who built the MIT Cycling empire, or giving financially! Go MIT!

[1] http://www.velocityresults.net/results/253/eccc-week-7-us-military-academy-west-point-ny
[2] http://collegiatecycling.org/eccc/wiki/uploads/Calendar/20100424-dartmouth-easterns.pdf"

I think the Easterns went down Webster ave (at least one year), which is where all the fraternities are. I definitely remembering a cycling race one weekend. It was so nice, some of us woke up early (like before noon) to get our first game of beer pong in. We didn't place any Bud Light at the hydration stations though.

USA! USA!

Justice is served. Would have been absurd had the US gone out after two improperly disallowed goals in two games.

Not to mention that punch Dempsey took to the face.

Australia bow out :(

that 4-0 hiding from germany wasn't a good start.

As long as Italy loses, I'm happy.

The socceroos at least played with some pride. Both of the red cards were fairly harsh as well...

Tony, I take it you're happy.

Italy out! France out! Both last in their groups! I love this World Cup.

Yeah, there's been a lot of whining about the inconsistency of red cards in this cup - at least some of it quite legitimate. The red cards probably cost Australia at least one match and it has done the same to other minnows (Italy vs NZ for instance). This is just a general trend but it seems the "up & comers" have been treated more far more harshly by the refs than the "traditional" teams. The traditional teams (Italy, I'm looking at YOU) are much better at cheating and milking penalties I guess. I think players who take a dive to milk penalties should face lifetime bans frankly.

I also would not be surprised if there isn't a heavy amount of bribery/match-fixing as well (it's rampant in Cricket).

But frankly, Australia didn't deserve to go through - the first game against Germany was awful - both tactically and performance-wise. We did get our shit together for the final game against Serbia but too little too late.

But yeah, very happy those cheating, sooking, overpaid Italians are out of the cup.

Go USA.

A disappointing couple of days. If the US could get their heads out of their asses in the first ten minutes of a half (and of overtime), they might amount to something. Goals allowed in the first five minutes of two games (England and Ghana) of four, in the first fifteen minutes of a third (Slovenia), and in the first five minutes of extra time against Ghana--not good enough. Of course, if the US had someone who could shoot, none of this would matter. The US needs one striker with the instincts of a shark smelling blood, and they could go places. Too often, with the goal in sight, their eyes widen when they should narrow.

And then England today--well, there goes the theory that only the "small" countries get robbed by the officials. Or maybe, on recent results, it's just appropriate to think of England as a small country in international soccer now.

I have no idea why Bob Bradley messed with the starting lineup. Edu and Feilharber should have been in from the beginning.

And Clark should never have been allowed back on the field after his dismal play against England. With Clark on, Ghana absolutely dominated the midfield.

And would Gooch have made a difference on the second Ghana goal? Or is he still not really ready to play, despite his good performance against England?

Totally agree. I am guessing Gooch was not completely fit. I have never liked Bornstein, but he definitely was not the problem on defense. I am not sure if having Gooch in the middle would have helped because it just seemed our organization was off. It looks like part of our good performance against England was the lackluster English side.

The US has never had a good midfield possession game, and I think that is the final step for us to take it to the next level. We may never be Brazil, Argentina, or Italy in the midfield, but we have a large enough pool of talent that we shouldn't look completely outclassed by a very young Ghana squad. I like Edu and Bradley as holding midfielders, but I am not sure if either is as good of a distributor as we need back there. If one of them could play right back and come forward, I think it would be ideal. That would allow us to play Feilharber and maybe Holden to try and control the middle, which would give us great continuity.

Altidore needs to learn how to finish, but I think he did a pretty good job as a target man. I think if Davies returns to form, they make a decent enough pairing.

Biggest question is with Dempsey and Donovan. I think they'll be leaned on to help for qualifying, but we need to start looking for the next generation of playmakers if we are going to make noise in 2014.

Sad to see Ghana bow out in such a way...

Yes, indeed.

I was at a party yesterday and the invitation we received back in May (!) said this:

Quote

ps, voor de voetballiefhebbers: we hebben een skybox en anders kunnen jullie de wedstrijd uruguay tegen ghana waar ghana met penanties zal winnen bij ons zien!

.

It translates as; for the football lovers; we have a skybox and otherwise you can watch the game Uruguay against Ghana where Ghana will win with penalties.

So, she got one thing wrong, but the rest was pretty much spot on. Creepy.

I'm hoping that Uruguay goes crashing out today. Suarez's handball on the goal-line was understandable, perhaps, but his going on about the "hand of God" and making the save of the tournament was pretty disgusting. In this case, the punishment did not fit the crime.

Tell me about it. Thierry Henry at least showed remorse for his handball that knocked out Ireland.

Well, judging from the noise I guess we won. Didn't get to see the game as I had other issues to deal with.