With thanks to Henson Park Hornets, this is a photo of the RLWC action in Wollongong on the weekend.



Great flag!

That's f***ing it, I'm going to watch a movie.

Hahaha.

How many effing times does it take for the English to realise it's bad to come off your wing? Can you imagine before the game if they asked Stephen Kearney, "how will you beat England?" and he said "the overlap."

WTF? Soft England. That said the penalty goal from Isaac Luke came about after one of the softest decisions I've ever seen. People bag foriegn refs but this was an NRL ref decision.

Good crowd in Newcastle - I finaly saw another Rochdale Hornets jersey!

16,000 odd at Townsville. That's sh*t. How often are the Kangaroos in town? Then again, Suynday night isn't a good kick off time for people wanting to travel from elsewhere in the region like Cairns. Poor form organisers.

I went to see Samoa beat France in the 9th/10th playoff at Penrith in front of 8000 odd. Samoa smashed them. France have really underperformed here. People expected them to get to the semis and now they finish last. They are set to be included in an expanded Tri-Nations in Europe next year. I hope this result doesn't scare the organisers. France are more capable than that. They just didn't show it like at the last two RLWCs. I'd sack John Monie as coach for a start. Hire someone that at least lives in France.

So Fiji beat Ireland 30-14 and get the lovely proposition of playing Australia for a spot in the World Cup final. Only 8224 people in attendance which for a Monday night, two unknown teams, really isn't too bad.

I feel that may be the one let down of this cup, is that there really wasn't any earlier pool matches in Brisbane to get the mood going, only now for the Semi final will there be any attention on the game in Brisbane.

BTW Final isn't sold out just yet, all the restricted view seats have just been released by Ticketek.

NZ are the first in ending England's disappointing venture Down Under. The Lions were disappointing generally. They can be pleased with the performances of the Higham, Roby, Graham, Peacock, McGuire and Burrow. Gleeson had a good gfamne last night but there is not much else to write home about. Gardner is one of those wingers defined by those inside him, Senior is well past his useby date, Pryce didn't live up to expectations, Wellens was safe but didn't assert himself and the much talked about mobile swarm of backrowers went AWOL.

When will we see spud back?

Felt sorry for the poms in front of us at the game, I was sure one of the guys was going to have a heart attack from jumping in and out of his seat.

Also, a tip for anyone going to LP in the future: take a set of crutches and ask for a transfer to the disabled seats behind the goals, they're some of the best in the stadium.

Rugby League World Cup. Semi Final. Pro-Fiji 15k crowd. Doesn't look good for the tournament, or for sport in Sydney.

There are only so many tears a bloke can cry.

I really enjoyed the semi final last night. There were loads of Fijians there but it was all in good spirit. The Bati played really well and would've crossed the line if they had decent playmakers.

Australia v NZ in the final, as it was in 1995 and in 2000. The past four games count for sweet fa now. You need to win the thing. Australia will be raging favourites but now that Fein is at 7 instead of Leuluai, I expect NZ to put up a stronger showing.

Being in a natural disaster area since Sunday afternoon with no power till now, I was hoping I might pop onto the internet and have the suprise result that Fiji had beaten Australia. Then I looked at the result.

The bureau is expecting the mother of all storms tommorrow night. If the game was cancelled, would it be moved to Sunday night?

My prediction: Australia by 20. I do hope its a bit closer though.

Perth Glory v Queensland Roar is scheduled for the Sunday. lt is a Tour of Duty 100 plus going to the game from Perth.

Glory supporters will go off their rocket if anything happens to move the League game to the Sunday Night.

Well sunday's forecast so far is fine, so something should be able to be played then. One would hope it is the fixture already slated in for that night. However a few thousand pissed off pomes who already have tickets plus accommodation might trump your 100 or so glorynites.

I think they really need to hope for a decent enough night, because if they change the game it will be a much smaller crowd + plus money loss for the Qld Government (ticket refunds would have to offered and refer to previous comment about pissed off pomes). If it pisses down rain it will mean less people turn up and I would assume less revenue from things such as food and beverages.

It a little bit of side news, the roof of Suncorp Stadium has received a small amount of damage. It was really only one sheet of metal ripped off but still engineers and so forth had to be bought out to announce that it was safe.