There was a lot of interesting rugby events in 2015. Great matches, magnificent wins and terrible losses. And the end of the year is right time to make a summary and recollect the most impressive things in rugby happened this year.
Well, my list is rather short because I wasn’t able to watch a lot of rugby. I live in very far place from any live events and also Russian TV is lacking of rugby matches. So I follow only the most big tournaments and usually international level only. Among all of them Rugby World Cup was the gem of this year of rugby. It was a brilliant event with exciting action, tremendous drama and I’m sure perfect atmosphere.
I’ve chosen 3 top things that amazed me most of all during this year. Some may be obvious some may be not but it is my opinion and I’d like to share it with you.
England failed on home Rugby World Cup
I’m not the fan of England. I never support their team in Six nations and didn’t like their antics on few occasions. But I considered them as contenders for the Cup. They have a death pool but looked good going to the tournament so their advancing to knockout stage was rather predictable… And then the match against Wales happened and everything went wrong. Their decision to play for the victory in the end was brave but it costed them place in play-off. I may be a sentimental person but after loss to Australia I felt bad about it. So many fans in England lost their main team to support. It was not shocking for me but it was definitely shock for them. I shared same feeling when many years ago Ukrainian football team scored a goal on the last minutes of the match against Russia and we stopped in one step from Euro Championship after straight 5 wins.
Flying Fijians goes wild
Fiji is one of the best rugby sevens team. For many years they won a lot of events and two World Cups but other team usually won the whole series. But this year Fijians looked unstoppable force. Recently I watched their match against Russian team and thought: how it is possible to beat them? I supported All Blacks Sevens but Fijians humiliated them on many occasions during 2014-2015 series. New Zealand had 0 wins against them in the whole series. They are fast, agile and do absolutely magic things with rugby ball. I was impressed. After succefully qualified for Olympics they are main contenders in my eyes.
Dan Carter’s performance on RWC 2015
Of course Dan Carter is great player. More importantly he is the only rugby player who appears on the billboard in our city (remember we are far from any serious rugby events place on the globe). That’s the real fame, yeah! But his performance on the World Cup was a kind of magic especially in the semifinal and the final. These drop-goals didn’t only bring points but looked like nails in the coffins of Springboks and Wallabies. He suffered many hard hits but stood up and continued to play perfectly. All Blacks win and his performance was real satisfaction after disappointing home world cup back in 2011. He was always on of the best but finally his skills helped his team to win the most valuable trophy. The world of rugby got new godlike player, the master of all rugby arts.