Welcome to the RWC2019 Debriefs. The World Cup is now over and a new 4 year cycle begins, but the first stage of any cycle should be looking back at how things went – what went wrong and what went right – before looking on to how things go for the next cycle to ensure qualification to RWC2023 (if they haven’t automatically qualified) and to make sure they enter that tournament in peak form.
I will be going through these debriefs alphabetically, so today I will be casting my eye over France.
RWC2019 Qualification
France qualified automatically by qualifying for the knockouts of the 2015 tournament, losing to New Zealand in the quarterfinals
2019 Form
Les Bleus finished 4th in the Six Nations this year with victories over Scotland and Italy, while they lost at home to Wales and away to England and Ireland. In their 3 warm-up games, home advantage was key as they beat Scotland and Italy, but lost at Murrayfield.
The Debrief
Pool Stages (2nd in Pool C)
France 23-21 Argentina
France 33-9 USA
France 23-21 Tonga
England C-C France
Quarterfinal
Wales 20-19 France
This World Cup performance was positively French in every clichéd way possible. It is usually said that you never know what French team will turn up for each game, but in this tournament you could replace “game” with “half”. Against Argentina, they led 20-3 at half time, only to require a late long-range penalty miss to hold onto the win. It was the reverse against the USA, as they struggled to a 12-6 halftime lead before pulling away late on. They may argue that they were the losers from Typhoon Hagibis causing heir match against England to be cancelled, but it’s hard to argue they would have won to take the top spot in the pool.
Building towards the tournament, I did question France’s discipline in matches and that often proved an issue in the pool stages, with that being a big factor in Argentina’s resurgence and the team being relatively fortunate to not lose a man to the bin for persistent offending.
Those disciplinary issues remained in their quarterfinal as a match that they had been on top of fell away from them following Sébastien Vahaamahina unbelievable brain fart, elbowing Aaron Wainwright in the head when France had possession in a great position. Until then, France had been by far the better team in the game, with a big defensive effort (that continued once down to 14 men) and some great attacking from broken play, while Camille Lopez struggled to cause the Welsh issues in the same way Romain Ntamack had prior to his injury.
Looking Ahead
As I pointed out coming into the tournament, France are in a very strong position looking ahead to the 2023 tournament. The core of this squad is made of young, exciting talent with options in every position. Ntamack may not even be the regular fly half for Toulouse, but he appears to be making the 10 shirt his own for Les Bleus, with other young talents also coming through at the position, while players like Camille Chat, Demba Bamba, Emerick Setiano, Gregory Alldritt and Damian Penaud will have gained so much from this experience and future stars like Jordan Joseph will soon be making their way into the senior ranks.
The big thing for France now is coaching. Too often we see the team rebelling against their coaches and there were rumours of Jacques Brunel falling out with captain Guilhem Guirado and some other senior players. They need to make sure that whoever takes the lead is strong enough to hold control, but also willing to work with everyone else so that the entire squad is working as a unit. The word is that Shaun Edwards will be joining the coaching set-up as defence coach, which is a scary thought as he has done such a great job of making the Wales defence so solid and disciplined. If he can repeat the process with France, watch out!
Back in 2018, I made a decision to expand my focus to include the Movie Trivia Schmoedown – a combination of movie trivia and WWE entertainment. As the brand grew, my writing on here came to an end in November 2018 as I was given the chance to write for their new website, TriviaSD.com along with a number of other Schmoedown bloggers. Recently it was announced that as the crew’s focus is needed elsewhere, it was announced that the site will be coming to an end. This means that the Schmoedown will be making a return to this site!
First of all, I want to give a big thank yous:
To Schmoedown creator and Chairman of the league Kristian Harloff and TriviaSD.com Managing Editor William Bibbiani for giving me the chance to write for the site
To the cast and crew, who continue to create an amazing product that is just going from strength to strength
To the fans, who have helped to create such an amazing community
Over the space of a couple of weeks, I am posting my articles from the site onto here. As some of these are almost a year old, some of them are somewhat outdated and may have proved to be completely off the mark.
Posted to TriviaSD.com 31/7/2019
Paul Oyama’s recent victory over Dan Murrell brought the number of Schmoedown Pros who have held a title up to 24. Of those 24 Pros, only four have managed to hold two different titles during their Schmoedown career. Narrowing things down even further, only Samm Levine (Singles and Teams) and Rachel Cushing (Teams and Innergeekdom) have the distinction of holding multiple belts at the same time.
Right now though, there is one man on a path to go one step further, and become the first person to hold three belts at the same time. And his name is Mike Kalinowski.
“The Killer” won his first title by defeating Mara Knopic in Spectacular III’s Innergeekdom Championship Match, and after losing it to Rachel Cushing in the inaugural Schmoedown Throwdown, he began his quest to become Champion again. But not just in the Innergeekdom, but in Singles and Teams as well.
As such, he can consider July 2019 a resounding success, after he TKO’d Jeannine “The Machine” in the Singles Division and won a Teams #1 Contender Match with KOrruption against the Founding Fathers, right before capping things off by winning the Innergeekdom belt back from Rachel Cushing in front of a live crowd in San Diego.
So what is next for him in his quest to become “Mikey Three-Belts”?
Let’s start with the Teams Division, where KOrruption’s win over the Founding Fathers means that they will take on the Shirewolves in the near future in a Championship Match. The Shirewolves will likely go in as favourites, but KOrruption should never be ruled out. Even though Chance hasn’t experienced the 5-round format in the league, Mike has now competed in four 5-round matches (three Innergeekdom Title Matches and the final of 2018’s Innergeekdom Tournament) so they’re not lacking in Championship match experience. Both Mike and Chance have a good breadth of knowledge and you can almost guarantee that James Bond will be on the wheel given Mike’s recent successes there, while they will probably look towards one of Chance’s strengths – possibly Disney or Pixar – instead of Comic Book Movies, given the danger of Rachel running through the category if the Shirewolves were to hit the slice.
While some may suggest that Mike’s recent Innergeekdom run means that his focus hasn’t been on the wider categories, he made it to a #1 Contender match with his performances in the 2017 Ultimate Schmoedown Tournament and he has still performed strongly in his recent Singles and Team matches, to the point that I feel this won’t be as much of an issue as people think. Clarke is famed for being quick on the buzzer, but Mike has proved himself to be equally capable there, so don’t be too shocked if this comes down to the final question.
In the Singles Division he still has a way to go, but Mike’s path is clearly laid out before him. A face-off with Ben “The Boss” Bateman will see the winner take on Jeff “The Insneider” Sneider in a #1 Contender Match. The prize? A chance to take on Paul Oyama for the title live in New York.
The match with Bateman is an interesting one. With Andreyko having now won the Teams Title, Ben Bateman is arguably the best competitor to have not yet won a belt, and he is keen to bring that title drought to an end. Bateman consistently earns 6+ points in Round 1, so I expect things will be close there. Going into Round 2, I think that this could be the key round. Bateman’s go-to slice is Movie Release Dates, which he can run through similar to Mike in James Bond, while he is also especially strong in Oscars. While Bond will likely be on the wheel for Mike, there is always the risk that Bateman will know this and take the chance to study the category enough that he feels confident if he lands on the slice.
Beyond that, some of Mike’s other obvious strengths – Comic Book Movies and Tom Cruise – may also be dangerous picks given Ben is very competent in these categories. It will be a difficult match, but with the run Mike is on, he can never be ruled out.
Moving onto a #1 Contender Match against Sneider, should he get that far, one of the keys to victory for Kalinowski will be keeping his head. Sneider is always looking for ways to put his opponent off and is very good at getting under his opponent’s skin, while he is also very good at challenging on the slightest of technicalities, whereas Mike has at times appeared to be put out of rhythm by challenges in the past. Since the low point of his KO loss to Bibbiani, Sneider has been on a roll in Teams and Singles and may also be fresher given the number of matches Mike will have been playing in recent months.
Sneider has proved in the past that he does have weaknesses, so a poor spin in Round 2 could easily lead to another collapse like against Bibbiani. However given the positive impact that Roxy has had on him, it may be that her rivalry with Kalinowski – a result of him leaving The League when he felt she, Adam and Jonny weren’t supporting him – has led to Sneider upping his game to make it third time lucky in a Singles #1 Contender Match.
Assuming Kalinowski makes it through the gauntlet of Bateman and Sneider, it is time for a trip to New York to take on Paul Oyama in front of a live audience. This is much harder match to judge right now as Oyama has only competed in six Schmoedown matches and the Free 4 All to date, which means that there is less gametape for Mike to look at when studying his opponent. However, this is where he will likely benefit from his faction. Chance was a fellow competitor in the fan leagues before stepping up to become a Pro, so he will be able to help prepare for Oyama with extra information about his strengths and weaknesses.
Over five Rounds, it is hard to imagine there will be much separating them since Oyama has a great breadth of knowledge and looked quick on the buzzer against Murrell, similar to what Mike has demonstrated in Innergeekdom. What could b the difference is the impact of a live audience, as Paul will already be feeling the pressure of a first title defence, and the addition of a live audience will no doubt heighten that pressure. Mike has proved time and again that he thrives in front of a live audience. This would be the fifth live event that he would have been onstage for (he crashed the stage at the 3rd 2018 LA event, came out with Chance in New York, competed in the live Free 4 All and defeated Rachel in San Diego), so he knows how it feels to be competing with so many eyes on him.
Will we be witnessing history over the coming months with the crowning of “Mikey Three-Belts”? He’s got a hard road ahead of him, but as he has proved plenty of times recently, he is more than happy to be written off by the fan polls… and prove them completely wrong.
Back in 2018, I made a decision to expand my focus to include the Movie Trivia Schmoedown – a combination of movie trivia and WWE entertainment. As the brand grew, my writing on here came to an end in November 2018 as I was given the chance to write for their new website, TriviaSD.com along with a number of other Schmoedown bloggers. Recently it was announced that as the crew’s focus is needed elsewhere, it was announced that the site will be coming to an end. This means that the Schmoedown will be making a return to this site!
First of all, I want to give a big thank yous:
To Schmoedown creator and Chairman of the league Kristian Harloff and TriviaSD.com Managing Editor William Bibbiani for giving me the chance to write for the site
To the cast and crew, who continue to create an amazing product that is just going from strength to strength
To the fans, who have helped to create such an amazing community
Over the space of a couple of weeks, I am posting my articles from the site onto here. As some of these are almost a year old, some of them are somewhat outdated and may have proved to be completely off the mark.
Posted to TriviaSD.com 29/7/2019
We’ve all become accustomed to Schmoedown live events having a shock moment towards the end, but San Diego’s live event may have given us the most amazing (pun fully intended) shock to date.
Having won the Innergeekdom Title back from Rachel Cushing, Mike Kalinowski took his chance to call out Jason Inman for a match. The crowd went wild as a former Innergeekdom emerged onto the stage… but instead of Inman, it was Mara Knopic, appearing for the first time since Spectacular III!
When Kalinowski took advantage of his power over Thadd Williams to earn a title shot without having to go through any qualifying matches, it was announced that Mara would be awarded a rematch if she lost the title in that match. Kalinowski won the title in Sudden Death, but the rematch never materialised as Mara stepped away from the league.
Now the Brown Dwarf Star is back and looking to settle a score with “The Killer”.
Will she get the chance, though? Kalinowski refused to commit to the match onstage, and current Overlord Robert Meyer Burnett recently changed the rules surrounding former champions getting an automatic rematch. So it may be that he will refuse to recognise Mara’s right to a rematch and instead make her earn the title shot. Kevin Smets has just taken down Adam Hlavac in the San Diego undercard and despite the pair being arguably 2 of the top 4 active in the Division (along with Kalinowski and Rachel), the match was not a #1 Contender, so Mara could be forced to take on Smets for a shot at the title – or perhaps even face Rachel in a rematch of their 2018 tournament thriller!
Regardless of whether she gets her immediate rematch or is forced to work her way to Mike, the question will be “can she win the title back?” While she may not have the statistical dominance that we see from many of the other recent champions, she has consistently done exactly everything she needed to (including playing through physical discomfort) in order to get the win, to the tune of 5 wins (2 by TKO). More than that, she has the distinction of being the only Schmoedown Pro to have defeated Jason Inman, Mike Kalinowski and Rachel Cushing in Innergeekdom. Her only loss has come to Mike, in a rematch, and even that went into Sudden Death!
This is someone that you rule out at your peril.
Beyond the immediate future, competing in the Innergeekdom again, it is also worth looking at the wider impact Mara Knopic’s return could have on the league and the factions. It’s hard to believe that KOrruption or The Dungeon would try to bring her in as each faction already has two Innergeekdom competitors (Mike and Chance for KOrruption, Smets and Zipper for The Dungeon).
Meanwhile, Roxy has set herself up against both these factions, with her beef against Kalinowski going back to him leaving The League and her new rivalry with Kaiser as they compete for Manager of the Year. At the moment she is only managing just Marc Andreyko and Jeff Sneider, so bringing in a former Innergeekdom Champion would give her a chance to be competitive in another division.
The obvious faction to look at here would be the Horsemen (Horsepeople? Horsepersons?), as they have established themselves as a stable of champions (it’s just a matter of time, Ben) and have been missing a representative in the Innergeekdom Division ever since Inman stepped away. So bringing in the person who took his title from him would be a statement of intent from a stable that has just lost the Singles Title.
Both The Family and Time Machine are also without an Innergeekdom representative and can never be ruled out – especially if Burnett says Mara can only have her title rematch if she joins The Family – but of the two, I think that Time Machine would be more likely given Jay’s recent change in attitude, while Mara probably wouldn’t want to join Andrew Ghai in a faction given the bad blood surrounding Ghai’s win over Dan Murrell.
Or, we could see Mara stay away from the factions and remain on her own. It didn’t appear to hinder her on her 5-0 run to the Innergeekdom Title last year, while she has already shown that she is able to hold her own against the heels and cut a promo with her own special brand of entertainment.
Regardless how things go, it’s great to see the Innergeekdom Division getting deeper again with the arrival of Pros like Chance and Brandon Hanna and the return of a former champion in Mara. We’re in for an amazing ride!
Welcome to the RWC2019 Debriefs. The World Cup is now over and a new 4 year cycle begins, but the first stage of any cycle should be looking back at how things went – what went wrong and what went right – before looking on to how things go for the next cycle to ensure qualification to RWC2023 (if they haven’t automatically qualified) and to make sure they enter that tournament in peak form.
I will be going through these debriefs alphabetically, so today I will be casting my eye over Fiji.
RWC2019 Qualification
The Fijians qualified as Oceania 1, having won all 4 games over the 2016 and 2017 Pacific Nations Cups, finishing top of the aggregated standings over the 2 tournaments.
2019 Form
A loss away to Japan saw the Fijians finish 2nd of 6 teams in the 2019 edition of the Pacific Nations Cup. Their final warm-up game was a 29-19 victory over Pacific rivals Tonga.
The Debrief
Pool Stages (3rd in Pool D)
Australia 39-21 Fiji
Fiji 27-30 Uruguay
Georgia 10-45 Fiji
Wales 29-17 Fiji
This was a very disappointing tournament for Fiji. When making my predictions for the tournament, I thought that they had the best chance of pulling off an upset and making it into the knockouts, but instead they had to settle for just 1 win and were on the wrong end of an upset themselves, losing to Uruguay in a quick turnaround following the Australia game.
Though results didn’t go their way, they were by far one of the most exciting teams to watch in the pool stages. The Fijians are famous for their highly attacking, unstructured play, full of power, pace and insane handling abilities, but they have started to add more structure to their play when Ben Volavola is at fly half, putting them in the right parts of the field. Against Uruguay, some of this structure was lost as they played too loose (leading to a high number of handling errors and turnovers) and struggled with their kicking from the tee, which proved costly.
In the other games, however, they caused their opponents some real problems. They were arguably the better team against Australia before Peceli Yato – who until that point was their star player – was taken out, while the first 15 minutes against Wales saw them score 2 tries and have another disallowed. Semi Radradra was one of the stars of the tournament despite an early exit, while a number of other Fijians also showed their quality on the biggest stage.
One of the biggest downsides to Fiji for a while has been their discipline and unfortunately that was the case once again in this tournament. A high penalty count and yellow card to Levani Botia in the second half helped Australia gain the upper hand, while they spent a quarter of the match against Wales down to 14 men due to yellow cards for Tevita Cavubati for a moronic dangerous clear-out and Semi Kunatani.
Looking Ahead
Though they may have only got the one win, their performances against Australia and Wales, combined with a dominant run over recent years in the Pacific Nations Cup, showed just how important it is that Fiji stat playing Tier 1 opposition on a regular basis. They need to be playing at least a couple of Tier 1 Nations during the international windows, but more than that, I feel they need to get the Argentina treatment and be added to the Rugby Championship as soon as possible.
They also need to try and get to the stage where they an pick an entire squad of players who are in top flight competition, as a number of players (especially in the front row) are playing in lower tiers or – as with star scrum half Frank Lomani – back home in Fiji. Backs and back rowers may be the more attractive players when looking at Fijian players to sign, but there is quality at every position. Ideally, a Super Rugby franchise would help the national team get all their players top flight experience while also giving a top flight option for players that doesn’t involve moving abroad and potentially getting poached by another nation, but given the current state of the league, that does not look likely anytime soon.
What is clear is that there is a great squad here that is improving, and with automatic qualification secured for RWC2023 they can focus on preparing for the next tournament, so as long as they can continue to bring through the talent to replace the players reaching the end of their international career, there is no reason they can’t challenge for a place in the knockouts next time around.
Back in 2018, I made a decision to expand my focus to include the Movie Trivia Schmoedown – a combination of movie trivia and WWE entertainment. As the brand grew, my writing on here came to an end in November 2018 as I was given the chance to write for their new website, TriviaSD.com along with a number of other Schmoedown bloggers. Recently it was announced that as the crew’s focus is needed elsewhere, it was announced that the site will be coming to an end. This means that the Schmoedown will be making a return to this site!
First of all, I want to give a big thank yous:
To Schmoedown creator and Chairman of the league Kristian Harloff and TriviaSD.com Managing Editor William Bibbiani for giving me the chance to write for the site
To the cast and crew, who continue to create an amazing product that is just going from strength to strength
To the fans, who have helped to create such an amazing community
Over the space of a couple of weeks, I am posting my articles from the site onto here. As some of these are almost a year old, some of them are somewhat outdated and may have proved to be completely off the mark.
Posted to TriviaSD.com 23/7/2019
The tale as old as time took a shock turn recently, with the news that “The Beauty” Witney Seibold had left William “The Beast” Bibbiani and brought an end to Critically Acclaimed as a team. Seibold – who lost his Singles debut to David Del Rio – had not taken well to Bibbiani putting his efforts into helping “The Kid” Brendan Meyer so chose to leave Critically Acclaimed and go back to his Anarchy partner Marc Edward Heuck, while Bibbiani has now promoted Meyer from apprentice to partner.
Critically acclaimed were a well-loved team, and as such their split has broken the hearts of many fans. But it is not the first time that we have had to go through the agony of an emotional breakup. Today I will be looking back over the top five emotional breakups that we have had to face. Tissues at the ready? Let’s go!
Before getting into my Top 5, I wanted to give honourable mentions to two teams whose breakups may not have been emotional moments but still provoked a large reaction from the fan base. Having gone on a crazy run of nine consecutive wins (including a title victory and six successful defences), and as some of the biggest heels in the league at the time, the Patriots had a sizeable group of fans. Following their title loss to Above The Line and their loss in their Iron Man rematch at Collision, Jeff Sneider walked away from The Lion’s Den after finding out Tom Dagnino was planning to trade him, but JTE stuck with his manager, bringing an end to a team that is surely destined for the Schmoedown Hall of Fame.
Above The Line’s breakup didn’t even happen on camera, however, as Samm Levine announced in a post-Collision special that he was retiring from competition and vacating both the Singles and Teams Titles in the process. Above The Line were a well-loved team despite not even being active in the league for a full year, while Drew McWeeny and Samm Levine clearly improved each other during their partnership, so many fans mourned the potential this team had to break all the records.
5. Six Degrees
As two of the original leading ladies within the league and with fun theatrical entrances always guaranteed, Brianne Chandler and Stacy Howard quickly became fan favourites. Even with their turn to the dark side under Jay Washington, they were still a team that you couldn’t help root for. After DC Movie News knocked them out of the 2017 Ultimate Schmoedown Teams Tournament and Mike Kalinowski defeated Brianne in the Singles tournament, “Miss Movies” announced that she would be taking a break from competing.
Brianne failed to turn up to support Jay Washington in the Manager Bowl, but appeared to him and Stacy after he lost to announce that she had made a decision and that Jay was dismissed. She asked Stacy to come with her, but Stacy chose to remain loyal to Jay, bringing an end to Six Degrees and transitioning the Missfits into the Viper Sqaud, while Brianne walked away to jump in a car with none other than her former rival Mike Kalinowski.
4. Top 10
One of the original teams from Season 2, “The Outlaw” John Rocha and “Mighty” Matt Knost became the second ever Team Champions but lost to the Patriots on their first defence. For over a year they continued to face whoever they had to in order to win back their titles, only for bad luck and questionable calls to see them lose to the Patriots two more times and leave each of them questioning if they wanted to continue.
With the formation of the Horsemen, it looked like the team would have new life, until Anarchy broke them up, putting Knost with William Bibbiani and Rocha with new Horseman “Dangerous” Dan Murrell. Despite neither of their Anarchy teams making it beyond the quarterfinals, Knost clearly felt that Murrell was the perfect person to replace him as Rocha’s partner, so at Spectacular he made the announcement that Top 10 would not be reforming as he would be stepping away from the league.
The continuation of the Founding Fathers meant that this was not as emotional a break-up as it could have been, but as Knost exited with one last dance, we were still left feeling that this was the end of an era.
3. Nerd’s Watch
The team that brought Rachel “The Crusher” Cushing into the league, her and “The Pitboss” Ken Napzok were a force for good in the league at a time when the Lion’s Den were running amok. A loss to Above The Line in the opening round of the 2017 Ultimate Schmoedown left the future of the team in the balance as Ken deliberated whether he wanted to continue competing in the division, while The Missfits were doing everything they could to entice Rachel into their faction.
Rachel chose to turn down the Missfits and wait for Ken, and she was as shocked as anyone to see him revealed as the newest member of the Lion’s Den as the season built towards Spectacular. Appealing to Ken’s good side, she convinced him to come back and take on the Den’s 2nd team Blofeld’s Cat, but he failed to turn up for the match and Rachel was forced to take them on in a 2v1 handicap match. Though she fought hard, she eventually fell to a TKO loss, only for Ken to arrive as the winners were announced… or as he put it as he walked over to the gloating Lion’s Den members: “to congratulate these guys.”
We sat there in shock watching on as Rachel had to deal with losing not just the match, but also her partner and suddenly the world looked a little bit darker.
2. Team Action
Another team whose end began with Anarchy, Ben “The Boss” Bateman and “Dastardly” Andrew Ghai were the bad boys of the league, with Andrew already getting served a ban for tackling John Rocha at Spectacular. Anarchy saw the pair broke up, with Ben being paired with Mark “Yodi” Reilly, but Drew sat out the tournament after refusing to work under Jay Washington.
As part of Who’s The Boss, Ben won the Anarchy Tournament but he and Reilly fell just short against the Shirewolves at Spectacular. Following the match, Ben and Drew discussed the idea of Who’s The Boss staying together, something that Drew agreed to, suggesting the pair stat their own faction with Reilly. Members of the Action Army began to get excited at the thought of their boys leading their own faction, then found themselves watching on in horror as Drew tackled Ben through a coffee table.
Ghai went on to tell Bateman that he was nothing without him, before spitting on him and walking off to begin finding support for the upcoming Action Civil War. The shock of Ghai’s actions and seeing the best of friends become fierce enemies in a matter of seconds, not to mention the impact it has had on this season gets this one high on the list.
1. DC Movie News
Action’s breakup wasn’t the only one to impact the way the last year went, as by that point the league had already been shaken by my number 1 pick: Mike Kalinowski walking away from DC Movie News and The League to create KOrruption and take control of the league. Kalinowski did not feel that he was getting the support he needed from his faction in early 2018 and things reached a head when DC Movie News took on Team Action. Following an agonising loss, he was clearly simmering throughout the post-match interview and eventually broke, going on a tirade against Roxy Striar, Jonny Loquasto and teammate Adam Gertler before announcing that he was done with the faction and walking out of the interview. The silence was deafening as nobody could believe what they were seeing, and I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Gertler as his response to what happened was a confused “I feel like I just broke Mike Kalinowski” before having to be led away in tears. It was so emotional, even Team Action were in tears watching… though admittedly theirs were from laughing so hard at their opponents’ misfortune.
Did I miss any? Let me know what you think the most emotional breakup has been.
Welcome to the RWC2019 Debriefs. The World Cup is now over and a new 4 year cycle begins, but the first stage of any cycle should be looking back at how things went – what went wrong and what went right – before looking on to how things go for the next cycle to ensure qualification to RWC2023 (if they haven’t automatically qualified) and to make sure they enter that tournament in peak form.
I will be going through these debriefs alphabetically, so today I will be casting my eye over England.
RWC2019 Qualification
Though they failed to make it out of the pools in 2015, England still qualified for the tournament by finishing 3rd in their pool.
2019 Form
After a pretty awful 2018, England finished 2nd in the Six Nations with a loss away to Wales and a draw against Scotland (in a match that they had led 31-7 at half time. In their warm-up matches, England lost narrowly in Wales, but won comfortably at home against Wales, Ireland and Italy, holding the Azzurri scoreless.
The Debrief
Pool Stages (1st in Pool C)
England 35-3 Tonga
England 45-7 USA
England 39-10 Argentina
England C-C France
Quarterfinal
England 40-16 Australia
Semifinal
England 19-7 New Zealand
Final
England 12-32 South Africa
It was a bit of an odd tournament for England, as the challenge they faced in the pools was very limited, leaving a number of questions as to how prepared they were for the knockouts. Tonga provided a physical opposition, but the challenge that they and the USA could present was always going to struggle against an improved England defence that conceded just 1 try in 3 matches (against Italy, Tonga and the USA). Then against Argentina, the challenge was over when Tomás Lavanini got himself red carded early in the first half, leaving England to pick off 14 men. While England showed some dominance in these games, especially in the scrums and mauls, they were far from inspiring and struggled to get regular cohesiveness in their attacking play. Typhoon Hagibis led to the cancellation of their match against France which would have been an interesting challenge and decided the pool standings.
Moving into the knockouts, it looked like the extra rest actually helped England find their groove. Their victories against Australia and New Zealand were both built on incredible defensive work and flankers Tom Curry and Sam Underhill thoroughly outplaying their more experienced rivals, while the attack finally hit its stride in these games.
Unfortunately, England were unable to do it 3 weeks running as they faced a much more physical outfit who there were unable to bully off the ball. Kyle Sinckler had done a great job of establishing himself as one of the best tightheads in the world through this tournament, so to lose him after just 3 minutes and require Dan Cole to play basically an entire game was always going to be hard. England were pushed around almost at will by the Springbok scrums and mauls, while their defence did a great job of shutting down everything England could produce. Meanwhile, England’s own defence conceded 2 late tries to end the game, the first highlighting risk that had been taken all year of playing Elliot Daly (who was caught in no-man’s land for the first try) at 15 in place of more recognised fullbacks Mike Brown and Alex Goode – who weren’t selected for the squad – or Anthony Watson, who was selected on the wing.
Was this a good tournament for England? I didn’t think they had a chance of beating New Zealand to make the final, so yes it was. It’s just ended on a sour note tinged with what-ifs.
Looking Ahead
The good news for this team is that the core of this team are so young. Their 3 biggest stars from this tournament – Tom Cury, Maro Itoje and Sam Underhill – will only be 25, 28 and 27 respectively when the next tournament comes around, while a number of the other big names will be in their early 30s at most. Add to that the way that young English talent continues to come through at club level and the squad will be brimming with stars in 4 years. Personally, I would love to see a return for the England Saxons in order to help the young talent get more international experience, perhaps playing Tier 2 nations like the Pacific Islanders.
The big question for me right now is coaching. While Eddie Jones did a great job of turning around a team at their lowest following the 2015 tournament, I feel that his public attitude is abysmal, while a number of players who arguably could and should have been in contention for the squad (perhaps even the starting XV) were not even considered for a spot on the plane, while some players appeared undroppable regardless of how their form deteriorated. The Elliot Daly at 15 experiment needs to end as he is a defensive liability and struggles to compete in the air, putting the team at risk against teams with a strong kicking game. Right now, Jones is contracted to England until 2021, but I would rather see the RFU thank him for creating the platform for success and move onto someone else, who can then spend the next 4 years building a young team for glory in France.
Welcome to the RWC2019 Debriefs. The World Cup is now over and a new 4 year cycle begins, but the first stage of any cycle should be looking back at how things went – what went wrong and what went right – before looking on to how things go for the next cycle to ensure qualification to RWC2023 (if they haven’t automatically qualified) and to make sure they enter that tournament in peak form.
I will be going through these debriefs alphabetically, so today I will be casting my eye over Canada.
RWC2019 Qualification
Canada failed to win a 2-legged playoff against the USA to become Americas 1 for the first time in World Cup history. They then went on to lose the Americas 2 spot by losing both legs of the Americas Repechage playoff to Uruguay, but eventually topped the table in the final repechage tournament to take the 20th spot in Japan.
2019 Form
2019 was not looking good for Canada heading into the tournament. A 56-0 win against Chile was their only victory in the Americas Rugby Championship, where they finished 5th. They came bottom of the Pacific Nations Cup with away losses to the USA, Fiji and Tonga, before losing once more to the USA in a final warm-up match.
The Debrief
Pool Stages (5th in Pool B)
Italy 48-7 Canada
New Zealand 63-0 Canada
South Africa 66-7 Canada
Namibia C-C Canada
This was always going to be a difficult tournament for Canada with 2 of the favourites for the tournament found in this pool, but the huge loss to Italy showed just how far this team has fallen over the years.
Throughout the tournament, the defence just wasn’t good enough, with players dropping off tackles with regularity and allowing their opponents to build up big unassailable leads before Canada were even able to get into the game. Unfortunately Typhoon Hagibis caused a cancellation of their match against Namibia, which they would have been targeting before the tournament, but their prior performances suggest that they may have struggled to get a result here.
There were some silver linings to the clouds, though. Though they may have found themselves 40-0 within 30 minutes against South Africa, they rallied well to make the remaining 50 minutes a contest, despite substitute lock Josh Larsen being sent off shortly before halftime. Fly half Peter Nelson controlled things as well as possible under the circumstances and the players did manage to create chances – especially against Italy – but just failed to convert them.
Looking Ahead
The next few years are vital for Canada. This was all-but certainly the last World Cup for a number of key players, including star winger DTH van der Merwe, centre Ciaran Hearn and all 3 scrum halves that were in the squad and these roles must be filled. There are some big names still there in Tyler Ardron of the Chiefs, Taylor Paris of Castres, former Newcastle lock Evan Olmstead and Seattle Seawolves’ Jeff Hassler, as well as Nelson, who recently left Ulster.
What they need dearly though is the next generation of stars coming through. Luckily, the introduction of Major League Rugby could be just what they need. A large proportion of the squad are already playing for the Toronto Arrows or other MLR clubs, with a handful of players based in Europe and Ardron in New Zealand. With big name players making their way over to the league, the quality of rugby should just continue to improve and that can only be good news for the national team. Ideally, they also need to make sure that they are getting more talent into the top flight European leagues to make sure that they are used to playing the top quality players in order to compete as strongly as possible against Tier 1 opposition.
Back in 2018, I made a decision to expand my focus to include the Movie Trivia Schmoedown – a combination of movie trivia and WWE entertainment. As the brand grew, my writing on here came to an end in November 2018 as I was given the chance to write for their new website, TriviaSD.com along with a number of other Schmoedown bloggers. Recently it was announced that as the crew’s focus is needed elsewhere, it was announced that the site will be coming to an end. This means that the Schmoedown will be making a return to this site!
First of all, I want to give a big thank yous:
To Schmoedown creator and Chairman of the league Kristian Harloff and TriviaSD.com Managing Editor William Bibbiani for giving me the chance to write for the site
To the cast and crew, who continue to create an amazing product that is just going from strength to strength
To the fans, who have helped to create such an amazing community
Over the space of a couple of weeks, I am posting my articles from the site onto here. As some of these are almost a year old, some of them are somewhat outdated and may have proved to be completely off the mark.
Posted to TriviaSD.com 15/7/2019
The Shirewolves made history once again at Collision III when they became the first team to reclaim the Teams title. It’s is a feat that had accomplished before: the Patriots lost their rematch against Above The Line, while Top 10 failed to get revenge on the Patriots twice, including the infamous “Jane Fonda” match.
As of now, nobody has ever regained their belt in the Innergeekdom Division, and in fact Mike Kalinowski will be the first former Champion in the division to even challenge for the belt again, as both Mara Knopic and Jason Inman stepped away from competition following their title losses, and Burnett and Navarro have not yet been able to get back to the top of the rankings.
The only division that has really seen any repetition of champions has been the Singles Division. Dan Murrell is currently enjoying his 3rd title reign, while both John Rocha and Mark Reilly have won the belt on 2 separate occasions.
Seeing the Shirewolves start their second reign as team Champions got me thinking: who (if anyone) will be able to regain their title by the end of the season? Having thought about it, I’ve selected the five players I think are most likely. (For all you fans of the Star Wars Division, Ken Napzok and Sam Witwer would have definitely been in the discussion if they were playing, but a recent comment from Kristian suggested that the next #1 Contender Match will likely involve people who competed at Celebration and that the winner would be in the last Title Match that the division holds this year.)
Mike Kalinowski
As mentioned, Kalinowski is the first former Innergeekdom Champion to earn a second shot at the belt, having just defeated Kevin Smets at Collision. He is without a doubt one of the top three current Innergeekdom competitors and even though he has lost to Rachel both times they faced off in the Division (and also once outside the Division, when she KO’d him in a Triple Threat #1 Contender Match), he has more than enough knowledge to go the distance again, just like when he lost the belt to Cushing in Sudden Death. The match is set to be held live in San Diego during Comic-Con, which I think gives “The Killer” a slight advantage, as live events seem to bring the best out of him. Either way, it could be a contender for Match of the Year.
John Rocha
“The Outlaw” is a former Teams Champion and two-time former Singles Champion, but it is in the Teams division where I think he’s more likely to regain a title this year. While he may no longer be part of Top 10, his new partnership with Dan Murrell has created a formidable team. At 3-1, the Founding Fathers aren’t far off from a shot at the title and they certainly have the pedigree to take down the Shirewolves. Even if they find their run halted by a loss, they could take advantage of Murrell’s Free 4 All victory to get themselves an immediate title shot at any time.
William Bibbiani
“The Beast” claimed the vacant Singles Title after Samm Levine walked away from Competition but lost it to John Rocha on his first defence. One of the best in the game in terms of overall knowledge, he can never be ruled out of a match and even won a Triple Threat match earlier this year against Ethan Erwin and John Rocha. Bibbs hasn’t played in the Singles Division since his loss to Dan Murrell at the start of May, but as the Free 4 All MVP, he has the chance to cash in a #1 Contender Match at any time, which means he’s only ever two wins away from reclaiming the belt.
Ethan Erwin
If we’re taking about incredible knowledge, then we need to mention Ethan Erwin, who Kristian Harloff recently stated on Collider Live was unable to feature in the Free 4 All but played along and would have made it to the end, knocking Bibbiani out earlier in the event. Erwin is the only competitor to date to win the Singles Title in his rookie year and though he lost on his first defence, Dan Murrell needed to play a 100% accurate game to earn the victory. Erwin’s partnership with Jeannine may also lead tohim gaining knowledge in areas that he would have previously considered weaknesses, making him even more dangerous. He may not have any fast-track to a title, but don’t bet against him going on a strong tournament run to earn a title shot at Spectacular.
Dan Murrell
The most hypothetical one on the list, since in order to reclaim the belt Murrell would first have to lose it. But imagine for one moment that Murrell has a bad day at the office and loses to Paul Oyama, he still has every chance of becoming a 4-time Singles Champion by the end of the season. First of all, he would have the option of cashing in his Free 4 All victory to earn an immediate title shot, and even if he has to go through the tournament to earn another shot, you should never bet against the GOAT. Murrell has a wide and deep knowledge and has worked on his strategy since coming back from his hiatus, while having some of the best competitors in the game in his faction means that he’ll have plenty of support and advice coming his way if he needs it.
Do you think I missed anyone? Let me know in the comments who you think has the best chance of regaining their title.
Welcome to the RWC2019 Debriefs. The World Cup is now over and a new 4 year cycle begins, but the first stage of any cycle should be looking back at how things went – what went wrong and what went right – before looking on to how things go for the next cycle to ensure qualification to RWC2023 (if they haven’t automatically qualified) and to make sure they enter that tournament in peak form.
I will be going through these debriefs alphabetically, so today I will be casting my eye over Australia.
RWC2019 Qualification
Australia qualified by finishing in the top 3 of their pool at RWC2015, where they went all the way to the final.
2019 Form
The build-up to this tournament was a mixed one for the Wallabies. Having to move on from Israel Folau following his dismissal for his homophobic social media posts, they finished 2nd in the Rugby Championship, coming back from a loss in South Africa to win at home against Argentina before a shock 47-26 victory over New Zealand in Perth, however they then fell to the All Blacks 36-0 in Auckland a week later. They finished off their preparations for the World Cup with a 34-15 win over Samoa.
The Debrief
Pool Stages (2nd in Pool D)
Australia 39-21 Fiji
Australia 25-29 Wales
Australia 45-10 Uruguay
Australia 27-8 Georgia
Quarterfinal
England 40-16 Australia
The mixed results from Australia continued into the World Cup. The early stages of their match against Fiji saw them struggling against the Islanders and they were lucky not to lose Reece Hodge in the first half for a high tackle on Peceli Yato. Yato’s failed HIA and a scrum dominance for the Wallabies helped them take control and a swap from Nic White to Will Genia at scrum half helped secure the victory, though they did lose Hodge for the rest of the pool stages due to a 3-match ban. They again struggled early against Wales, but a swap from Bernard Foley to Matt To’omua helped get the Wallabies back in the game – just too late to get the victory. Two victories in their last 2 games confirmed their place in the quarters, but against Georgia they were heavily penalised and 2 late tries helped tilt the scoreline in their favour. Going into the knockouts, 2 Jonny May tries gave England a lead in the first half and while Marika Koroibete scored soon after the break, Kyle Sinckler’s quick response took the wind out of their sails, while a series of penalties and unnecessary risks killed off the game.
While Michael Cheika did a wonderful job coming in ahead of the last World Cup and taking them from poor performances to finalists, the team for this tournament was nowhere near the level that they arguably should have been. Bernard Foley had been pretty mucht he only fly half used throughout the 4 year cycle, but was suddenly dropped at the last minute, leading to a revolving door at the position between him, To’omua and Christian Lealiifano, with none of them able to get enough time to build any modicum of stability. This wasn’t helped by a similar rotation at scrum half, where Nic White’s return suddenly saw him and Will Genia swapping regularly. The constant chopping and changing in the halfbacks meant that the Wallabies were always going to struggle against a competitive team.
The 2015 tournament is well remembered for the way that Michael Hooper and David Pocock combined in the back row, leading to a trend of teams playing two 7s in their back row. The pair struggled to replicate the performances in 2019 however, and I think that comes down to the selection of an attacking 8 in Isi Naisarani, who did a good job in the tournament but did not do the same job of relentlessly tackling everyone for “Pooper” to jackal over that Scott Fardy did in 2015. While the scrum was often a strength and physical backs like Samu Kerevi and Koroibete did a great job of helping to put the team on the front foot, there was not enough control around them to take advantage of it on a regular basis.
Looking Ahead
First things first is going to be finding a new head coach. It has already been announced that Michael Cheika will not be continuing in the role. I have felt for a while that the coaching has been holding the team back so it will be important to get the right person in that will give the squad stability and get them playing the right way.
It will be very interesting to see what happens with this squad, as the back line may be full of experience, but many of them will likely be past their prime come 2023. Of the backs in the World Cup squad, only Reece Hodge and Jordan Petaia will be under 30 by the time the next tournament comes around. The core of that back line has been together for a long time and with some players like Will Genia set to move on, this is an opportune moment to start cultivating a new young team that has not been heavily impacted by the ups and downs of the current regime.
Things are a little rosier in the pack, where there a plenty of younger talents coming through already despite players like David Pocock, James Slipper and Sekope Kepu reaching the end of their international careers. The scrum has been an area of the game that has vastly improved over the last 5 years and that will be a great weapon to build on over the next 2 years, while Tolu Latu, Jordan Uelese, Allan Alaalatoa, Taniela Tupou, Jack Dempsey, Naisarani and Lukhan Salakaia-Loto will be seasoned veterans by the time the next tournament comes around.
The next head coach has a big task on their hands, but there is plenty of talent available to create a strong team quickly.
Back in 2018, I made a decision to expand my focus to include the Movie Trivia Schmoedown – a combination of movie trivia and WWE entertainment. As the brand grew, my writing on here came to an end in November 2018 as I was given the chance to write for their new website, TriviaSD.com along with a number of other Schmoedown bloggers. Recently it was announced that as the crew’s focus is needed elsewhere, it was announced that the site will be coming to an end. This means that the Schmoedown will be making a return to this site!
First of all, I want to give a big thank yous:
To Schmoedown creator and Chairman of the league Kristian Harloff and TriviaSD.com Managing Editor William Bibbiani for giving me the chance to write for the site
To the cast and crew, who continue to create an amazing product that is just going from strength to strength
To the fans, who have helped to create such an amazing community
Over the space of a couple of weeks, I am posting my articles from the site onto here. As some of these are almost a year old, some of them are somewhat outdated and may have proved to be completely off the mark.
Posted to TriviaSD.com 4/7/2019
Season 6 of the Schmoedown really has been the Magic Season so far and it’s safe to say that Collision III was no exception! After the success of the Schmoedown Throwdown earlier this season, the crew took on the daunting task of live streaming the entire four-match event and pulled it off with great aplomb, so before we get into the main part of this article, let’s take a moment to congratulate everyone involved in putting on such a wonderful event!
Here at TriviaSD.com, we love to break down the big events and look at the highlights of the event. Of course, Collision as a whole was a highlight, so it wasn’t easy to narrow it down to just 10 moments and as you will see, I did cheat a little with a few of these selections, so if you think I missed something that deserved a spot on the list, let me know in the comments.
10. Let Him Finish
With Mark Ellis on the desk you can guarantee there will be some fun moments during matches. Having previously idolised Kristian’s golden throat in the earlier seasons, it looks like Baby Carrots has now taken pride in his own voice and wants every chance to use it. So imagine how he felt when competitors were so confident in their knowledge, they were answering before he had the chance to complete his question. Poor Mark looked crestfallen at not being able to show his full range of question-asking skills and kindly asked the competitors to allow him to finish the question… only to be cut off again a few minutes later!
9. Checking Rachel’s Buzzer
One of the joys of the live streams has been getting to see some of the behind the scenes action that would usually get edited out. One example of this is going into the Speed Round of Title Matches and checking that each competitor’s buzzer works so that nobody is at a disadvantage. Rather than just asking each competitor in the Shirewolves vs. The Odd Couple match to test their buzzer one by one, Mark Ellis chose to ask each competitor a question for them to buzz in and answer. Coming finally to Rachel Cushing, he hit her with “Who is the greatest Innergeekdom player of all time?” As Rachel buzzed in, fans were left wondering if she would be modest and give praise to one of her fellow competitors in the division, but to the joy of the crowd, she backed herself and declared that it was her. Extra motivation for Kalinowski at San Diego Comic-Con? Most likely. But I doubt many people would argue with her.
8. Top Promotion
While the quality of the entire Schmoedown product has been on the rise in recent seasons, one thing that has really shot forward in quality this year has been the pre-match promos. Combining the history needed for the upcoming match, the competitors’ smack talk and a clear view of the prize for victory, the promos have done a great job of bringing the hype before the match starts. With two of the most dominant Innergeekdom competitors of the moment facing off for a shot at Rachel Cushing, there was already plenty of hype for Kalinowski vs. Smets, but the pre-match promo took things to another level and gave the competitors the hard task of trying to do it justice by putting on a great match – SPOILER: they did!
7. Facing Off
With the rivalry between KOrruption and The Dungeon and so much at stake in the match between Mike Kalinowski and Kevin Smets, any chance to get the mental edge on their opponent would be huge. Mike Kalinowski got in an early shot by managing to infiltrate the Dungeon and face off with Smets in his own environment. Rumours that “The Smasher” punched a hole in the wall just after the camera cut are still to be confirmed.
As if that wasn’t enough, both competitors chose to come out with the rest of their faction as their representatives for the Manager Bowl made their way to the table. With their match on next, Smets and Kalinowski found themselves nose-to-nose and it didn’t look like either was willing to back down, leading Chairman Kristian Harloff to order them to leave or forfeit their #1 Contender match. Between these two events, it was clear that neither competitor would be giving the other any quarter during their match.
6. Manager Face-Off
It wasn’t just Smets and Kalinowski who were facing off against each other early in the match as managers Tom Dagnino, Kaiser and Jay Washington all faced off, proclaiming that their competitor would win the manager Bowl. Throw in accusations from Tom about what really happens in the dungeon and Jay flipping off the other two while wearing the Infinity Gauntlet, and this was a great light-hearted scene between three of the most entertaining mouthpieces in the league.
5. Kaiser’s Top 3 Managers
While on the subject of entertaining mouthpieces, Kaiser came out with an absolute zinger just before the start of the Manager Bowl, announcing “It’s an honour to be here with three of the greatest managers ever to perform: Tom Dagnino, Bobby Gucci and Bob Finstock!” While a fun comment in itself, it also has a great little nod to the craziness that is Tom Dagnino and his many alter-egos over the years.
4. Winning in Primetime
Those of us unfamiliar with the fan leagues likely didn’t know the name Paul Oyama when this season started, but he has been quickly making a name for himself in the Singles Division. Having seen off Brendan Meyer, Josh Macuga and Chance Ellison, “Primetime” faced off against Liz Shannon Miller for the chance to challenge Dan Murrell for the title. Miller came into this league with a recommendation from Ethan Erwin but Oyama saw her off in stunning fashion to earn a title shot. Oyama’s victory makes it this high not just for the way he won, but also for the legitimacy it is giving to the fan leagues as a proving ground, as he becomes the first competitor to come from the fan leagues and earn a shot at a title.
3. Wheel-y Fun Round
The wheel may be old and on its way out, but it still appears to have a mind of its own. Never was this more obvious than in Round 2 of the Manager Bowl, which was probably one of the most fun rounds of competition in a while. From competitors continually deferring their spin to three of the first four competitors landing on Spinner’s Choice (sorry Zipper), to John Rocha continually spinning slices that had already been selected, leading to him accepting a questionable category just to keep the game flowing. The fun with the wheel gave Round 2 a fun undercurrent, while also showing us a high level of movie trivia knowledge.
2. Making History
Success for the Shirewolves is becoming a staple of these big event Top 10 moments articles and this one is no exception. Having lost to The Odd Couple in their last match, the Shirewolves came out victors in this rematch as neither Jeff Sneider nor Marc Andreyko could correctly answer their 5-point question. This victory saw Rachel Cushing and Clarke Wolfe make Schmoedown history once again as the first Team to regain the Title, while it once again showed the strength of The Odd Couple. Don’t be surprised to see Sneider and Andreyko in contention again by the end of the season.
1. An Emotional Finish
I’ve mentioned the build-up to Kalinowski v Smets a couple of times on this list, and now its conclusion takes the top spot. There was hardly anything between the two throughout the match and going into the 5-point questions it was still level. Both competitors were so invested in the match, that when Smets missed his 5-pointer – incorrectly quoting “Don’t tell Peter” instead of “Don’t tell Harry” – Kalinowski’s reaction was a reflection of Smets’. Then when Mike correctly answered his 5-pointer – something he had gone through backstage right before the match – he was clearly overcome with emotion as the rest of his faction rushed to congratulate him. If ever you needed a reminder of how much this means to the competitors, this moment was it!
Eyes on the Ball 