The final pool game in the preliminary rounds of the 2023the World Cup was a thriller between the favorites Fiji and Portugal, the latter having never won a game at the World Cup. The lead kept switching constantly until during the very last moments, Portugal scored a try and converted from a difficult angle to give them a historic 24-23 victory.
You can see the highlights.
You would never guess from the scenes of wild jubilation among the Portuguese players and fans and the dejection of the Fijians that it was the latter team that advanced to the quarter finals while Portugal was eliminated. This was because as Fiji got a losing bonus point for the margin of defeat being seven points or less, their points score in their pool was tied for second with Australia but since Australia had lost to them in their earlier contest, the tie-breaker favored Fiji.
The four quarter-final games will be played next Saturday and Sunday with Fiji playing England on Sunday. England had the easiest pool opponents and has not really been tested so far, so this will be an interesting game. The other quarter-final games will be Wales v. Argentina and Ireland v. New Zealand on Saturday, and France v. South Africa on Sunday. Those last two matchups involve the four top teams in the tournament.
For reasons beyond mortal ken, neither this match nor the Japan-Argentina match were shown on the sports channels in Canada. They did show the irrelevant match between Tonga and Romania. Must have been an important darts match on when the other games were playing.
Ireland and France have impressed me. But I’ll be cheering for England, despite their obscene choice of the red rose as badge.