live blogging the rugby world cup quarter finals

Argentina v. Scotland. Yeah, baby. Makes me wish I had caught the All Blacks game yesterday... even though their awesome level of play did not win them the game.

First impressions: Rugby is a bit of a stupid game... but maybe I kinda like it. In trying to figure it out, I was told that it was derived from soccer and american football was derived from rugby. Which totally makes sense.

Favorite move: When a team is kicking off, they boost a member of their team up reaaaly high and he catches the ball. It looks like he's jumping six feet in the air.

Current thoughts: The sport, at first, seemed to be a bunch of men jumping on top of each other and the ball. Then the match started to evolve and the ball was moving around the field, which made things much more interesting. I even began to discern passes, field goals and penalties.

The Argentinians, as seems to be the case in most things in life, brought a certain finesse, seemingly interested in outsmarting their opponents more than boorishly running into them over, an attitude which I believe nicely becomes their blue-and-white striped jerseys [for which I have a great affinity... they're just so... pretty!].

Speaking of prettiness... I still prefer soccer players. I thought I'd just throw that out there. Hmmm... but the Scots are definitely hotter than the Pumas... fo sho.

...halftime...

Update: I just found out that there are fifteen players on the field for each side at a time. Doesn't that seem a little excessive?

Score: currently 16-6 Argentina!

Off-topic update: Oooh! Found awesome computer backgrounds for Argentina. Oh yeah.

Argentina just let Scotland gain 50ish yards. They're on our 1 [yes, I realize that I'm using American Football measurements here].... aaaaand they scored. That's okay... we're still ahead 19-13.

Fifteen minutes left. An Argentina player just got hurt. Eh... they're doing fine, though. I'm beginning to lose interest.

Eight minutes left. I've decided that #10 is my favorite for Argentina. I've also decided that the stops and starts are worse than American Football. Also, the French commentators are very amusing... a while ago, they said "Oh la la la la!" to describe a play. Haha.

Audience observations: There are a lot of women in the audience, surprisingly. I'm disappointed with the lack of team spirit, team colors and facepaints. I think that the audience could use a few thousand big foam fingers in sky blue and a taunting student section. :P

Three minutes left. The Argentinians seem to be in the right place at the right time a lot. But Scotland has also had greater time in posession of the ball in this half. But Argie is holding them well, so far, which is really all they have to do.

Two minutes left. It's clear that the players are getting more desperate. Hold 'em, Argie! Vamos!

45 seconds left. Score is still 19-13 Argentina.

10 seconds left. The maylay that ensues is hilarious when Argie doesn't know what to do with the ball and the player with the ball runs in circles.

ARGIE WINS! Nice match, muchachos. Semifinals, here we come. The only problem is that we're playing South Africa next. Which, according to a South African friend of mine, means that Argie is going to get "its ass kicked seventeen different directions." Uh oh.