While it is encouraging to note that Sky Sports has coverage of the tournament in the UK, I couldn't find any radio coverage for those of us who refuse to pay the Murdoch Propaganda Machine. The BBC had an hour long preview show before the tournament kicked off, but I couldn't find coverage of this evening's game, or any reference to other games being covered; talkSPORT are similarly lacking in coverage of England's performance in the competition - and if English broadcasters cover a sport, it's because it's a) famous or b) England are doing well in it!
Annoyingly, the IRB website for the competition won't let me watch the highlights (live video is, of course, blocked because Sky have the UK rights for the live broadcast) because it says I haven't got the latest Silverlight plugin (I have, it just doesn't believe I have). But I did get to see some of the pictures:
(England centre Emily Scarratt evades the clutches of USA prop Jamie Burke. Photo: rugbymatters.net.)
(England full back Danielle Waterman scored two tries to help England to a 37-10 win over USA. Photo: rugbymatters.net.)
There are some great action shots from the other matches, too:
(Kirsty Giteau outpaces South Africa's Lamla Momoti (6) and Saloma Booysen (9) to score Australia's opening try. Photo: rugbymatters.net.)
(Elodie Poublan leaves two Canada defenders trailing in her wake during France's 23-8 round three win. Photo: Martin Seras Lima.)***
I was surprised to see that Kazakhstan have a team in this tournament - Kazakhstan not being a name commonly associated with world sports in general, and (my prejudice showed itself here) sounded to me like the sort of place where women don't have a fair crack of the whip (a false assumption, relatively speaking, as this SIGI report indicates). So, I went looking for a bit more information. I found it at Rugby In Asia and at Scrum Queens' Asia news page, where there's a report on the Kazakh team's preparation for the tournament, which also mentions that Kazakhstan is bidding to host the 2014 WRWC.
As those who follow the links will discover, Kazakhstan are a significant force in Asian women's rugby, playing mostly in the 7-a-side form (usually just termed "7s" - they were finalists in the Asian Women’s Rugby 7s last month) but also competing in the full-scale 15-a-side game.
That said, they failed to win a game in the WRWC competition and will be playing in the 9th place play-offs to avoid the wooden spoon.
Anyway - what I REALLY wanted to say in this post is:
INGERLAND! INGERLAND! Bring on the Aussies!!!
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