Everyone Ready for the Big Brown Bash.

Today saw the second Rugby Union World Cup semi-final between the "Pumas" of Argentina and the "Wallabies" of Australia. After yesterday's political intensity between South Africa and New Zealand this was pretty much just a rugby match.

Inspired by Aussie Rules Football the Wallabies had a lot of Ireland's pass and dance about them. However they brought with them a level of muscle the Irish clearly lacked.

So when the Puma's went in for their chop tackles the Australians just sort of carried on trying to work out why there was a little Argentinian clamped to their ankles. Likewise when the Pumas made their attack the Australian defence simply cut them down.

What really undid the match though was Australia's Simmons intercepting an early pass from Argentina's Sanchez and running through a converted try to give the Aussies a 7 point lead after just 90 seconds.

Although Sanchez tried to redeem himself with a 3 point penalty Ashely-Cooper quickly ran in another unconverted try. Along with another converted Ashley-Cooper try and two Puma's penalties this gave Australia a 19-9 half-time lead and plenty of excuse to take their foot off the gas in the second half.

While a further two Sanchez penalties took Argentina within a converted try of a draw Ashley-Carter became only the second player in history to score a semi-final hat-trick of tries giving Australia a 29-15 victory.

The only real issue was the performance of the English referee Wayne Barnes.

Having utterly humiliated himself in last Saturday's (17/10/15) quarter-final between South Africa and Wales Barnes seemed an odd choice to referee at this level. After all on election day any questionable decision by an Englishman against the Argentinians is likely to raise hell about the Falklands/Malvinas.

For the most part Barnes seemed to be attempting to dispel any allegations of anti-Welsh bias by demonstrating that he was an utterly incompetent referee. So there was poor decision after poor decision benefiting no team in particular.

There was an interesting moment when Argentina's Levani tackled low on Australia's Folau. Failing to use his arms to grab and taking Folau over the horizontal this was somewhere between a penalty and a yellow card.

However as it clearly wasn't a spear-tackle I would have erred towards penalty in an incident that was similar to Lydiate's tackle that prompted Mike Brown's tantrum in the England v Wales game.

Initially Barnes was happy to give the penalty. However the Television Match Official (TMO) put him on the spot and enquired as to whether with the quarter-final he was following the letter or the spirit of the law. Under pressure Barnes decided he was again following the letter of the law and sent Levani to the sin-bin for a harsh yellow card.

The big incident came late on with Ashley-Carter's final try. If Barnes had gone to the TMO and we'd all got our protractors out eventually we would have concluded that this was technically the result of a forward pass. However with both players running forward, the ball not being taken out of the way of a defender and it being a fine margin watching it live I think it was a spirited try.

Plus while the Argentinians will continue to dream of what might have been in the dying minutes it was really the difference between them losing 22-15 and them losing 29-15.

Anyway Australia now go on to meet New Zealand in Saturday's (31/10/15) final.

Although never in history have rugby fans rioted like football fans this is likely to be a grudge match between two rugby mad rivals driven largely by decades of New Zealanders being forced to say; "No actually I'm from New Zealand."

It's likely to be spiced up slightly by growing political tensions between the two nations. Due to a mutual visa free travel arrangement during Rihanna's 2013 Diamonds World Tour I temporarily designated Auckland, New Zealand as an Australian city.

However former Australian Prime Minister Abbott's anti-immigration policies have seen large numbers of New Zealander's deported after being released from prison. This has prompted the New Zealand government to sort of respond by going; "Oi, We're white, this sh*t isn't meant to apply to us. Plus you're Australian, most of you are f*cking criminals!"

Then there is the Chris Brown issue. In what I understand is now a final decision Australia banned him over his domestic violence convictions. However in an attempt to show loyalty to the English hosts of the tournament New Zealand then welcomed him with open arms.

We look forward to the matter being settled once and for all.

21:45 on 25/10/15 (UK date).