Three safe bets

01 THERE WILL BE TROUBLE AT THE BULLS

Let’s be honest, there has been trouble wherever John Mitchell has gone. He ended up in conflict with the players and fellow management at the Force and then again when he joined the Lions.

He’s a good coach but a hard task master and his style just seems to get under the skin of the modern player.

It seems a safe bet that things will be all hunk dory at first, and then the Bulls will implode.

02 TV WILL OVERSELL THE SUNWOLVES

It gets a bit sickening and patronising listening to the coverage of the Sunwolves when they play a Kiwi team.

We have to hear about a million times how wonderful it is that the competition has included Japan and what a great sight it is to see fans in the stadium.

If the Sunwolves string two phases together there will be gasps and claims of a rugby revolution and this endless fawning to say how happy we should all be that a really crap team has been allowed into the competition starts to grate.

03 AUSTRALIA WILL CELEBRATE VICTORY OVER NZ TEAMS

In the last 52 encounters between New Zealand and Australian teams, the latter has won just three. They failed to win a single game against New Zealand sides last year and to be honest, they didn’t actually get close particularly often. So if and presumably when victory comes, watch the Aussies lap it up. Watch them celebrate long and hard and a few commentaries begin about a Wallaby revival...All Blacks decline etc, etc...