RWC goingson proof it’s a strange old

EVER had that feeling you have landed on the wrong planet?

Like certain people have taken over the world.

This writer remembers being sent to Ranfurly to cover a book launch about a decade and ahalf ago.

The book was about giant rabbits attacking humans at night in Maniototo. The launch was on the grass at Ranfurly Railway station.

The author, from Timaru if memory serves me correctly, was signing copies of his book, while also there for the launch was a crowd of two — a pensioner from Naseby and a dwarf from Clyde.

So here one is: someone peddling a book — it was selfpublished by the way, initial print run: 200 — about menacing giant rabbits, watched by a dwarf and an old lady from Naseby, on a Thursday afternoon, at a railway station where no trains arrive.

Yes, it was all a bit weird. But perhaps this is the bizarre world we live in.

For looking across to Japan there are some strange things going on.

There are the usual reassuring incidents occurring at the World Cup: the All Blacks winning, the Irish boring everyone to death and winning, Scotland choking in a big game, Fijian discipline and structure going out the window.

But things over the past couple of days have gone haywire.

First, the governing body of the game, World Rugby, comes out and says the referees need to get better and pull up their socks.

Are we reading this correctly?

Isn’t the first, second and third rule of the sport the one that says referees shall not be criticised?

Ask anyone who has played the game to any level or, even better, refereed the game at any level: it is a game which is very hard to officiate.

It is a contest for possession for every minute of the 80