Bright side of a long layoff for All Blacks
Thirteen days with no game before the All Blacks play Italy in Lyon is the longest break between matches the side has had at a World Cup.
On the bright side it gives the walking wounded, Sam Cane, Shannon Frizell and Tyrel Lomax, a chance to heal, Brodie Retallick time to get back to full powers and allows Ethan Blackadder to integrate with the team again after almost two years away with injuries.
If the squad emerges energised, then Lyon could be the start of a Cup revival that looked unlikely after the 27-13 opening loss to France.
Four years ago, when this weird Cup draw was being decided, the prospect of Italy, forever the easybeats of Six Nations rugby, being a vital match would have been laughable. Not now.
Not only France need him
You can only offer French captain Antoine Dupont every possible good wish after his potentially catastrophic facial injury in France’s 96-0 demolition of Namibia.
Dupont is a player so dynamic and gifted you’d don’t need to have been born in France to love watching him play. To lose him from a Cup in France would be devastating.
Clash of actual giants
The game of the weekend is the Ireland-South Africa game in Paris tomorrow morning.
To say the Springboks have made their intentions clear is an understatement.
Seven hulking forwards on an eight-man reserves bench, which has become the South African norm, guarantees nine man, at best 10 man, kick, and chase, and bash, rugby.
It has been called against the spirit of the game, and while I wouldn’t go quite that far, it’s certainly a cold, grim hand on the throat of exciting, entertaining footy.
Which is why I devoutly hope Ireland, while not exactly a run and gun side themselves, win well, and that in the process their runners, such as James Lowe, Bundee Aki, and
Draw helps unlikely minnows
Given Australia have won the Cup twice, and that Wales first beat the All Blacks 118 years ago, the harsh reality is that if the Wallabies or Wales, as seems likely, makes a semifinal in this year’s World Cup, it’s a nonsense.
The Wallabies, who play Wales in Lyon on Monday, are in tatters. Eddie Jones copped it about as sweet as he ever does after the 22-15 loss to Fiji, and good on him for joking about having baguettes and croissants thrown at him.
But between his hare-brained selections, and injuries to key players, the Wallabies are not so much struggling to fire on all cylinders as barely getting their motor turning over.
However it’s a measure of how much rebuilding is going on inside the Welsh camp that there’s still a chance of an Australian victory.
Either way, the darkly comic fact is that either Wales or Australia could find themselves playing England in a quarter-final, and there’s certainly a chance there of advancing to a semi.
Lies and damned statistics?
At first glance the figures for television audiences in Europe watching the Rugby World Cup also seem too good to be true.
In Germany 3.5 million watching the opening game between France and the All Blacks? Seventeen million in France viewing the game?
If the figures are authentic, let’s hope in the knock-out stages the boredom of forward domination and kicking for position won’t deplete the ranks of new, curious viewers.