WORLD CUP - Sex symbol? Those French have a gall

You don't have to be in France to realise that the Rugby World Cup is coming. Admittedly, it would have been nice to be asked, or perhaps even considered, but for the moment we won't go there.
No, there are several other ways to measure the hyperbole in the place where snails are regarded as delicacies, starting with the tone of the latest media reports that are now flooding in at an alarming rate.
Plans to publish as much rugby wisdom as we could lay our hands on were abandoned weeks ago, for fear of leaving a carbon footprint of felled timber about the size of France itself just to get enough newsprint to splash the ink on.
Rest assured there are plans though, starting with a careful perusal of the French media as the countdown to tournament kick-off gets serious.
Top of the guess-what-now list: News that Sebastien Chabal, that hairy monster who left All Blacks lock Ali Williams in a crumpled pile a month or so back is now regarded as a sex symbol in France.
By the ladies we presume.
Now, Chabal is many things. Monstrous, menacing, hairy to mention a few, but a sex symbol? In France? He is called many things too, The Anaesthetist, Attila, Rasputin and his most recent nickname Hannibal Lecter.
Not exactly nicknames for the ladies, you might think.
This, surely, is the first reliable report that signals the start of a French rugby renaissance. And there hasn't been a ball kicked, an eye gouged or a cockerel taken hostage yet.
The second sign? A book just released in France explaining rugby for the clueless with handy bits of information such as: "A drop goal has the same sensation as receiving a bunch of flowers from an admirer."
Visitors to Paris are also being issued with pamphlets with a handy glossary of rugby terminology like, "I've got a hangover", "I feel dizzy" and "It's my round".
Imagine, then, how rabid things are about to get in the land of luurrrrve when 4.5 billion television viewers tune in to watch the tournament's 40 matches. Then multiply that by some form of mathematics that is well beyond my comprehension and put it in the the Stade de France in Paris where, if all goes well, France is about to play the All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup final.
Daunting? Foreboding? Intimidating?
Yep, all that and some.
If France and the All Blacks do make the final, expect the haka, whatever version is performed, to be drowned in a wall of Gallic jeers fuelled by red wine and snail croissants. Even the English will be wearing beret's that day.
It will be a lonely place to be an All Black.
These are just warnings mind, gentle reminders to be prepared for the onslaught. The plan from us to you is also about to unfold.
The Rugby World Cup coverage will be substantial, as you might expect, from a reporting team now based in France. Starting on Wednesday is the first of three weekly columnists, Cleaver's Cut, by award-winning journalist Dylan Cleaver. Every Saturday, Dave Leggat will be filing another in-depth opinion piece called Leggat on Saturday and after every All Blacks' game former All Black prop Mark `Bull' Allen will offer his insight as well.
In between times there will be daily updates, much of it exclusive to The Northern Advocate, including regularly updated tables and graphics. It will be a rugby explosion of nuclear proportions, especially if the All Blacks find all that Gallic jeering too much to handle at the Stade de France.