Paul Thomas on the Rugby World Cup: And the other big winners on the day are...

Opinion

While the big prize is up for grabs tomorrow night, it's time to hand out a few gongs to individuals who have made this Rugby World Cup such a memorable event.

The Saddam Hussein Memorial Award for Hollow Threats ("The bleached bones of the infidel will litter the desert; the mighty Euphrates will be choked with crusader corpses") is shared by NZRU chief executive Steve Tew and his International Rugby Board counterpart Mike Miller.

Tew suggested that the All Blacks might boycott the next tournament if the financial arrangements weren't adjusted. He was promptly undermined by Keven Mealamu, who pointed out that All Blacks and would-be All Blacks would be devastated if they couldn't aspire to playing in the World Cup.

The black jersey is supposedly the only thing stopping an exodus of our best players, so it would hardly make sense to reduce the attraction of being an All Black.

Miller tried to call Tew's bluff by declaring that "everyone is replaceable". Really? Perhaps by plucky little Portugal, the highest-ranked of the countries that failed to qualify. After all, the Portuguese scored a try against the All Blacks in their 2007 pool match, which is more than the Wallabies managed last weekend. True, they conceded 108 points, but the score can get away from you when you're playing catch-up.

What about Andorra, which is 58th (out of 93) in the IRB rankings? Only 84,000 people live in the tiny Pyrenean principality, but it does have the fourth-highest life expectancy in the world, so its team shouldn't be short of experience.

A timely prize given the imminent release of the Steven Spielberg/Peter Jackson collaboration The Adventures of Tintin is the Captain Haddock Award for Delivering Multiple Insults When One Would Probably Do, which goes to French coach Marc Lievremont.

Like the bibulous old salt whose mouth and vocabulary find another gear when his dander is up - "Pockmark! Cannibal! Nincompoop! Baboon! Squawking popinjay!" - Lievremont has no time for the principle that less is more. Thus his players are "a bunch of undisciplined spoilt brats, disobedient, sometimes selfish, always complaining, always whining".

Unlike Lievremont, who came to regret these remarks, Samoan midfielder and rugby's first political prisoner Eliota Fuimaona-Sapulo isn't prone to self-recrimination in the cold light of day. He takes the Edith Piaf Je Ne Regrette Rien Award.

Having got away with (presumably on the grounds of self-evident absurdity) comparing the tournament scheduling to the Holocaust, Fuimaona-Sapulo went on to accuse referee Nigel Owen of racism and bias and the IRB of all manner of perfidy, including "jumping out of trees trying to shoot a brother".

Although IRB judicial officer Judge Jeff Blackett suggested that he was "seeking martyrdom", Fuimaona-Sapulo blew his chance of winning the Joan of Arc Award. Within days of threatening to quit the game as the ultimate act of protest, he reported for training at his English club.

The Sarah Ferguson Award for Not Letting Marriage to a Royal Cramp One's Style has been up for grabs since 1987, but we finally have a winner. Step forward Mike Tindall, whose indiscreet behaviour, shiftiness and apparent inability to learn from his mistakes make him the very model of a House of Windsor consort.

The He Ain't Funny and He's Not My Brother Award is shared by the Williams boys, Ali and Sonny Bill, for their excruciating carry-on at a press conference this week. It wasn't just the awful timing and inappropriate context - as has been demonstrated many times, when it comes to humour you can get away with almost anything as long as it's genuinely funny. Williams and Williams were about as funny as Standard & Poor's.

The Robert Downey Jnr Award for Going to Hell (or McDonald's) and Back goes to Piri Weepu.

Downey was a child star and a hot young Hollywood actor before his appetite for drugs sent him off the rails. His movie career remained stalled until the much-reviled Mel Gibson put up an insurance bond. These days Downey is that Hollywood rarity, an acclaimed actor who's also an A-list star.

When Weepu came into the All Blacks in 2004, he seemed the obvious successor to Justin Marshall and Byron Kelleher. It's been a long time coming because of doubts about his commitment to the All Blacks and rugby, and a tendency to put on weight faster than a fatted calf.

If Weepu can steer the All Blacks home tomorrow, his transformation from wayward lard-arse to folk hero will be complete.