LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - OCTOBER 03: Rugby World Cup 2015 match between England Vs Australia at Millennium Stadium on October 3, 2015 in London, England.
PHOTOGRAPH BY Jules Annan / Barcroft
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - OCTOBER 03: Rugby World Cup 2015 match between England Vs Australia at Millennium Stadium on October 3, 2015 in London, England.
PHOTOGRAPH BY Jules Annan / Barcroft
Somewhere along the way the Group of Death became, in Wales' coach Warren Gatland's words, the Group of Hell.
Because death wasn't dramatic enough, we now have eternal damnation.
This is a pretty nasty state of affairs for poor old Stuart Lancaster. He's just had a sharpened-studs rucking from rugbycognoscenti ranging from Graham Henry (himself no stranger to epic RWC meltdowns), to the irrepressible Stephen Jones. Now he has to deal with the demons and other unrepentant sinners that populate the underworld.
Gatland feels for his coaching counterpart, not enough to swap places with him, obviously, but enough to launch a broadside at World Rugby's qualification process.
"Everyone is making a thing about the first home country to hold a World Cup to miss out on the quarter-finals but the stupid thing, as we all know, is why was the World Cup draw done three years ago? That's just ridiculous as far as I am concerned," Gatland said.
"It has been not just the group of death but the group of hell, basically, for all of us."
Yeah, nah.
Yeah, I hear you Gatty. Yeah, you're probably right about the three-year thing. Nah, you're wrong about the Group of Hell. It's been the Group of Heaven for rugby fans. An absolute joy.
Even the most dedicated of code-heads would have to admit the group stages of the World Cup can be a trial by ordeal.
In 2011 we coped because it was here and the community buy-in was so uplifting. This time around our interest has been maintained only by Japan and, you guessed it, Pool A.
It has provided early morning appointment viewing. A reason to believe that it might actually be possible to hold people's attention to rugby for seven whole weeks. You have to beat good teams to win a World Cup, so why shouldn't that extend to pool play, rather than a situation where the tournament really only starts at the quarter-final stage.
Personally, I'd love to see the All Blacks in a pool with two other contenders and a 'wildcard' team like Fiji. The alternative? The indulgent nonsense we've had for two out of their three matches thus far, where even the coach admits they haven't been playing proper rugby.
At least one sensationally interesting pool - Japan have almost made it two - shouldn't be seen as an anomaly, but compulsory.
It was really only the fact that the host nation was involved and, subsequently, humbled, that made Pool A truly extraordinary. There are now nine teams who could loosely be described as semifinal contenders: New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Argentina, England, Wales, Scotland, France and Ireland. Nine into four doesn't divide neatly, so there is always going to be one lopsided pool.
Add to that the potential of the Pacific Island teams, particularly Fiji, the Italian enigma and the burgeoning status of the likes of Japan and, with a bit of TLC, Georgia, and you start to have a tournament with a little less surety.
That's not hell; that's manna.
Think about when you've finished with this coaching malarky, Gatty. You've got your feet up in front of the telly in your Waihi Beach bolthole. There's a cold glass of Brains beside you, sent out in the keg-load by that bloke who promised you you'd never have to buy a beer again if you won the World Cup (well, this is a fantasy). It's the group stages of the 2027 World Cup. What do you want to see? Four groups where you pretty much know exactly who's going to progress to the quarter-finals?
I reckon I know what you'd say: To Hell with that.
In a week where New Zealand meets Tonga, it is always nice to remember the All Blacks' greatest Tongan import laying waste to the Home Countries. Perhaps the funniest moment here was not the Mike Catt demolition, but Ireland halfback Michael Bradley's lame flykick from the base of a ruck - best seen about 37s in - that landed in exactly the wrong pair of hands.
SPORTS SHAREMARKET
I'm buying...
Childish conflations
In this day and age when reportage needs to be instantly squeezable, or snackable (read, instantly disposable), every great combination needs a handle. We've had TomKat and Brangelina and now Pooper, the fearsome Australian loose forward marauders David Pocock and Michael Hooper. Hey c'mon, it was either that or Micock.
There's really not much hope for it if it's going to sink this low.
I'M READING...
This was a piece by an ESPN American football writer that appeared after the opening weekend of games. IMHO Damon was more convincing as a rugby player during one brief scene in The Departed - a game between police and fire department recruits - than he was in Invictus.
Over at the Telegraph, former England hooker Brian Moore was adding a voice of reason to the overwrought Fall of the House of Lancaster debate.
Once again, baseball intrudes into the RWC edition, but this column from a Chicago White Sox fan wrestling with the moral dilemma of wanting the rival Chicago Cubs to win the World Series is too good to pass up. Thanks to eagle-eyed reader T. Murphy of the inner-Eastern suburbs for this spot.
MY LAST $10
Don't hesitate to look me up if you want bad betting advice.
Last week: Go the mighty Namibia! After their gutsy attempt to stop the All Black machine, I backed them at $1.80 to beat Tonga with a 23.5 points start. They only needed 14.5 of those points after losing 35-21.
This week: $10 on Ireland to beat France at $1.65. Les Bleus and Les Blacks were just meant to meet again in a quarter-final in Cardiff. It was written in the stars.
Last week I asked, Why all the hate against England? Well, I got plenty of fervent reasons why. Originally the plan was to run all the correspondence but it that would just be kicking a dog while it's down. So I will just summarise a few themes.
Dylan Petrie wrote that it was because whenever England win a World Cup, you never hear the end of it. "I don't particularly fancy hearing them crow about something like this for another 20 odd years. With Australia and South Africa, they will flaunt it while they have it, but then it will be done," he said.
Andrew Caldwell noted that the booing of Richie McCaw told you all you need to know about the arrogance of England rugby. "The English boo McCaw because they would rather believe their brave and chivalrous knights are beaten at rugby by a cheating rabble from the south. And that's what we really dislike about the English-it's not that they boo McCaw but why they boo him. Their inflated sense of being the best, the true and the good." Caldwell was on a roll and also noted their disdain for the haka. "They hate the haka because it wasn't a gift of colonialism, rather, it asserts the uppityness of the colonies. They gifted us their wonderful culture but we have seen fit to pervert it and toss it back in their faces with our tongues sticking out. We don't pay them the respect they deserve, we don't feed their sense of entitlement."
Steve Hawke lives in England and, like I did when I lived there for a stint, finds the English perfectly agreeable... except when the All Blacks rock into town. "My English friends are by and large fair minded and agreeable. However, when the All Blacks are in town ogres appears from behind the facades spitting constant jibes about choking, poaching and cheating. On the rare occasion the All Blacks lose (to anyone), they and Kiwis in general are savaged by English media and fans in some sort of feeding frenzy. Kiwis are now responding in kind and I think it's a good thing. Too often Kiwis just smile and nod."
For Andrew Carline, whose mother is English, it is all about class and the arrogance associated with those from privileged backgrounds. He is a fervent England football and cricket fan, but hates the rugby team. "The game is traditionally played by [the upper classes], who through some accident of birth have inherited privilege and feel as though they are better than anyone not of their noble ancestry. It's about the class system, something that Kiwis had (until recently) spurned in the name of an egalitarian society. Over there, football is played by the common man, rugby is played by the public schoolboys."
