"Hungarians haven't really caught the rugby bug in any big way, perhaps sensibly preferring not to get tackled while in possession of an oval ball and disappearing beneath a heaving mass of brawny blokes who "ruck" you half to death with metal studs and leave your face imprinted in the grass," The Times reports.
"Nonetheless, Hungary does have a Magyar Rögbi Szövetség (MRgSz, Hungarian Rugby Union) and it is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Having started in the 1960s, Hungarian rugby now consists of eight teams and about 200 players.
Ranked 74th in the world, Hungary isn't expecting to make a World Cup appearance any time soon.
That won't bother the good sorts of Budapest Rugby Watching and Beer Drinking Fans, a self-described "multi-national crowd of male and female rugby maniacs, from "10 to 400 strong". A busy period of elbow-bending is predicted.
MONEY BALL
Free-to-air Brit TV channel ITV is banking on RWC 2015 to boost its horribly flagging ratings among rich people, the Financial Times reports.
The number of ABC1s (upwardly mobile, free-spending types often called Giles or Rupert) watching ITV has fallen 7 per cent this year.
Salvation is expected to arrive in the form of a regular six-to-12 million audience of cashed-up rugger types.
RWC promises to deliver "a particularly upmarket demographic" notes the FT, but getting to them doesn't come cheap. ITV is charging up to $6.11 million for 30 seconds of advertising during every game.
MONEY & BEER BALL
Unsurprisingly, given the oval ball's close relationship with beer, brewers are jostling to associate their drinks with the tournament, reports The Guardian.
Limited edition brews are all the rage. "Burton Bridge brewery has the Tasty Tackle, Black Sheep brewery has Blindside and Adnams has launched Prop Hop."
Heineken, which has forked out nearly $49 million for an exclusive sponsorship arrangement with RWC, is doing what it can to protect its patch. Under the terms of the deal, not only is Heineken the sole brand sold in stadiums, it is the only one that can be marketed within 500 metres of them.
The Guardian also notes a sharp increase in hotel prices in host cities. The largest increase is in Cardiff, where prices have risen by 1095 per cent, reaching an average of $2486 a night for the quarter-final at the Millennium Stadium.
GIBBER CHAMPS
No sport embraces asinine drivel with quite as much enthusiasm as rugby, a game where the art of moving one's lips and emitting noise without offering any meaningful communication is truly cherished.
First out of the blocks in the Gibber Championships of 2015 was Boks coach Heyneke Meyer. Having observed in his pre-tournament stand-up that scrums, lineouts and the breakdown would be important, Meyer unloaded a magnificent barrage of nothingness. Hapless minnows Japan were "not going to be easy".
In fact, "All the opponents will be difficult and you have to approach each game as if it were a final". And, of course, "There will be no pressure on us but we will put pressure on ourselves."
Fans playing cliché bingo clearly won't want to miss any Boks games.
