World Cup is a five-horse race

By DAVID LEGGAT sports editor

Psst. Fancy a World Cup tip? Drop into the TAB and stick a couple of notes on New Zealand to win the title.

And England. And Australia. And France. And South Africa.

Then stop right there because whoever lifts the Webb Ellis Cup on November 22 at the Telstra Stadium in Sydney will come from that group.

There is a cute idea that rugby's real talent pool - that is, the teams with true authority and genuine prospects of winning the seriously big occasion - is too small.

Wouldn't it be lovely if the Scots, the Argentines or the Irish trumped their older, bigger, more experienced brothers?

Well yes, but sporting life at the top is not like that.

Take a quick comparison with soccer's World Cup. Next Friday night, the fifth edition of rugby's international event kicks off. There have been three winners - Australia twice, New Zealand and South Africa.

Soccer's World Cup had its 17th airing in South Korea and Japan last year. It has had just seven champions - Brazil, Germany, Italy, Argentina, Uruguay, England and France - in 72 years, and that, remember, is the truly global game.

The point is the cream will inevitably rise to the top. But just who will actually finish as top of the pops in Sydney? That's a very different question.

Will England's powerful pack and superbly balanced goalkicking maestro, Jonny Wilkinson, enable them to justify early favouritism?

Can the Wallabies put aside the impression - as with the All Blacks at the 1991 Cup - that they are a year too close to the pension office, dust themselves off and do the trick on home soil?

Do the All Blacks possess the know-how to cap off a fine year when the stakes are at their highest and cool heads are needed?

Which French team will turn up? The disciplined, skilled performers with fleet-footed backs and muscular forwards who can undo any opponents on their day, or the madcap, violent brigade who are the joy and despair of the nation, depending on which side of the bed they emerge.

Will the Springboks manage to put some serious divisions in their camp behind them to be a formidable presence, like England backed by a pinpoint goalkicker in Louis Koen?

The best team will win, but what of the individuals?

Watch out for Brian O'Driscoll, probably the game's finest centre, an electric attacker with pace and verve who will make Ireland worth a look.

If France meet the All Blacks - and it can only happen in the final - keep an eye on Olivier Magne and Richard McCaw, who with George Smith are nonpareil No 7s.

These are men with pace, ball handling skills, crunch in the tackle and an awareness of what is going on around them, knowing where they are needed, getting there and getting the job done.

Carlos Spencer and Wilkinson, first five-eighths with different skills, one the runner with an eye for the gap who still manages to convey a sense of playing for the sheer enjoyment, the other the cool-eyed assassin with his radar fixed on the opposing goalposts.

Chris Jack and Martin Johnson, the locks you would pick if you were nominating a World XV. Jack, a marvellous athlete who has established himself as the glue in the All Black pack; Johnson the hard, gnarled England captain not above a bit of skulduggery, but someone you would much rather have alongside you than on the other side of the fence.

Yet the World Cup is about far more than the headline acts.

So the romantic streak in us will keep an eye on Georgia against Uruguay on October 28, and Namibia against Romania two days later. Different languages, different cultures, and two Australian referees making sense of it all.

The Pacific Islands will add yet more flavour, even if the Tongans are without a handful of their best players for a variety of reasons, and the Samoans - once again a quarter-final chance - are left bemoaning the rules and loopholes which deprive them of some of their finest.

Forty-eight games in 44 days, clashes of playing styles, gross mismatches and hopefully an upset or two to add zest and keep the romantics content.

Full World Cup coverage