ANDY COLQUHOUN, Edinburgh | Friday 1.30pm.
THE cannon fodder will be blasted to pieces here and there and there’ll be a scrap for runners-up spots in a couple of the pools but the bottom line of this weekend’s World Cup matches is that the quarter-final line-ups will be effectively fixed.
The Pool B big guns of England and New Zealand and Pool E aristocrats Ireland and Australia come crashing together. When the dust settles this is how the quarter-final line-up will read.
On October 23 Wales will meet Australia in Cardiff and the following day South Africa take on England in Paris; New Zealand meet Scotland at Murrayfield and Ireland will be at home to France in Dublin.
From which you will have divined that I take New Zealand to beat England. At the moment that puts me almost in a class of one.
England’s demolition of Italy has been taken as evidence that the white machine is unstoppable. And, hell, it will be difficult to halt.
But remember South Africa hammered the same Italians for 101 points in Durban and then went on their worst losing run for a quarter of a century. Italy may have fielded only six of the players who appeared against the Springboks but I’m not convinced the changes made them a significantly different team against England.
New Zealand’s failure to smash Tonga to smithereens has conversely been taken as evidence that their powers are waning. Nonsense. Tonga have been well-coached and organised and tackle like maniacs and, after all, New Zealand did rumble in for five tries.
But don’t worry, the All Blacks will be ready for England. There’s
nothing stirs the blood for a wild colonial boy so much as an Englishman in his sights and even if the white blanket does dominate in the tight, New Zealand have the class in the loose.
Oh, history is on New Zealand’s side. England have only beaten them once since in the last nine meetings since 1983.
Whatever Ireland may have been saying in the build-up in their match against Australia the plain fact is that there is little incentive for them to win it.
The prize for the victors is a quarter-final in Dublin against Wales and avoiding a quarter-final play-off.
But Ireland’s consolation for defeat would be to stay at home and play an extremely vulnerable looking France. The price of that is a quarter-final play-off against the best third-placed team in the pools. “I’ll go for Option B, Mr. World Cup organiser,” may be the quiet choice of Ireland coach Warren Gatland. Check the odds on Ireland for the semi-finals? They’ve got to be a great bet.
South African interest will be simply focused on how close they can get to the record 145 points the All Blacks put on Japan four years ago.
Watch out for Stefan Terblanche or Breyton Paulse to go close to Terblanche’s Springbok record of five tries in a test – that’s presuming it’s not so easy for the inside backs and forwards to crash through the yellow wall that the ball is never moved wide. — MWP