Rugby World Cup 2015
THE last of the warm-up matches for teams playing in the World Cup take place today (Saturday), with the one between England and Ireland at Twickenham of more interest than the other nine.
That one to be closely monitored than the others because both won one and lost one to strong opponents in their earlier warm-ups.
Another defeat either way will put a lot of pressure on the coach, of that there’s no doubt, because losing two in a row can cause a massive loss of confidence by the players.
England beat France at home 19-14 in the middle of August but lost the away tie a week later 25-20 in a game where France were dominant.
In both matches the French did a lot of running with ball in hand to show glimpses of the France of old.
More significant was the fact that in Paris England started with what would most likely be their first 15.
Ireland have been the Six Nations better side these last two seasons and showed that again in their 35-21 win against Wales before a big crowd of 74,000 in Cardiff, only to be undone by the same opponents 16-10 three weeks later at home.
Some pressure lifted off the shoulders of Wales coach Warren Gatland and back to the drawing board for fellow Kiwi and Ireland coach Joe Schmidt.
Ireland did beat Scotland 28-22 in another warm-up but that’s not quite the same as a Test against England or Wales.
Wales play their last warm-up at home against Italy but this would most likely be used by Gatland to test his second choices.
The Italians haven’t had a comforting time so far, beaten 16-12 by the Scots at home and hammered 48-7 away.
The rest of the matches involved teams ranked in the second tier and will only reaffirm most of what we already know but with the outcome of the Japan-Georgia and Canada-Fiji games most difficult to predict.
The speculation is that this time Fiji will be the ranked outsider and any team that under-estimate them may pay a heavy price.
They were in the quarter-final of the inaugural RWC in 1987 and again in 2007 in France when they defeated Wales 38-34 to advance to the knockout stage.
Consistent with the inconsistencies usually shown by the Pacific Island teams, Fiji were at the end of a 66-0 hiding by Wales four years later in New Zealand.
Of the southern hemisphere big guns, only Australia will have a game and that one is taking place against the United States.
New Zealand and South Africa had their last Tests on August 15 and may need a bit of time to get rid of some cobwebs in their first two matches at RWC.
Before they depart for England, many in the All Blacks squad were broken into groups of threes and fours for meet-and-greet sessions with fans at various cities in the country.
There was an injury scare too earlier for utility back Colin Slade, who’s also a cover for the flyhalf position, but he has since recovered.
That caused a bit of a panic especially after what had happened to Slade after he had to take over following the injury to Dan Carter at RWC 2011.
As it turned out Slade too got injured, was replaced by Aaron Cruden who also was injured in the final and had to be replaced by the fourth-choice Stephen Donald.
The last column’s mention about prop Carlie Faumuina should have stated that his lack of high level game time was specific to this season only following a neck surgery three months ago.
Faumuina otherwise has 27 caps, the first of which he earned in September 2012 as a replacement against Argentina.