Who's not afraid of the All Blacks?
what state will they be in after the inevitably bruising encounters with the
Pumas of Argentina and home-team France?
On the other hand, this is all to the good so far as lovers of the game
are concerned. Whoever has to face the All Blacks in the quarter final will
certainly give them a serious game. That match, whoever plays it, will
probably take a toll of its own. My guess at this stage is that New Zealand
will come up against Australia in the semi final.
The fact that Wales, like Scotland, will be playing at home in a World
Cup that is supposed to be hosted in France is down to one of those rare
bits of rugby politicking, by the way. lathe run-up to the 2007 World Cup,
Wales was able to horse-trade matches and money in the World Cup in
exchange for the votes that would take the rest of the event to France.
England, a rival bidder for the hosting rights, failed to do the same.
The more serious threat to New Zealand is to be found in pool A, which
includes England, the reigning World Cup champions, and South Africa, who
won the tournament in 1995. These two teams are heavyweights of the
game. The difference this time, though, is that for the past few years these
two heavyweight teams have mostly been spending their energy on internal
battles.
England have been in decline on the field ever since they won the World
Cup in November 2003. Immediately after that a great team lost its leader,
Martin Johnson, and soon after that their coach, Sir Clive Woodward.
Johnson had got too old for the game, while Woordward had got too tired
of the frustrations involved in trying to run the English national team.
Since then the England team has become a hotbed of fractiousness and
factional in-fighting, mostly because of disputes between the clubs that
Now, if there is one country that is not easily cowed by the thought of
facing the best team on the planet, it is their neighbours across the Tasman
Sea. Australia simply do not tremble at the prospect of playing against the
All Blacks.
Until they get to this point in the 2007 World Cup, Australia's biggest
obstacle will have been their match against Wales in Cardiff. Wales have
recently added some talent to their list of players who can run fast, with
James Hook at inside centre being the pick of the bunch. But although
Wales might think they have a chance against Australia in Cardiff, but I'm
not sure anyone will.
