RWC19.5

After the various phony wars we have moved on this weekend to the proper stuff - knock-out rugby - you really can't beat it. Yesterday the All Blacks eviscerated an anaemic Irish XV. England dispatched Australia by a similarly convincing margin but that scoreline masked an altogether closer match. Nevertheless we should not devalue England's sheer spirit and professionalism - the marriage of those two things is at the heart of success in contact sport.

From this distance the easy conclusion to be drawn is that the New Zealand v England semi-final will produce the overall winner but, and this is the beauty of sport, it is never as simple as that.

As an Englishman, albeit one with a Welsh grandfather, this worries me about the Welsh - of the three other teams left in the competition I think Wales are best equipped emotionally and technically to beat England. I would back New Zealand (quite confidently) to down the Welsh and South Africa (less so) to do the same. But that hwyl fanned by a self-righteous sense of persecution defenestrates cold logic when it comes to an England v Wales fixture. I have serious foreboding about the prospect of such a final. Apart from anything else one would never hear the end of it. Still, I could always fall back on my Celtic ancestry.

South Africa brutalised Japan's brave Blossoms and the possibility of the Springboks facing off against England's almost equally mountainous pack is interesting. Having said all of this, I am back where I started back in September ie. betting on a New Zealand v South Africa final.

One other technical observation from Dr Pig the rugby guru. Has ever such a good player had so bad a haircut as Jack Goodhue?

go faster hair