More World Cup Woes

It has been an intriguing Rugby World Cup so far with more than its fair share of surprises and talking points. Great that England were given the opportunity to play host and good to see that matches have been spread around the country to give as many people as possible the chance to see a game live. The only downside in using some of the larger football grounds to host some matches is that not only are the pitches too small to accommodate a reasonable sized in goal area but there is a difference in the surface needed for each game which makes a soccer pitch cut up a lot easier than a dedicated rugby playing surface. That said, nowhere has the state of the pitch spoiled the entertainment of the game.

South Africa's defeat to Japan will undoubtedly remain as one of the outstanding highlights not only because it was a cracking game but you could sense that the way the Japanese were playing there was a strong belief that the victory was possible.

It did not come as a shock to me that England failed to make it out of the pool stage on this occasion, what I did feel was unnecessary was for the captain, Chris Robshaw, to publicly state that the English players had let the country down. In reality it was a very tough group with the probability of one of the top 5 rugby playing sides failing to qualify. It could be argued that in the games against Wales and Australia players may have let themselves down but I don't see that in any way did the side let the country down.

It has been estimated that England's early exit from the tournament will cost the country around £3bn in lost revenue. I even read somewhere that failure in previous tournaments has seen a blip in the stockmarket of 1.3%. £3bn is one hell of a feel good factor but I don't think it will spoil the overall enjoyment of the rest of the tournament since there is still a lot of good rugby ahead and there is no particular side that is a shoe in for the title. New Zealand look strong as ever yet Australia sent a powerful message of intent in their display against England and South Africa looked more like themselves against Scotland. Wales have had a horrendous time with injuries and no one knows what the French are capable of (least of all the French who can beat anybody on their day). For me, the best prospect for the northern hemisphere in this tournament has always been Ireland, they just seem to have a stronger squad that functions better as a unit and has more composure on the ball.

It could be argued that England should have beaten Wales, though indiscipline and a few wrong decisions let them down, but yesterday they were simply beaten by the better side. They had no answer to the menace of David Pocock and Michael Hooper who dominated proceedings in and around the pack. The England back row hardly got a mention all match, such was the efficiency of the Australian counter-rucking.

As usual the press had cranked up the hype for the English side to fever pitch, totally overlooking the fact that this is a relatively new and inexperienced squad of players, something that was evident in the way they played against Australia. Yes, England have some very good flair players but they have not really played that much together as a unit. Undoubtedly there will be those calling for immediate change but I think there needs to be a period of reflection after the tournament, where those involved in the game at the elite level can reflect on what went wrong and decide how best to learn from those mistakes.

This is not the first time a young and inexperienced side has found to be lacking, the England side were outclassed in 1999 yet we all know what happened in 2003 when we went to the tournament with pretty much the same side who were selected 4 years earlier.

Away from the pitch, I have found the TV coverage rather disappointing, or more correctly irritating. I do not have one of these £2000+ super entertainment systems that allow you to count a player's teeth in hi-definition. Maybe it is something in the type of cameras that ITV use but on numerous occasions the picture on my screen would go 'fuzzy' particularly when they replayed passages of play. This I was able to rectify by switching channel and switching back. Which was pretty much what I do whenever that wretched theme tune splurges onto the screen. I am guessing that ITV blew their budget on punditry so decided to regurgitate the theme they used successfully for the previous world cup. I have nothing against Paloma Faith as a singer it just strikes me that her rendition of 'World in union' sounds as if she's suffering from a strangulated hernia.

Equally irritating is the orang-utan used to market the tournament. So far I have found no body who can tell me what the relevance of the animal is to the game. I could see that there may be an issue if the company had used a wallaby, a springbok or a puma but why an orang-utan? Why not a giraffe or ostrich? And why does the poor animal have to wander around listening to the various national anthems? Is he/she a musical aficionado? I know that these media bosses like their artists to perform for peanuts but even so, there would have been plenty of C-list celebs who would have jumped at the chance of this gig.

At least they haven't attempted the other trend that seems to be increasing in adverts, using computer graphics to syncopate speech. Having a bird and a cat 'serenading' each other to a motown classic is bad enough, an orang-utan 'singing' 'World in union' would be a step too far.