QUARTER-FINALS OVERVIEW:THREE MORE wins was the sign on one taxi window in wet and windy Wellington yesterday, and for once it didn't express any loyalty to the omnipotent All Blacks, though perhaps it didn't need to. In any event, that's how close the remaining eight countries are to lifting the William Webb Ellis Cup. And by Sunday evening, then there will be four.
In reality, with the margins between the leading sides often wafer thin on any given day, any of six teams remaining in the last eight might conceivably win the World Cup. The two who can probably be discounted are Argentina and France.
Hence, one of the ironies of this weekend’s quarter-finals is that while the two ties in Auckland contain the All Blacks and what would normally be a potentially epic Anglo-French affair, by some distance the better two games would appear to be in Wellington.
Ireland and Wales are two in-form sides, whose core of Lions are rising to the occasion again, and the bookies make Ireland narrow, two-point favourites.
The meeting of Australia and South Africa on Sunday ensures one of the world’s top three sides and either the second or third favourites, will be leaving New Zealand on Monday. The Wallabies are one point favourites for this game, and having won five of the past six clashes under Robbie Deans, and six of the last 11 (scoring over 30 tries) they may actually have the Boks’ number now that their casualty list has improved, especially with Digby Ioane back and the weather forecast looking good for Sunday.
By contrast, the All Blacks are overwhelming favourites against Argentina, and understandably so. Much of Los Pumas’ golden generation retired after the high of finishing third four years ago, and while much has rightly been made of the All Blacks losing DC, compounding the absence of Argentina’s chief creative force Juan-Martin Hernandez has been the loss of their go-to captain and enforcer Juan-Martin Fernandez Lobbe.
Given their relative lack of strength in depth, that’s a bigger double whammy for Argentina. The whole has, again, added up to more than the sum of the individual parts with Los Pumas and, true to form, they have done remarkably well to nearly beat England and beat Scotland. They’ll be dangerous, and play with spirit, but the All Blacks at 26-point favourites looks about right.
Admittedly, France always retain that capacity for an inspired one-off performance, especially in a World Cup and in the knockout stages. In fact, they rarely go through a World Cup without doing so once, as Australia in 1987 and the All Blacks in 1999 and 2007 can readily testify.
Their former New Zealand-born centre Tony Marsh still believes that Les Bleus retain that potential. “But can they do it three times? No.” Therein lies the rub for all French campaigns, but even the possibility of them scaling the heights just once – even in the fall-out of their shapeless, spineless, spiritless, clueless embarrassment against Tonga – looks remote.
Why? In two words: Marc Lievremont. And especially his decision to retain Morgan Parra, a 72kg scrumhalf, in an ill-fitting number 10 jersey. This is defiance and stubbornness gone bonkers.
It’s not his fault that Bernard Lapasset bequeathed Lievremont to Les Bleus as his legacy. Some legacy, for which the IRB chairman does not seem remotely uncomfortable. But Lievremont, who had never coached an adult side beyond Dax in the ProD2, is clearly out of his depth and you even feel a little sorry for him.
He must also sense this, along with the hostility from the French media, and perhaps this explains why he feels he has to try to prove himself by coming up with curve balls. How else to explain over 80 players in his largely disastrous four-year reign, with the high of a Grand Slam more than offset by all manner of lows, culminating in last weekend’s defeat to Tonga.
Why else would he feel compelled to play Parra at outhalf against the All Blacks, having spent much of the last four years grooming Francois Trinh-Duc? And this, after two bonus-point wins over Japan and Canada.
Then, stubbornly, he retained Parra against Tonga, where the poor lad was more anonymous than an invisible man, and the backline were too deep and lateral, relying purely on individualism and no support runners for the few line breaks they mustered. Their defensive shape was almost as bad. Tonga could, and should, have won by 25-plus.
Whatever chance France had against England surely depended on Trinh-Duc being recalled, and for that matter Cedric Heymans in an all-Toulouse back three, along with David Marty in an all-Perpignan midfield.
Instead, France are stuck with Parra at 10, an out-of-sorts Aurelien Rougerie at outside centre and the lightweight Alexis Palisson on the wing.
One French journalist revealed that one of the players informed him that the worst aspect of being in camp together is seeing his coach first thing in the breakfast room every morning, stirring his coffee and looking forlornly down. For this player, it had just become too depressing.
Apparently, even attempts to generate an old-fashioned bonding session have backfired.
It’s sad. They are a great rugby nation. They have countless better coaches and outhalves.
But for the ‘one-off’ to have happened, a la the 1999 semi-final against the All Blacks when Fabien Galthie reputedly led a player revolt, they needed similar mutiny this week. Put another way, they needed somebody else to pick the team.
England at minus four looks almost as good a bet as Wales at minus 19 against the hapless Fijians last weekend.
France shouldn’t even be here this weekend, and look like a squad who don’t want to be.
“One French journalist revealed that one of the players informed him that the worst aspect of being in camp together is seeing his coach first thing in the breakfast room every morning, stirring his coffee and looking forlornly down
