Europe’s chance to claim another win?

Rugby World Cup – Pool B Preview: With customary confidence, England believe they are primed to win, but Scotland and Argentina will fancy their chances, writes Johnny Watterson.

One of the eternal truths of World Cup rugby is that England go into each competition, if not fully expecting to win, then believing they can. Martin Johnson will have looked around his team’s Pool B and seen dangerous sides such as Scotland and Argentina, and teams they will certainly beat, Romania and Georgia.

The former England captain will figure in his mind that Group B is there to be won – and the statistics will back him up. But it is also there to be lost.

Of the four other teams in the pool, Scotland have the best record against the English. Romania and Georgia have never beaten England, with Romania losing four times in four meetings and, in the process, conceding an average of more than 60 points a game for a grand total of 268 points.

Georgia have met England just once before, eight years ago. That match took place in the 2003 Rugby World Cup in Australia, where England won their one-sided pool match 84-6 and scored 12 tries in the execution. Neither team have done much in recent years to suggest that they can close those considerable gaps in ability.

To hold England as favourites to advance as pool winners will surely irk their enthusiastic on-field enemies Scotland and Argentina, who are equally at arms length in terms of friendship between nations. Given the histories here, this pool could also win an award for antipathy between teams.

But with a 70 per cent winning record against the South Americans and a 60.15 per cent winning record over Scotland, the figures show that through the years whatever quality of team England turns out on the pitch, it has a better than even chance of winning against those sides.

Of the six World Cup competitions played since 1987, England have won once, in 2003, and have been runners-up on two occasions – in 1991, when they lost in the final to Australia, and in the last World Cup, when they lost in the final to South Africa in Paris. They are the only European team to have won the competition and in France 2007 particularly, they arrived without much form and in the process of rebuilding but found enough to take them all the way to the final match.

On two of the occasions when they didn’t make the finals, England have oddly been undone by individual performances. In 1995, having reached the semi-finals with a win over Australia, they ran into the then rampant All Blacks winger Jonah Lomu and lost 45-29. Then in 1999, England reached the quarter-finals before being kicked off the park by the boot of South Africa’s Jannie de Beer, who scored five drop goals.

Lomu, incidentally, may have trampled all over the England team back then, but during this summer the marauding winger launched a verbal attack on the old enemy, accusing them of being “disrespectful” for unveiling a new all-black away kit ahead of the competition.

England wore the new strip in their friendly against Wales last month. The same colour, almost, as the iconic uniform worn by the New Zealand All Blacks for 127 years, they will also wear it for their opening game of the tournament against Argentina. The English Rugby Football Union insists it consulted the tournament hosts and was given the all-clear by New Zealand to wear black.

The annual Calcutta Cup match between Scotland and England, as part of the Six Nations Championship, has its own character but when England played Scotland in the 1991 Rugby World Cup semi-final, England narrowly won the Edinburgh match by one kick of the ball, 9-6, before going on to lose the final.

Scotland have competed in every Rugby World Cup since the first and their best finish was in 1991, when they finished fourth. In that historic semi-final against England, it was the normally reliable Gavin Hastings who missed a penalty almost in front of and a short distance from the posts. Fans still don’t let him forget that one – which goes down in the annals of World Cup lore as one of the most stinky kicks in the competition.

England, although fearful of Scotland, have the whip hand, while Scotland’s record against Argentina is not good.

Even if a fire-in-the-belly performance from Scotland against their old rival England can get them a result there, Argentina will encounter the Celtic nation knowing that they have beaten them seven times from 12 matches played.

Scotland appear to be up against it and have even managed to lose twice to Romania in the past, the most recent time just 10 years ago. Romania first beat Scotland in 1984, posting a 28-22 win over the then Grand Slam-winning team, and achieved their second home win over the Scots in 1991, prevailing 18-12. Both matches were played in Bucharest.

As a curious aside, as rugby is again part of the Olympic programme, it was Romania that took bronze in rugby at the 1924 Olympics, staged in Paris.

However, they did so by default, as only three teams entered the competition. The Romanians lost 59-3 to France and 39-0 to eventual gold medallists the USA. It probably won’t pan out as easily for them in New Zealand over the next month.

In light of Argentina’s capacity to cause upsets and Scotland’s tradition, English coach Martin Johnson has already warned that his side must hit the ground running when they face the South American team in their first match in Dunedin on September 10th.

The England boss is wary of Los Pumas and knows that, in the last competition, Argentina downed the home team France 17-12 in their first game – one of the few times you could have heard a pin drop after the final whistle in a capacity Stade de France.

That day, Argentina made their defence their main strength and it paid off. They went on to complete their best World Cup, finishing third overall. Argentina will surely use that opening 2007 win over France as a motivational tool. Felipe Contepomi and his team mates will also know that if they can beat England in the opening game, it is the key to winning the group.

After England, Argentina then play Romania before facing Scotland in their third match of the tournament in Wellington. You would expect them to feel that a qualification place from the pool is an achievable ambition. Scotland’s run may favour them. They play the two weakest teams in the pool, Romania and Georgia in their opening two matches before finishing against Argentina and England.

It’s a tough final two matches for Scotland but they are likely to look on those opening matches in the pool as warm-up games and, because of that, played only two friendly matches prior to travelling to New Zealand, and beat Ireland in their first. Barring any major upset, Scotland will at least have teed themselves up for what is sure to be an eventful pool.