A world cup miscellany compiled by GERRY THORNLEY

Castrogiovanni may be a basket case: Murphy chips in with tactical recipe

Geordan Murphy has been receiving an increasing volume of text matches from his Leicester team-mate and restaurant partner Martin Castrogiovanni ahead of Sunday’s showdown, much of it as a continuing part of the long-haired Azzurri prop’s education in Italian swear words for Murphy’s benefit.

Last September the two players opened a restaurant, Italian needless to say, in Market Harborough in Leicester, called Timo.

“It’s a tough time to open a restaurant,” admitted Murphy in the Irish squad’s hotel in Dunedin yesterday, “but it’s going alright. It’s helped by a lot of the fans going there.”

Castrogiovanni, who has become something of a cult hero at this World Cup, once chided that Ireland was noted only for whiskey, beer and potatoes, to which Murphy retorted yesterday: “He may have a point. If you look at the shape of both of us, I tend to drink a lot of water and he tends to eat a lot of the food.”

Scrummaging not being one of Murphy’s fortes, his recipe for undermining Castrogiovanni’s threat on Sunday? “I’m thinking of leaving some baskets of chips in the corners. That should do it. The amount he eats, it should distract him quite nicely.”

Keeping fans happy: Ireland mixing it with the best

ALTHOUGH there has been evident disappointment amongst the travelling Irish hordes at the lack of an open session in the last couple of weeks, squad spokespersons have been adamant they have been mixing with their fan base more than most.

Following on from the 2,000-plus supporters who turned up at the squad’s signing session in Auckland in the week of the Australian game, last week they had a meet-and-greet session with about 80 of the local Irish ex-pat community in Taupo and later met over 600 school children in Rotorua.

Tomorrow some of the squad will visit St Clair’s Primary School in the seaside suburb of St Clair.

Yesterday, some of the players were scheduled to visit the Dunedin fanzone, but organisers advised them to cancel it. With good reason too.

Save for the natives, there’s hardly a sinner here, with most of the so-called Blarney Army due to attend clearly having stopped off in Queenstown and elsewhere before descending en masse over the weekend.

TEW MUST BE JOKING

NZRU chief executive Steve Tew has said the All Blacks won’t be at the next World Cup unless the IRB relax their rules regarding commercial sponsorship, whereby a team’s own sponsors cannot be associated with the World Cup.

An example would be Air New Zealand, which is one of the All Blacks’ main sponsors but whose logos cannot even be situated as part of the backdrop to All Blacks’ press conference as it would be in conflict with the Emirates Airlines, one of the Cup’s official sponsors.

Tew (above, with Dan Carter) claims the New Zealand rugby union will lose out on about €8 million as a result of the IRB’s restrictions, hence his threat regarding participation in England four years’ hence.