Rugby World Cup: What have we learnt so far?

What have we learnt from the first week of the Rugby World Cup? I’m going to go out on a limb and say, many things. For example:

We have learnt that while seeing the English humiliated at sport remains the ultimate thrill, seeing South Africa humiliated at sport makes for an extremely satisfactory stand-in.

As the heroic Japanese surged again and again at the South African line in the dying moments of their pool match, the whole world was cheering them on. Even many South Africans may have been, being honest enough to admit to themselves that their disappointment was the greater good.

It’s an excellent thing to see a huge upset in a major tournament – as long as it’s not your team being upset – because it gives the early games a greater sense of purpose and makes the game feel more international. And as upsets go, this was a biggie.

It ranks with Llanelli’s 9-3 victory over the 1972 All Blacks and Tonga’s defeat of the Wallabies in 1973, and perhaps surpasses both, for perceived gap between the sides combined with the size of the occasion.

And surely no upset has ever caused so much joy – not just because people love an underdog and hate a Springbok, but because anyone who’s watched the Japanese throughout the history of the World Cup has grown to love the heart with which they hurl themselves at the game, and wished them well.

Sadly, we also learnt that fairytales tend not to back up three days later for a repeat. Some might call it poor scheduling that saw a well rested Scotland play its first game against a Japanese team that must have been sore and tired and probably still drunk from its victory over South Africa. I prefer to take the charitable view and assume that the Rugby World Cup organisers are not incompetent, but have merely been corrupted by promises of free haggis.

In the event, the Scots looked superb, though they may find it more difficult against teams who aren’t composed primarily of lactic acid and hangovers. The Brave Blossoms remained, predictably, brave, but when pushed in defence, could almost be heard whispering to themselves, ‘We beat the frigging South Africans, we’ve earned a bit of kip’.

We have learnt, as we learn with every Wallabies game, that Australian rugby supporters cannot live without disgruntlement. Australia beat the dangerous wild cards of Fiji comfortably in their first game – certainly more comfortably than New Zealand beat Argentina, and considerably more comfortably than South Africa didn’t beat Japan.

But as is almost mandatory following an Australian victory over anyone but the All Blacks themselves, the consensus is that the Wallabies were lacklustre, rusty, ineffective, and basically kidding themselves if they think they can go anywhere with that sort of on-field tat.

The lack of a bonus point has been much lamented, which proves we already expect to lose to either England or Wales or both, and everyone is saying ‘the Group of Death’ a lot, a phrase which, whether applied to rugby World Cups or the football variety, invariably means ‘the group Australia is in’.

Escaping the Group of Death will be almost impossible given the general agreement that the team is pathetic, but if they do manage to struggle through and win the whole thing, expect a rash of articles stating, ‘The Wallabies last night won the 2015 Rugby World Cup, but concerns remain over the scrum and midfield combination, with their scrappy performance failing to convince fans still sceptical of the credentials of the best team in the world’.

We’ve learnt that Georgia remains the most heartwarming of teams, even when overshadowed by Japan in the upset stakes. In fact, Georgia might be called the Japan of Eastern Europe, though hopefully it never will be. Beating Tonga was not the colossal achievement the Blossoms managed, but it was still highly creditable and achieved through courageous defence and old-fashioned Caucasus guts.

There is an air of romance about Georgian rugby, perhaps stemming from the fact that the team’s very existence seems so unlikely, or the fact that every player seems to be called ‘Kashvili’. It’s strange that there still hasn’t been a film made called “17 Minutes” about Georgia holding out the English for just over a quarter of an hour at the start of their game in 2003. The victory over Tonga probably won’t be made into a movie either, but Georgia remains a team to watch, if not one to bet on.

We have learnt that Uruguay is a team in the Rugby World Cup. What an age we live in.

We have learnt that probably New Zealand will win again, not because they were particularly good against Argentina, but because they showed yet again that even when they’re not particularly good, and even when they are going to lose… they win.

We have learnt that although there are many blights on the modern game – excessive kicking, opaque refereeing decisions, torrents of penalties – there is always room for one more, and one of the worst is that tactic which some commentators still comedically refer to as a ‘rolling maul’.

This is despite the fact that traditionally, a rolling maul contained two elements – one, rolling, and two, being a maul – that are pretty much absent from today’s play. The skilful retention of the ball in a tightly-knit cluster being rolled off the pack one way and then the other is completely dead.

It’s been replaced by one play tucking the ball under his arm, grabbing a teammate’s shorts, and shuffling to the try-line using the entire forward pack as a shepherd. David Pocock scored two tries this way, and good on him – the rules say he can, and no reason he shouldn’t take advantage of those rules.

But by god it’s an unpleasant way of attacking, and it’s no wonder the game is plagued by defending teams killing the play and giving away cynical penalties in their own 22, when attacking teams are allowed to obstruct the defence en masse from gaining any access to the ball-carrier whatsoever.

We have learnt that Gordon Bray is the best rugby commentator in the world and always will be. Japan’s victory was all the better for being called by Bray, and if his schedule doesn’t allow to him to commentate on every rugby game played ever anywhere, then cloning must be considered.

We have learnt that Sonny Bill Williams remains a devilishly dangerous player to have running at your defensive line, and that his fellow league convert Sam Burgess is technically present.

We have learnt that although surely the gap between top nations and minnows is widening, and the brutal professionalism of tier one must run roughshod over the second echelon, somehow the minor nations seem more competitive this Rugby World Cup than for many a year.

Japan’s victory was superb of course, and Georgia’s win admirable, but also the USA put up a creditable showing against Samoa, Fiji pushed Australia, and Romania were far from humiliated by France. None of the minnows will win the cup, of course, but they are showing an admirable unwillingness to bow before the game’s titans.

In fact, although this was written prior to Namibia’s match against the All Blacks, I’m fairly confident in their ability to knock New Zealand off – the Kiwis will be tired, after all, and may just be surprised by the Namibians’ arrival at the ground. Reading this after the event, you’re no doubt astonished at my prescience. It’s what I do.

But most of all we have learnt that rugby truly is the grandest and noblest of all games, and its showpiece event the most magisterial of all sporting festivals.

Because no matter what you say about the Football World Cup, or the Olympics, or that cute thing that rugby league does every few years, all of those lack the one crucial ingredient that elevates the Rugby World Cup above all others: penalties for not pushing straight in scrums.

That’s the magic that all other sports envy, and that makes Rugby World Cup time the most glorious time of all.