Southern Hemisphere arrogance takes a dent this week-end

Saturday 2pm, Marseilles - Australia V England. Final Score 10-12 It was a strange feeling shouting for England. This week-end the pride of northern hemisphere rugby football was vested in our old enemies England and France. England played the game of their lives. They attacked Australia at the breakdowns with a ferocity that the All-Blacks would find hard to better. They turned over the ball maybe ten times. Even though Joni Wilkinson was not as accurate as usual - only 4 from 7 - they still managed to squeeze out a 12 points to 10 victory. Australia lost it mentally in the last few minutes. When they got a penalty in the last 2 minutes which was obviously outside of Mortlock's range - they prayed for a miracle rather than backing themselves and kicking for the corner. Mortlock missed and England ran down the clock to give a famous victory. You can showboat with big scores (91-3 V Japan; 55-12 V Fiji; 37-3 V Canada) in the early stages, but in the knock-out stages you need heart and brains in equal measure to go forward.

Saturday 8pm, Cardiff - New Zealand V France. Final Score 18-20 New Zealand slipped up - so someone else will take their birthright again. Fabien Pelous, a veteran of France's famous 1999 world cup victory against the All-Blacks said of the game: "We knew we wouldn't play much, we would occupy territory. We got away with it; if we played that match again 5 times out of 6 we would lose it". Crazy Benny Laport picked a team of kickers to ensure that the played the game as much as possible in the New Zealand half. The tackles made statistics of 178 by France to 36 by New Zealand tells a tale of a fierce French Résistance.

Tricolour v Haka Uploaded by -Muppet

The Résistance started with the Haka. They lined up on the half way line in Red White and Blue T-shirts forming a large tricolour. Apparently this was Serge Betson's idea - good one. The Haka advanced to the line 'til they were nose to nose at the end. Chabal eye-balling his opposite number, nose to nose, was a sight to raise the French morale.

After the game Richie McCaw was interviewed on TV. The hurt and the pain visable on his face and in his voice, made our Irish teams hurt seem trivial. Later he said of the team in the dressing room "The pain in the eyes and the body language sums it up. It's hard to put it into words but there are some pretty shredded guys". In contrast to our arrangements, Graham Henry will be replaced before Christmas just like his four predecessors. I think this simply raises the pressure and expectation on New Zealand for 2011 - although they will be on home soil again.

Sunday 2pm, Marseilles - South Africa V Fiji. Final Score 30-20 While South Africa managed to hold it together to beat Fiji by 37 points to 20, it took a remarkable piece of individual leadership by their captain John Smit to pull them back from the brink. In the second half the 14 man Fiji team scored 2 tries in quick succession. They then just missed a try to take the lead. Smit called his team into a huddle. He said he could see in their eyes what he had seen in the eyes of the Australian and New Zealand players the previous day. He told them to snap out of it and go win the match. South Africa managed to use their rugby brains and skill to finally grind out a win. But there was no doubt about who had played the better rugby. Can you believe that earlier in the week Jaque Fourie said that Fiji did not merit the respect of the Springboks.

Sunday 8pm, Paris - Argentina V Scotland. Final Score 19-13 It was the poorest of the 4 matches. Argentina won in the end but only just. Scotland made lots of errors and gave limited ball to their outside line. They never took the flat pass from the scrum or ruck, but always passed deep and so often went backwards. Argentina were nothing like the team that beat France or Ireland. The score-line flattered both teams, if that's possible. So having started out this week-end thinking that the semi-finals could be a southern hemisphere tournament we now will have a north south final in the end, when France or England will take on South Africa or Argentina. The money would have to be on France to beat South Africa in Paris - but this World Cup is not one to predict.