Close combat

Beginning this weekend, we are lumbered with the close combat of international rugby union just about all the way to next October and the World Cup final in Paris. Today Wales play Australia in Cardiff; tomorrow at Twickenham the lately pallid English lillywhites steel themselves to take on the sombre might of New Zealand’s All Blacks. This November series of opening European salvoes also includes visits from Argentina and South Africa. For a long-shot bet make haste to slap down a pony on Argentina making the final, at least next autumn. It is the only worthwhile shout, but odds will shorten considerably once the bookies hear of the bullying the South Americans inflict on the English a week today. World rugby is top heavy: as some cheesed-off Brit nicely said on the radio the other day, he couldn’t get too worked up about the sport ‘when only eight countries actually care about it — and four of them are us’.