Frank Keating

Last rites

Even before the last splurge of qualifying group games are played in rugby union’s World Cup, consensus agrees the tournament has already turned into a calamity for the four from the British Isles.

issue 29 September 2007

Even before the last splurge of qualifying group games are played in rugby union’s World Cup, consensus agrees the tournament has already turned into a calamity for the four from the British Isles.

Even before the last splurge of qualifying group games are played in rugby union’s World Cup, consensus agrees the tournament has already turned into a calamity for the four from the British Isles. Even a quarter-final place will mean a grievous sudden-death public execution next weekend. We shall see. Mind you, say the silver-lining bright-siders, the rugby in France has at least been a jolly sight heartier for domestic spirits than that of England’s cricketers in South Africa’s Twenty20 ‘world cup’ — another game we ‘invented’, although in the latter’s case the pathfinders were zoot-suited fast-buck marketing men.

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