To be fair though, Wickus van Heerden is a really excellent backrower but he is not in Burger's class. No one is. He might be an animal, a brute and a bloody cheat but he is also a truly awesome talent.

Ok, they can't pick Barkley 'cos he's crocked himself... omg lol

Well, everyone was saying that they should never have picked Wilko in the squad for just this very reason and now the predictions have come true... like picking Vaughan for the Ashes. Poms. LOL

Ok, this is what I think will happen on the night: Catt will be handed the 10 jersey but he will play at 12 when England are in attack and he will do most of the kicking in general play; Farrell will play at 10 in defence and counter-attack or they will generally switch around a bit to keep the Japies in two minds.

It looks like there is a general trend anyway toward the NZ system of of first and second five-eighth (which Australia have also adopted since emergence of Matt Giteau).

Or Option two is that the Poms will simply lose the plot and run around like a bunch of Headless Chickens... which should still be enough to send the Aussies packing if the two sides meet in the QF!

Did any of you watch the match between Japan and Fidji ? The Fidjians won but the Japanese were not that bad. I enjoyed watching this match a lot.

Unfortunately, I missed it but those are both very skillful and fluent sides so I would have expected the match to be quite entertaining to watch.

I noticed that the French team have been complaining in the press about the way the Argentines played the opening game. It's sounds bizarre but there are no details given in the English-speaking press... have you read or seen any of this?

No, I've read nothing such in the French press. The French can only blame themselves. They were over-confident before the match, especially the French coach.

The Argentinians played very smartly. They managed to block the French from playing their usual game. Very smart moves from Argentina. Everybody here in France agrees about that.

The selection issue that I could not understand was when Laporte chose Cedric Heymans to play at fullback/15 instead of Clement Poitrenaud - was Poitrenaud injured? Unbelievable!

+1: I love watching the Bokke get a taste of their own medicine!!

Heymans is a winger, Poitrenaud is a real fullback but Laporte wanted to have a lot of players of the pack on the bench, because he thought the key of the match would be between the French pack and the Argentinian pack.

That's why he put a winger as a fullback on the field.