Weekend of humdingers coming up

What promises to be two of the most spectacular match-ups of this year’s Rugby World Cup are set for the weekend, with the Springboks featuring in one of them against Australia. The other humdinger could be between Ireland and Wales on Saturday in the Wellington Regional Stadium starting at 07h00.

South Africa suffered a massive setback on Friday when they lost their inspirational play-maker Francois Steyn. The Boks will possibly use Jean de Villiers in that position for their quarter-final match starting at 07h00 on Sunday, also at the Wellington Regional Stadium.

Yes, the defending Rugby World champions, the Springboks, will be up against the reigning Tri-Nations champions, Australia.

The Springboks have scored 21 tries so far and have only conceded 24 points during the Rugby World Cup.

The defensive system and the scrambling have been useful, but in the close win on Friday, the Samoans exposed a frailty out wide. It is something Australia will scrutinise and try and capitalise on.

Amazingly, the one world-class Springbok who has had a relatively mediocre campaign so far if judged by his high standards is Jaque Fourie. He made a few defensive errors on Friday in individually jumping the defensive line against Samoa and South Africa will have to correct that mistake.

Peter de Villiers, the Springbok coach, has promised to deny the mercurial Australian flyhalf Quade Cooper space and to pressurise him and the rest of the Wallaby backline into mistakes.

The Boks hope to use their scrum, their lineout and also their driving mauls and the rucks as a platform to disrupt Australia and keep them pinned down in their own half.

But unfortunately, South Africa showed a frailty on Friday in their win against Samoa. Victor Matfield, the Bok-captain, said South Africa went to sleep in the second half. In that half, they opted not to keep possession, but to test Samoa with high kicks, and the island men used that turnover possession to put South Africa’s backline under immense pressure.

Currently, it is extremely difficult to predict an outcome, but in terms of playing style, Australia will attempt to get quick ball from the rucks, something they battled to do against Ireland because David Pocock and Stephen Moore were injured.

They will also use the long tactical kicks by the Boks to attempt counter-attacks, launched by Kurtley Beale and James O’Connor.

The Boks will keep close to the rucks and mauls, and will try to use attackers like Bryan Habana, Francois Hougaard, Pierre Spies and even Jean de Villiers to slice through the defence.

The New Zealand media generally have backed the Boks to beat the Wallabies, but among former Australian players and within the media the feeling is the Australians will be too smart for the Boks and that Pocock’s return will neutralise the Boks, as he has done successfully on most occasions in the last two seasons.

Former Australian World Cup-winning captain Nick Farr-Jones, in the Herald on Sunday, wrote the Boks looked like a champion at the end of the road and that the last 30 minutes showed the vulnerability of an aged giant.

He commended the Boks’ fighting qualities and scrambling defence, but said too many key players were no longer the players who stood tallest in Paris in 2007.

Former All Blacks World Cup-winning prop Richard Loe, in the same paper, disagreed, saying the Boks would have too much muscle for the Tri-Nations champions.

A statistical nightmare for the Boks is that the Wallabies won five  of their last six encounters, and scored four tries or more in four of those matches.

De Villiers was unconcerned about the statistic, mentioning that the Boks are playing excellent rugby and peaking at the right time in the Rugby World Cup.

The All Blacks, hosting Argentina in another quarter-final in Auckland on Sunday at 09h30, will hope to resurrect their campaign in the absence of the injured Dan Carter, who is out of the World Cup.

His absence will have an immense influence on their playing ability, because they have lost a general, a playmaker and a leader in the backline. Yet, they are expected to advance quite easily at the expense of Argentina.

England, playing against France at 09h30 on Saturday at Eden Park in Auckland, will be the favourites to smash Les Bleus. France were woeful in their 14-19 defeat to Tonga, and their backline and lack of cohesion are the two main reasons for their loss.

The one factor that could still scuttle the English campaign is a sex scandal.

England manager Martin Johnson admitted that the centre Mike Tindall's recollection of events in which he was involved with a woman in Queenstown – he is  a married man -- "was inaccurate", and England have also apologised for an incident at the team's hotel in Dunedin.

The incidents have become an unwelcome distraction in England's World Cup campaign as they prepare for their quarter-final match against France in Auckland on Saturday.

Tindall, newly married to Zara Phillips, grand-daughter of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, had insisted he returned to the team hotel alone after he was filmed with a woman who was kissing his head in a bar in Queenstown.

He later denied accusations by The Mail on Sunday newspaper that he had taken the woman to a second bar where they "behaved like a smooching teenage couple".

The Mail said it even received a call from the Queen's law firm, acting for the Rugby Football Union, saying Tindall had gone straight back to his hotel alone.

But the Gloucester centre was forced to back-track when photos emerged of the extended raucous night out.

"His recollection on his whereabouts that night was inaccurate and he has issued a statement apologising. He did not mean to mislead anybody," Johnson said.

"The statement said he was inaccurate in his recollection as to his specific whereabouts. He did not mean to mislead anyone or orchestrate a cover-up. It was just an error on his behalf. He got his recollection of the evening wrong."

Meanwhile, Britain's Sunday Mirror reported on a second embarrassing incident for the team claiming a woman working at the team's hotel in Dunedin was lured to a bedroom by three players "where she was humiliated".

The report said the players, identified as James Haskell, Dylan Hartley and Chris Ashton, shouted lewd comments at her and filmed her.

Johnson said the players involved had been reprimanded and had apologised to the hotel management and the woman.

"I think if you have seen the [newspaper] article, what they thought was humour has clearly not been taken that way by the girl involved," Johnson said.

"We apologised at the time. They now realise they stepped over the mark and they had no idea how upset she subsequently became. (Sources: www.rugby365.com, Sunday 2 October; www.supersport.com, 2 October 2011).

Who will be the favourites between Ireland and Wales? It is impossible to pick a winner, until you look at the woeful goal kicking by Wales. Ronan O’Gara has been magnificent for Ireland, while the superb props of the Irish team might just give them the edge.

Expect the winner of the Wales versus Ireland-match to possibly go all the way to the final against ... we hope, the Boks.