Hurry Up. I'm Waiting

The Rolling Maul is less than impressed. The Rolling Maul has been waiting for the humiliation.

And what do we get? Only one match to date has blown out to over 100 points and even then the All Blacks let Portugal get the biggest cheer of the day when they score a try. Australia only put on 91 against Japan. France let Namibia get within 77 of them. And Argentina played it tight and safe to secure the bonus point then shut up shop against Namibia and only won by 60.

This is not what we have come to expect of a Rugby World Cup. The Rugby World Cup is about letting the best teams on the planet show-off their skills to the Rugby public by racking up cricket scores against teams that applaud as they show them where the try line is before getting their autograph and doing a lap of honour to thank the crowd for the privilege of letting them turn up and roll over and let the big boys tickle their tummies before plunging in the knife.

Surely the standard of the minor teams hasn't improved to the extent where Georgia can nearly beat Ireland or Tonga can scare the pants off South Africa. Surely they were only patronising them. Surely the talk of reducing the World Cup to 16 teams is just that and South Africa and Ireland played dead to ensure the participation of the laughing stocks in future World Cups thus ensuring future embarrassing annihilations. Surely England aren't really that crap* and, as they have always done throughout the history of the game, have fallen on their sword because it's only good and proper and in the best interests of Rugby. Surely the Northern Hemisphere teams have recognised that it's the turn of the Southern Hemisphere to rule the Rugby World for a change and in the best interests of spreading the popularity of the game around the isolated jungle and beach villages of the tiny atolls and volcanic pimples on the face of planet have supported Fiji, Tonga and Samoa in their quests for World Cup respect.

There is, however, still time. Time for England to forget their altruism and put Tonga back in their box. Time for New Zealand to send the Romanians packing back to their Transylvanian castles. Time for Australia to remind Canada that they should stick to sports played on snow and ice. Time for France to let people put away the atlas and forget where Georgia is. And time for South Africa to let the USA stick to sports no one else plays and to not get any sympathy for the sins of their President or the sins of their Rugby team.

It's only proper.

*actually they are

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