It would be nice to be able to say that the smoke is beginning to clear and the front-runners are beginning to emerge but it’s crystal clear that, in truth, they emerged months ago. The three southern-hemisphere giants have already taken their places in the quarters and the remaining pool contests somewhat resemble children squabbling over the last sausage. Not, on the face of it, that winning the squabble will do them much good.

The last semi-final place is still up for grabs, thank goodness, so that Tonga v England, Wales v Fiji, Scotland v Italy and, of course, Ireland v Argentina will provide all the interest but looking at these eight teams plus France it’s hard to spot a viable contender. On paper France looks the part but I suspect that there are still a few dice to be thrown in the last chance saloon.

Thus, once again we have had a week-end where the favourites cruised to victory and in the other matches the underdogs, without exception, sadly couldn’t quite make the step that we’d all hoped for. Tonga v South Africa was perhaps the most encouraging of these matches with the Tongans by dint of no more than average-to-good set pieces, a courageous and bloody-minded approach at the breakdown all flavoured by regular flashes of sublime handling and support gave a fairly pedestrian Springbok team a definite scare. Of additional interest was the transformation made by the Springbok bench in the second half when Matfield seemed to re-energise the dispirited pack and Steyn did the same for the backs. Too often we’ve seen acknowledged stars or specialist impact players coming off the bench when their teams are in trouble but proving unable to stem a downward spiral.

England’s defeat of Samoa came as the result of a considerably narrowed game plan, a change entirely appropriate for the loosy-goosy opposition as it happened. Whether the same approach will be sufficient to keep the rambunctious Tongans in check remains to be seen. Elsewhere Scotland did nothing and Ireland committed collective hari-kari.

Looking at the tournament so far one general question seems to be surfacing: Is the day of the prepared move off 1st phase finally at an end? Apart from Samoa’s 1st try against England I can’t seem to remember another in this tournament.

Which leads to the question: Have ‘prepared’ defences, i.e. defences given more than a few seconds to get organised and in place, finally figured out how to comprehensively repel all boarders? An answer in the affirmative would give weight to the proposition that most tries in the future will be initiated by simple failures of skill (pressure induced, presumably) and turn-overs - a proposition which if it proves to be true will see coaches leaving the set-pieces to their assistants and concentrating on coaching handling skills and the more complicated, and hence generally ignored, breakdowns, restarts and (at last!) support play.

In the interim let’s look at how our selection have fared:

Sébastien Chabal +1, +1, 0
Brian Habana +3, +1, 0
Frédéric Michalak 0, +3, +2
Gordon Darcy +1, 0, 0
Daniel Carter +1,+2, +1
James Hook -2, +1, +1
Victor Matfield +2, 0, +2
Juan Martín Hernández+1, +2, 0