It has always seemed to me that rugby writers have some sort of responsability to make a prediction - or at least express a hope - for the outcome of specific matches and as a native of Belfast living in France I suppose that it’s my turn to stick my head above the parapet with regard to tonight’s match. I must warn you, however, that my ability to make correct rugby predictions is about the same as my abilitiy to predict the weather - not too good, to say the least.

Anyway here goes: Ireland to win by less than 10 points. There it’s said!

And why am I taking this controversial position? Well I’ve see the matches to date and have been thoroughly disappointed by the performance of both teams so far - France’s big win over Namibia included! Neither team, it seems to me, has played to it’s potential so far and this being the case the question is: Which team will make the step-up? France, floating on the deceptive bubble of the Namibian win or Ireland, thoroughly disgusted with themselves, and rightly so, for their performances against Namibia and Georgia.

A superior 1st-ten-minutes game plan will help, of course, but at this level I believe that winning matches is all to do with mindset. It’s all to do with desire. There really isn’t much to choose between the teams in terms of fitness, skill and ability. There are slight differences, of course, in abilities in the various departments - the French front row looks marginally stronger and the Irish back row seems better grooved - but overall I don’t see that there’s much to choose between them. Thus, it comes down to which team really wants/needs the victory more and I think that it’s Ireland.

Care to disagree?

As previous readers of this blog may have noticed I have been finding it difficult to make everything work correctly - to the point that I have deleted all the previous posts and started again.
I will re-post the most useful of the deleted posts over the next few days.
Thank you for your patience.

So, England have finally told us the truth - taking injuries into account, it has to be said - the minnows, Georgia, Figi, Japan, the US, Samoa, Canada and Tonga, have all provided great hope in their various styles and directions for the safe future of world rugby but the great question remains: who will challenge the All Blacks?

Ireland, Wales, Italy and Scotland have virtually cemented their positions as also-rans so it’s down to Argentina among the so-called second tier. And of the first tier South Africa didn’t show me that they have the overwhelming power nor the overall class to be completely credible yet. Australia looked powerful and incisive for a half and then allowed Wales back into the match and France, while waltzing to a cricket score in a match that was already won with the red card in the first quarter, well, it’s still hard to tell. Do they have the guts?

Sublime rugby was at a definite premium this past weekend although some of France’s tries, much of Georgia’s forward play - in a team apparently with 15 forwards! - and Australia’s flashes of intensity in midfield came close. Turnovers, turnovers and more turnovers, both worked and unintentional seemed to be the order of the day - it’s no wonder that coaches now look to turnovers to provide the scoring opportunities - and there were the usual shockers under the high ball.

Was it always like this? Maybe so. Maybe what we’re doing is putting these matches under the microscope looking for the tiny advantages that make the difference. Well, next week will answer a couple of the remaining questions. How good is France and how bad is Ireland? Is England going home early? Do Argentina have the weapons to destroy Namibia - a la Francaise? Time will tell.

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

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